Hakuna Matata

I am a sucker for animation movies and have been watching some of my all time favorites. What would the world be without Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Movies!


Jungle Book, Lion King, Ratatouille, kung Fu Panda, Finding Nemo.... the list goes on and on.


My first memories of animation movies are those of me sitting with my siblings and watching Jungle Book, those were the days when you got movies in a video cassette and needed a VCR to play them.
I still turn into a kid whenever I watch those animation movies... 

Most of these movies show the pure, unadulterated love in relationships (be it between friends, teacher-pupil, parent-child). True meaning of relationships and living upto those relationships, I wish everyone in this world followed the same principles and it would uncomplicate lot of things. Like I read in the newspaper quotes a couple of days back "If girls were as nice to each other in real life as they are in Facebook comments, the world would be a different place to live"! So true!

I feel so energized after watching these movies. Feel like dancing like Baloo, the bear from Jungle book OR sing Hakuna Matata like Pumba & Timon from Lion King. Can watch them as many times as anyone would ask me to !


Follow your dreams and chase them with all your heart and your dreams will definitely be fulfilled. Follow your dreams and you will realize your destiny!

BTW: Hakuna Matata, it means no worries. 

The dreaded 2 week wait

The agonizing 2 week wait has started and I keep thinking what do I do to keep myself sane!

I had been meaning to re-read one of Paolo Coelho's book, have been saving that book for these 2 weeks. I am trying to go slow with it so that I can hang onto it till the end of my 2WW. Reading has always had a calming effect on me. This particular book is a brilliant work to help me see the good things around, the positivity around me. It definitely has been working this time too :-)

Whenever I am in a gloomy mood, retail therapy has done wonders for me. So though I cannot go out for these initial few days, I can always do virtual window shopping! I have been visiting many of the online stores and putting jewelry, clothes, bags to my favorites list. Eventually most of it might end up just being on the favorites list, but who cares; at the moment I am enjoying it.

There have been few things which are not helping me though. 
As has it with Murphy's Law, my housemaid has fallen ill (arrrrrghhh) and just a couple of days back I had told her that I will need her help all the more during next few weeks. And just at this 2 weeks, she had to call in sick :-( Looking for a temp maid for a day or two is not an easy task. To think of it, I should stay as calm and relaxed specially now, hmmmmf.

Every few hours, I fight the urge to search the internet for interpretation of any change that I feel in my body. A slight pain here, a little spasm there... and I want to know what it could mean. But this time I have promised myself that I will not try to read the symptoms and just wait for the day when I am ready to know the result of my IVF. Till now I have been able to keep my promise, but controlling the urge of wanting to search the internet for my symptoms is still work in progress. 

Writing too has been very helpful in keeping me calm. Its good to release your emotions. You cannot control your emotions but you can definitely learn to peacefully live with them; that way you are able to manage them very well. And that is what I am trying to do every day during these 2 weeks.

And as someone said after ET, not much is in our hands, its nature that takes its course! So here I am at the mercy of nature and trying to make the path easier by keeping myself stress-free and happy!

Random thoughts

Went for ET yesterday, and it felt as if I was going for some college exam result where you get the verdict of having passed or failed!

A day before when I called my embryologist, I was told that at the moment both the embryos are looking good and only next day morning will we know if they reach blastocyst stage or not. I agonized trying to find more into what she told me (did she sound positive or was she apprehensive). In the end called my doctor to see if she had any more comforting words for me :-) I debated with her if it made it any better if we were to do the transfer that day. She convinced me that even if the transfer was to happen on day 4 and it were not to happen the chances are same as transfer on day 5; So we might as well wait for day 5 transfer where we can pick from the blastocyst embryos.

The day of ET arrived; we waited to meet the doctor. She told us that one of the embryos reached the blastocyst stage but the other was not looking a good quality embie. Infact it seemed to have deteriorated. After the initial excitement of getting 6 eggs, when I was told that we have only 1 embryo which reached Blastocyst stage and good enough to be transferred, I felt miserable (and that literally is an understatement of my feeling, I really can't say how disappointed I felt in myself).
But looking at the brighter side, I have atleast 1 embryo which has sustained till Blastocyst and who knows might be able to sustain further in my uterus!

The transfer went smooth and after resting there for couple of hours, I went back home to rest more. While resting I read and read about what really means blastocyst. What is the probability of a successful implantation with a blastocyst transfer Vs a 3d transfer? What are the chances of having a baby with blastocyst transfer? And many more such questions hounded me. Internet as they say is a boon and a bane depending on how you use it. Sometimes I feel reading too much about something can also cause you unnecessary worries. I should just believe in my doctor and in God. 

