To POAS or not to POAS?

With the arrival of my period a new cycle begins and although sad, it has to be seen as a fresh start - another chance. Cycle days 1-9 are the boring part of a cycle while we wait for AF to go and the next part to begin. Then as it gets to CD14-21 we know that we should POAS (pee on a stick) and start baby making.


Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPK) / Ovulation tests detect a rise in the Luteinizing Hormone (LH) known as the LH surge. This normally happens 24-36 hours before ovulation and this is the best time to have sex when you are trying to conceive. But there are many different types of sticks on the market so how do you choose? And at what point in your cycle should you to start them?


The expensive ones:

Clearblue Digital Ovulation Test

- Cost £16.29 + £1.50 shipping for 7 in a box, so if you ovulate later than you expected you can run out of tests
+ Good fun because when you get your LH surge you get a smiley face
+ You don't have to hold your pee for hours to get a result
+ You can either pee directly onto the stick or use a cup and dip it

The cheap ones:

+ Cost £0.99 +£0.20 for 5 so you can use loads really cheaply and not miss OV

- You have to pee in a cup and dip the stick

- They're not always reliable, the last ones I had had broken lines or no lines on them sometimes!

- You have to hold your pee for hours and drink only little amounts during this time to get an accurate result


I used to have pretty regular cycles of 29 days but with all the IUI and IVF cycles and the 2 operations my cycles have gone slightly irregular and have been between 26 and 35 days. So when do I start the OPKs? This is one advantage of the cheap tests - I can start them early in the cycle around CD9 and keep doing them until I get the two matching lines that tell me it's baby-making time. As this is the first cycle after IVF I've decided to just use the cheap tests because this cycle could be a long one as my body settles down after all the drugs. Then next cycle I will use a mix of the two types of tests, starting with the cheap ones and using the expensive ones to confirm the LH surge.


So why are we even worrying when ovulation is when we're not doing IVF this month? Because every month we must try, you never know, we could have a natural miracle. Every month is seen as an opportunity and you can't turn your wanting a baby off, even for one cycle.

Costs

So how much does IVF cost? Depending on where you live you may be entitled to 0 - 3 free cycles. We live in Warwickshire and our PCT will pay for one free IVF cycle and 3 free IUI cycles or it did at the time that we started! Once we had finished our one free IVF cycle we had to pay for everything. Our current spend for one round of IVF is:

£120      Consultation (with free parking!)
£2500    IVF
£150      HFEA Fees
£1000    Drugs (Approx. as the price for each fluctuates)
£17        Parking for visits for 4 scans and EC and ET
£free     Follow up letter (or £120 for follow up consultation)
£42        Petrol - 25miles from ours to the hospital for 6 visits
£114      4 acupuncture sessions (1 free)

Vitamins for me for 1 month (I have priced some of these to include offers which I normally get like 3 for 2):
£40        Wheatgrass
£3          Melatonin
£17.50   DHEA
£6.83     Pregnacare Conception multivits
£7.33     CO Q10
£26.50   MorEPA
£0.89     Vit E
£0.46     Folic Acid
£15.49   Flurodix

Vitamins for Hubby for 1 month:

£6.83    Wellman Conception multivitamin
£2.54    Folic acid
£1.35    Vitamin C
£0.89    Vitamin E
£1.78    Maca
£1.67    Selenium
£2.63    L'arginine
£0.60    Iron
£0.60    Zinc
£13.25  MorEPA
£5.40    Garlic capsules



£4098.54   Grand Total

Hubby's Swimmers ~o ~o ~o

I call my Husband 'almost perfect' because he is! If he didn't do tiny little things like leave dirty socks next to the telephone for days, then he would be 100% perfect - he is an angel sent to look after me.

