IVF diary - Day two

I was dreading doing the injections today since yesterday hadn't gone so well. This time I put two tablespoons in the freezer a few minutes beforehand and then used them to numb the area on my stomach a little before injecting. I also tried to jab the needle into my skin faster this time and the needle didn't hurt at all although the pergoveris mixture still burned the whole time going in. 

I've been feeling quite tired and run down lately, but that's the only symptom so far. I would love to know what's going on in there but I have to wait another week for my first ultrasound to find out how I'm responding to the hormones and many follicles are growing.

Emotionally I'm finding it a little hard, trying to go about my daily life acting normal when I've got this huge thing going on, but I'm managing. I don't have anything on during the week which is great as it's so nice to come home from work and then get cosy on the couch and either catch up with my favourite tv series or get lost in a good novel. Before starting this treatment I ordered several books so I had something to help me get through the process. I had also read that it's a good idea to clear your calendar before going through ivf and just see how you feel day to day so that's also what I'm doing.

IVF diary - Day one

Today was the first day of the ivf process and, to be honest, the injections were more difficult than I was expecting!

The whole thing took about twenty minutes - getting all the stuff ready, reading over my notes again, preparing the meds, psyching myself up and then injecting.

I was really nervous and when I tried to inject myself I did it too slowly and instead of breaking the skin it just hurt and bled, and I did that a few times before the injection went in, which is not the way to do it obviously. Also when I pushed the injection mixture down it really burned going in and was very unpleasant!  Maybe I'll try icing the area first tomorrow.

I hated the whole thing and was glad once it was done. How am I going to get through another week or so of this? I guess I'm just going to have to try to take it one day at a time and hopefully it will get easier. 

IVF diary - As ready as I'll ever be

Yesterday I went to the doctor, he gave me an ultrasound to check everything looked ok, then told me to start with the injections tomorrow morning. They should be done at the same time each day.

The plan is that after a week I'll go back for another ultrasound and then he'll be able to tell me when the egg retrial procedure will be. I really just want to know already. Some friends were texting me about meeting up next week but I don't know yet if that will be a good time or not. I imagine that the evening before the egg retrieval process I won't be up for meeting anyone and for a few days afterwards I'll be recovering.

After seeing the doctor I then was given a tutorial by the doctor's assistant on how to prepare and administer the injections. It's quite tricky! I'll have to give myself two injections, on alternative sides of my stomach and switch sides each day. One is called Decapeptyl and that is to prevent me from ovulating, and the other is called Pergoveris and is to make my ovaries produce loads of eggs. 

The Decapeptyl is quite simple, it comes already made and you just have to inject it, but the pergoveris is trickier. It comes with two vials of liquid and two vials of powder. You get the large syringe and suck up the liquid then push it down into the powder then do the same for the other vials and then suck all the mixture up into the one syringe. And once that's done you change to a smaller needle.

The medicine has to all be kept cool so the pharmacy gave me a cool bag to bring the medicine home and now I have to keep it all in the fridge. Tomorrow is day one!

A tea for everything #MicroblogMonday

*cough* *sniffle* *cough* I'm feeling rather the worse for wear at the moment. One by one I noticed more and more colleagues and friends come down with something or other and it finally got me too. I've a head cold and sore throat. 

 At least Germans have a tea for every possible ailment. I couldn't choose between "cough and bronchial" or "throat and neck", so I bought both. As a child our family cure for sore throats was always 'hot honey and orange' which consisted of boiled water, orange juice and naturally lots of honey! I've been drinking a mixtures of those and just trying to get plenty of rest. Hopefully in a few days it'll be gone. The worst is coughing at night and then not being able to sleep.

Unfortunately I also gave my cold to the GerMann so now we're both coughing and sniffing. We didn't have any big plans last weekend though so we were able to take it easy.

What's your go-to cold curing remedy? 

On your bike #MicroblogMonday

If you live in Germany, you really have to get yourself a bike. I bought one in Penny, a discount supermarket, shortly after arriving here. It was a city bike and lasted for about five years until it started causing problems - gears not working properly and then the pedals looking like they might fall off!