Was it wise for us to have decided to wait till the blastocyst stage, only time will tell.

My references on blastocyst:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blastocyst
2. There are many sites on blastocyst transfer and its success probabilities.

How are my embryos doing

I don't think I have done more research on any other topic than what I have been doing since past 8-9 months on IVF. And needless to say, with every research I do I learn something more on the topic of IVF. I can nowhere compare my knowledge to a fertility expert but I can definitely understand some of the jargon they say :-)

Today is day 3 after my egg retrieval. And everyday I have been calling my embryologist to know how my embryos were doing!

I searched on the internet to understand what is the average development cycle of embryos. Below is a chart from that research. It helps in knowing whether I am doing as per what prior studies indicate Or there is some exception in my case.

Day 0	Egg retrieval Insemination of eggs with prepared Sperm
Day 1	Eggs checked for fertilization (the presence of two pronuclei or PN's)
Day 2	2-4 cell stage of development
Day 3	6-10 cell stage of development
Day 4	Embryos at the compacted morula (16-32 cell) stage.
Day 5	Embryos at the blastocyst stage of development

While researching on this topic what I also chanced upon was many females stating that they conceived and had healthy pregnancy even when the embryo development was slower than what above chart says (ex: 4 cell embryo transferred on Day 3 resulted in a baby boy for someone). So what I mean here is that every embryo behaves different ( I assume it must be depending on egg quality, sperm quality, genetic code of these); So I will not be the best person to be judging on my embryos. I will leave it to my embryologist and my fertility expert. They are the best people to tell if it is all seeming normal or not.

On the evening of my egg retrieval day, I spoke to the embryologist and was told that out of 6 oocyts obtained from my ovaries, only 3 are mature eggs. And all 3 have fertilized.

Day 1: I was told that all the 3 embryos were looking good and we can hope that they keep on developing well. 

Day 2: the embryologist told me that 2 of the embryos were developing well. One is 4-cell and other is 5-cell. However the 3rd one stopped growing. So now I am left with only 2 of the original count of 6 :-(

Day 3: Today morning I got a call from my embryologist. She said that my embryos are now 10-cell & 11-cell in their development. I found this a very encouraging news considering that in 1st IVF cycle it was 2-cell day 2 transfer. She said I should talk to the doctor to discuss on when should we be doing the transfer.
I had a detailed discussion with the doctor on whether she should do the transfer now or wait for blastocyst stage.

My prior research research on Blastocyst transfer indicated that it results in higher pregnancy success rates than a day 3 or day 4 transfer.

I left the decision to my doctors advice on what should be done. She explained that if we wait, it may so happen that the embryos do not reach blastocyst stage. And if we do transfer today, then also a similar possibility is there. We eventually decided to wait for blastocyst.

I think I will want to give a call tomorrow to my embryologist and see if the embryos reached the day4 stage or not. 

Science still has not been able to understand human reproduction to its full. I presume its because all female bodies behave differently (after all we have unique genetic coding).
All that I can do is stay positive and trust that whatever my doctor is doing is the best she (or any other fertility expert) could have done.

Thus starts my second IVF cycle

After unsuccessfully trying naturally for past 2 months, we decided that we should get onto our second IVF cycle at the earliest possible. After much deliberation, my husband and I decided to go to a different fertility clinic for our 2nd IVF try. We have been visiting this clinic and met the doctor multiple times for her to understand our history on this journey. 
Finally the time arrived for me to visit my doctor and let her evaluate on how my ovaries were doing and what is the protocol to follow which will give me best possible chance.

If you remember I had mentioned that I have low ovarian reserve and during 1st IVF cycle we did not see good results. My fertility expert decided not to give me high dosages of hormones as they would not make much of a difference on my low reserves. The best chance that I have is to stimulate whatever few follicles we see and hope to get eggs from them. And ofcourse with low dosage, I hope the side effects also are less.

She suggested that we should try soft protocol (in medical terms: KATO protocol / mild IVF / mini IVF). What happens in this protocol is that doctors use milder stimulation; which studies have shown can result in higher quality eggs.

We started the protocol which required me to take 150 iu of FSH hormone and clomid. 

On day 2 the baseline scan showed 5 average size & 2 small follicles on my left ovary And only 1 average size and 2 small follicles on right ovary.