When we first went for fertility investigations they tested Hubby's swimmers and we were pleased that he had a good sperm count and normal motility and morphology. But then they asked us if he played rugby or some other contact sport but he doesn't. They thought he might have had an injury to his testicles, which can sometimes happen. It turns out that he has 55% Sperm anti-bodies and the normal range is 0%!! We asked what this meant in relation to our fertility and they said it just meant that his sperm is sticky or can clump together which can affect the morphology but his swimmers were still good enough for IVF rather than ICSI.

During IVF #3 while I was coming round from the anesthetic used for EC, Hubby was told that his swimmers weren't good enough for IVF and they needed to do ICSI. Poor Hubby was shocked and mortified. He was told that he could try to give another sample if we definetly wanted to do IVF. He was trying to explain this to a me when the embryologist came back and said they'd made a mistake and his sample was good enough! Apparently they take a tiny bit of the sample and check it and they just happened to take a bad part of the sample! Phew!

After our IVF #3 cycle we decided to maybe look elsewhere for answers and went for a consultation at a clinic in London. At this appointment Hubby was advised to clean his pipes every other day! Apparently this keeps swimmers fresh and gets rid of old and damaged ones which can affect the good ones. The clinic also suggested that he get tested for sperm fragmentation. Luckily I persuaded Hubby not to get this test after he found out that the test cost £400-£600, was relatively new, and if you did have fragmentation there is no cure anyway apart from taking high doses of vitamin E and C. He now takes these vitamins anyway.

Hubby has always been very healthy but now he is like a saint in his quest for the best swimmers to aid our positive cycle. He has been caffine free for a couple of years, only drinking rooibos tea. He researches everything we should and shouldn't be eating, and cooks delicious meals that even include healthy versions of naughty food like chocolate brownies!

His latest research means that he now taking:

• Wellman Conception multivitamin
  
• Folic acid
  
• Vitamin C
  
• Vitamin E
  
• Maca
  
• Selenium
  
• L'arginine
  
• Iron
  
• Zinc
  
• Omega 3
  
• Garlic capsules

He is currently considering Melatonin after we found some studies about it:
http://www.natural-remedies-review.com/melatonin-for-fertility.html

If babies were given out for effort and positivity, Hubby would have won us our own football and cheerleading team! He's what keeps me going.

Enforced Cold Turkey

So on Sunday evening the garden centre that is 1 mile down the road from us got robbed. But as part of the robbery they ransacked the telephone junction box and knocked all of us in the local area off the grid until this evening - that's 5 days without a landline and more importantly the Internet!

So I couldn't write my blog and I had an entry all ready to post. I couldn't keep up with all my friends and family on Facebook. I couldn't play online games. I couldn't post on my regular forums. I couldn't print the recipe I saw on a morning programme and I'd promised to make it for Hubby and Mum who is visiting. I couldn't research things for our new house - a washing machine, fridge, freezer and tumble dryer are all needed very soon!

I got up each morning and sat on the couch drinking my caffeine-free Earl Grey tea and listened to the silence. Normally I would be clicking on all my favourite sites and seeing what I had missed over night! And the boredom with all this rain - hurry up BT, I can't stand it any longer! Did I get any text messages as promised to update me on the situation - NO! I checked the phone regularly but only silence could be heard until this afternoon when Hubby comes home from work and picks up the phone and says it's working!

New things to try - Part 3 : Melatonin

Melatonin is a natural hormone that is made in the pineal gland, when darkness falls it makes us sleepy and less alert. Synthetic melatonin has been used for years by people who want to avoid jet lag and by shift workers, as it can be used to alter your circadian clock.

Now what has this got to do with fertility? Well a study released in 2010 has shown that melatonin is an anti-oxidant that can help the quality of a woman's eggs:

'High levels of oxidising agents - a type of chemical compound - in the follicular fluids surrounding the egg indicate if a woman has low quality oocytes. These can 'stress' and damage the oocyte. The team took one of these agents known as 8-OHdG and measured its levels in follicular fluid samples. Levels of melatonin, which is known to have anti-oxidising effects, were also measured.