A repeat scan after 5 days of stimulation showed that out of the 6 decent sized follicles atleast 4 were growing as desired. Doctor prescribed another 5 days of stimulation. Under normal cases I have heard that doctors stimulate only for 9 days starting from day 2 and on day13 do the egg retrieval. However in my case the doctor added one more day of stimulation because the follicles were showing slow growth.

In my previous IVF cycle, I had been taking the hormone shots in the morning. However, this time I took them at night. The doctor suggested taking them at night, maybe that way they are more effective! One point to keep in mind is that they should be given at almost the same time each day.

In my previous IVF cycle, I was told I have 3 follicles on each ovary; however by the end of stimulation the follicles on the right ovary were not growing as expected So the doctor could get viable follicles only on left ovary. So during egg retrieval, the possibility was from 3 follicles only.

This time was much better. Even though the right ovary had only 1 good looking follicle, this one was growing well And the 5 good sized follicles on left ovary were also growing well. So it seemed like 100% improvement this time :-)

After 10 days of stimulation, the scan showed that the follicles were reaching their optimum size. So I was prescribed Ovitrelle to be taken that night.

Eventually the day of egg retrieval approached. This is Day 14 of my cycle days. 
Pre-OT preparation went smoothly. The nurse was a gentle one and did not hurt me much with the pricks :-)
In all my time in OT was just about 45 mins, during which I was sedated and the doctor picked eggs from my follicles.
After recovering for an hour or two, I went to see the doctor and she told me that they got 6 oocyte out of which she is expecting that atleast 4 will be mature.

Can't explain how happy I feel. Compared to my 1st IVF cycle, this was such an improvement. I kept my fingers crossed for the best to happen this time.

While returning back, I was so happy that I told my husband that we should go out somewhere to eat. I also knew that next few weeks, I will be confined to home so make use of the opportunity while there is time :-)

I am expecting a call tomorrow from the embryologist on how my eggs have done.

Apprehensive / tensed / worried, all these words come to my mind about my state at this point in time.

Choosing the right fertility clinic !

One of the most crucial decision while taking fertility journey is choosing the fertility clinic. This will be the place where you will end up making frequent visits, so it better be a good and conducive place ;-) And hence its but prudent to do a thorough research before picking the place where you will be heading for advice on your fertility treatment. 

I spent almost 2 months before I narrowed down to the place I wanted to go for my IVF cycle. Below are some of the criteria that I used in deciding my IVF clinic:

1. How good is the Doctor at listening? Listening is an art (specially active listening). A very important characteristic of a good doctor (specially a fertility expert). Most of the people who go to a fertility expert are in low morale and low self-confidence. It is very important that the doctor gives you enough time to listen to all your fears, apprehensions, and is able to give you hope. One of the fertility experts that I met was very upfront in telling me that since I am more than 35years of age, I should also look at the option of donor egg. Now I must tell you that I do not have any so-called hormonal  imbalance / tubes / ovary malfunction and I have seen ladies in their 40s having a healthy pregnancy. So such statements about donor eggs even before the doctor gave me a chance to use my own eggs, put me off completely from her. What hope could I get from such a person! Some of the fertility experts that I met were so positive in their discussions that even though they were saying that my chances were low as compared to others but it still gave me lot of hope. I do not want to give up before giving myself a fair chance on trying to get pregnant.
2. How busy is the doctor? If you are at a place which a choc-a-block full of people and the doctor is there only for an hour or two, she might not give you the due attention. While speaking to her, see if there is an urgency from her side to close the conversation and see you out of her room. I prefer a doctor who will have time for me (and I don't mean to say that she should sit with me the whole day but someone who makes you feel that at that moment you are the only person whom she is to treat)
3. What are the IVF protocols that the doctor follows and on what basis does she decide which one is best for you. Is she ready to be a little experimental or does she follow everything by the book. I met one fertility expert who told me on day one what kind of medicines will she use on me (this was without even studying my investigation reports); that made me realize that I am a mere statistics for her! Whereas some of the experts that I met said that they can tell what protocol they plan to use after they see some of my reports. Also they mentioned that they keep changing the dosage of the hormones based on what how my body responds to it. This gave me lot of comfort cause as per the fertility experts admitting that science has still not understood female fertility completely so if the doctor is willing to study my response and then keep giving me whatever is the optimum level of hormones I might stand a better chance. I am not just another patient for her, I am someone whom she is paying due attention and time.
4. Is the doctor reachable in case of any emergency and or for ad-hoc advice. Check on the options of being able to reach the doctor via phone. Some of the doctors are happy to share their mobile numbers also. 
5. Distance from your place of stay - During the IVF cycle, you will be needed to visit the clinic frequently (atleast 6-7 time during the entire IVF procedure). There are some clinics which need you to be at their place everyday during the 12-14 day procedure duration. So make sure you are prepared for the travel to and fro.
6. How is the Support Staff? See how the nurses are at the place. I always prefer a place where I see positivity around; it automatically puts you in a relaxed frame of mind which is very important when you are undergoing fertility treatment.
7. Does the clinic specialize only in fertility OR are they also in general gynecology. I visited couple of places where I found that they had both gynecology & fertility departments with common waiting area. In the first glance, when I saw many pregnant ladies sitting there it gave me the feeling that this place has huge success rate. But when I learned that most of these ladies were the ones who did not have any fertility issues and conceived naturally, it kind of put me off. I realized if I keep coming to this place, I might get more depressed thinking of all the people who very soon will be mothers BUT I will still be struggling with the hope of assisted conception. I dropped these places from my radar as I also doubted on their fertility expertise.
8. Check on the cost of IVF at the clinic. Some quote different price for IVF & ICSI and some have a common package even if you go for IVF rather than ICSI (which is a much advanced form of IVF). Make sure you understand what will be the additional costs as you go along the IVF path. Some places include the cost of all the scans and blood test Whereas some charge extra for it. Ask the clinics if they do any refund of the IVF package you paid, should there be a situation that the procedure has to be aborted mid-way. 
9. Check on the success rate of the clinic. However I kept that as last of my evaluation parameter since IVF success is a very individualistic thing. Two people with same fertility problem, undergoing exactly same IVF protocol can have very different results. So for me knowing the success rate is a feel good factor for me but not the deciding criteria.
10. Lastly, see how comfortable you feel sitting in that place. How comfortable you felt while talking to the doctor.

I visited many IVF centers and checked on all the above factors and in the end decided that place where I wanted to go. I do not know whether the decision is right or not But all the visits that I made to this clinic have re-emphasized that until now my decision has been good.

Fertility Drugs and more

Going through IVF treatment is hectic as well as emotionally very stressful.

To add to the stress is the daily overdose of hormones which start to play havoc with your mood. I think during my IVF cycle I would have snapped at my husband much more than he actually deserved ;-) And I used to realize that I am being irrational in my out bursts but during those 10-15 days I would explode at just about anything and everything.

My doctor had prescribed me DHEA, to be taken for about 3 months before we even started the IVF cycle. When the IVF cycle started, there were many more medicines that were going into my body everyday (first ivf attempt). I am susceptible to migraine when I get stressed. After I started to take my hormone shots, the first 2-3 days were going all good, however for some reason on 4th or 5th day of my IVF treatment cycle I started to have headache. I had headache for 3 days continuously, and I refused to take any medicine lest it interfere with my IVF medication. Thankfully the headache disappeared on the fourth day morning when I woke up.  I knew I am being super cautious about not taking any other medicine but I didn't want to take any chances.

All through the rest of the days of the procedure, I kept praying that I should not get hit by any other migraine attack.

I read somewhere that headache is one of the most common side effect of fertility drugs. I was lucky I did not experience any other serious side effects, though who knows what is happening inside our bodies all the time!


The other part which caused lot of stress was the trip to the clinic to get my daily hormone shots. It is a barely 5 mins job but the clinic is almost 45 mins drive one-way. So after few days of going to a nurse who can give me my hormone shots, I decided that I will try to administer them myself! I checked with the doctor if she was fine with me administering the injections to myself; and she said she was OK till the time I knew what I was doing. These are subcutaneous shots and don't need the expertise of finding a vein or anything. Easier said than done ;-)

I asked the pharmacist to give me an extra set of syringe so that I will be able to experiment first with a mock trial. The mock went fine, I tried to poke my thigh with the needle and was able to. But when I tried the actual shot, it didn't happen as desired :-( I filled up the syringe as instructed, sanitized the part of my abdomen where I planned to give the shot, pinched a small part of it, then I tried to insert the needle BUT it just wont go in. Maybe I was tensed and scared and was not applying the right amount of pressure. So I tried one more time, a little away from earlier spot as it was hurting and this second time it thankfully went in. Next day I noticed that I had a bad dark blue bruise where I had tried the first time. I thought thats it; I would rather make the travel than get my stomach full of bruises because of my stupidity. So after that incident I made up my mind that no more experiments, I should rather go to an expert rather than trying it myself.


I had watched this video "Subcutaneous Injection" to get the technique, but I guess it needs little more practice and patience.

I wish rather than injections, these come in the form of tablets which I can swallow and get done with it ;-)