The team found that, as melatonin concentration in the follicular fluids naturally increased, the level of 8-OHdG decreased, leading them to believe melatonin was linked to the reduction of the oxidising agents. They confirmed this finding in mice, and discovered that adding melatonin seemed to reduce the damage to the egg caused by the agents.

(www.bionews.org.uk)

I have also read that melatonin should be taken alongside DHEA and I will also take Vitamin E supplement with it. (www.lef.org/dhea/ & www.encognitive.com)

There is also some proof that Sperm quality can be helped by melatonin but I will be discussing what Hubby is taking tomorrow!

Melatonin - arriving in a week along with my DHEA from the USA.

New things to try - Part 2 : DHEA

Freshly ordered and it's way from the USA - DHEA!
DHEA is the hormone Dehydrepiandosterone that is created by the adrenal glands. DHEA is converted into androgens (male hormones) or estrogens (female hormones) depending on the person’s own sex, age, individual condition and other individual factors. Levels of DHEA can decline with age in both men and women. So by taking DHEA you could be helping the aging process. According to ironmanmagazine DHEA is "often referred to as the mother of all hormones".

What's it got to do with fertility? I like this explanation from www.centerforhumanreprod.com

DHEA Beneficial Effects
The investigators at CHR have been using the mild male hormone dehydroepiandrosterone DHEA now for a number of years very successfully in women with diminished ovarian reserve (DOR), whether their ovarian impairment is due to advanced age or premature ovarian aging (POA). In doing so, we have been able to demonstrate that in such women DHEA supplementation has quite remarkable beneficial effects (see Table 1), which all can be summarized as rejuvenating ovarian function

Table 1: EFFECTS OF DHEA IN WOMEN WITH DOR
Increases egg (oocyte) and embryo counts
Improves egg and embryo quality
Increases euploid (chromosomally normal) embryos available
Speeds up time to pregnancy in fertility treatment
Increases spontaneously conceived pregnancy
Improves IVF success rates
Improves cumulative pregnancy rates in patients under treatment
Decreases spontaneous miscarriage rates

Table 2: POSITIVE SIDE EFFECTS OF DHEA
Improved overall feeling
Physically stronger
Improved sex drive
Mentally sharper
Better memory

But DHEA is a hormone and you should not take DHEA if you have any of the following - diabetes, psychiatric conditions, or liver problems, or are at risk for cancer. Some of the possible side effects can include:

• fine facial hair
• a slight deepening of voice
• acne, particularly on the back
• perspiration
• hair thinning/loss

There is loads of information on DHEA but here are a few links I looked at:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dhea/NS_patient-dhea
http://www.lef.org/dhea/side_effects_of_taking_dhea.htm
http://www.dhea.com/pages.php?pageid=9

New things to try - Part 1 : Wheatgrass

Hubby reminded me of an important fact yesterday - that the next three months are important as that is how long it takes for my new set of eggs to get ready. The cycle of an egg is around 90 days
(natural-fertility-info.com/increase-egg-health)

So Hubby and I have done some research and have decided to try a few new things for the next three months. Hubby's idea to help me is wheatgrass. Check out these benefits according to www.frozenwheatgrass.co.uk

* It is a tonic for the liver
* It cleanses the colon
* Washes drug deposits from the body
* Helps sugar problems
* Reduces Varicose veins
* Gargle wheatgrass for a sore throat
* Promotes regularity
* Removes heavy metals from the body
* Arrests growth of unfriendly bacteria
* Gives a tangible energy boost
* Helps skin problems such as eczema & psoriasis

Plus it must be great for fertility as shown in "40 Reasons to Drink Wheatgrass" #10:

10. Farmers in the Midwest who have sterile cows and bulls put them on wheatgrass to restore fertility. (The high magnesium content in chlorophyll builds enzymes that restore the sex hormones.)

(www.globalyoga.biz/Nutrition)

So on Wednesday morning our 2 week supply of frozen wheatgrass shots arrives.

P.S. There was no change to Minus the embryo and so I stop taking the bum bullets and wait for AF to arrive and we move forward as positively as we can.