When I brought it to the bike shop to fix, they said it would cost about 150€ to fix all the various things wrong with it and it just wasn't worth repairing since second hand it would probably only cost 50€ to buy.

So I decided it was time for a new bike. That decision was more complicated than I realised. Do I want a rally, mountain or city bike? How many gears? What size frame? And then whether I should buy it from a discount supermarket again or go to a fancy bike shop this time and spend more money on it. The general consensus among my German friends is that you should spend at least 800€ to get a decent bike. However then you also have to worry that it might get stolen so you also need to fork out for an expensive lock or two and probably invest in bike insurance as well.

In the end I decided to go for another discount bike from a department store and found a nice one for under 300€. The deciding factor? I loved the colour, as you can see it's bright orange. At least if it does get stolen, it will be easy to spot!

Irish blog Awards - the voting begins

This year I've made the shortlist in the Irish blog awards in the Irish disapora category. That's the only category that's open to me actually as for everything else you have to be resident in Ireland. I was excited when I found out that I've made it one step further than last year!

I'm delighted to have just gotten this far but if you have a moment and would like to vote for me, click here. The vote is open until September the 21st.

If you've just come to my blog for the first time from the Irish Blog Awards website, then welcome! Relax, pour yourself a cuppa and stay for awhile.

Where the bleep is my stork?!

Every so often facebook shows you memories from that particular day in the past. Recently it showed me a picture of the GerMann and me on our honeymoon. It made me feel sad to think that two years later we are gearing up to start IVF treatment and I don't know if it will even work and whether we will ever be able have kids...Though I'm really trying to stay positive and am hoping that this time next year we might have our miracle baby.

I've been wondering about whether to talk about this topic or not but in the end I decided that having a blog is a way to share thoughts and make sense of things and it might be helpful to have an outlet while I'm going through all this. So I'm going to create a series of rather personal posts about what's been going on the past few months to fill you in.

Girl meets boy. They date, fall in love, get married and then start a family. Right? Unfortunately I'm learning the hard way, it's not so easy for everyone. One in eight couples these days experience infertility, which is defined as not getting pregnant after one year of trying. That's a lot of couples dealing with something that people don't really talk openly about so you can end up feeling quite lonely when going through it and it can feel hard to find people who relate. You also experience such a rollercoaster of emotions; hope, guilt, depression, anger, sadness - it's a lot of ups and downs.

When we started trying for a baby I was worried at the back of my mind we might have difficulty as my doctor here had warned me as due to my having had surgery when I was younger I probably have scarring around my fallopian tubes. But still I was hopeful. The first six months I wasn't overly worried or thinking about it that much as I'd read it could take some time (up to a year is still normal) but I did start to try other things at that stage such as improving my diet, trying acupuncture, using ovulation sticks, the list goes on. During a HSG test where they put dye through your tubes to see if it can flow freely I found out that one side was blocked but the other side looked fine. And I'd read a lot of women also fall pregnant shortly after that test- maybe the dye helps clear our any old cobwebs, haha!

Unfortunately though, after several more months of nothing happening once we reached the one year mark it was time to make an appointment with the doctor...to be continued..

The Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

It's always nice to get recognition from other blogs. Meredith from Kaffee und Kuchen recently nominated me for a Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award. It's similar to the Liebster Award in that people thank the blogger, answer a set of questions and then nominate other bloggers with new questions.

Thanks so much for the nomination! Here goes...

1. What do you mostly blog about?
   I mainly blog about what it's like being an Irish expat living in Germany - learning the language, fitting in, experiencing German culture, dealing with homesickness. However I also write about my life in general with my German husband, nicknamed the GerMann. And I love to travel so I like to blog about some of the trips we've taken.
2. What is the best city you have travelled to and what are your recommended ‘must sees’ in that city?
   We recently spent a few days in Dresden and I definitely found it worth a visit. We drove to Sächsische Schweiz and went on a fun hike there. The sights from the top were breath taking and the area itself was very pretty. And in the center of Dresden the Neustadt and Altstadt are separated by the river and both completely different and worth seeing in their own right. The old town was beautiful and the new town was cool with lots of quirky bars.
3. What 3 items do you always pack on a trip?
   Let's see... my smart phone, usually with the local map downloaded, some comfortable walking shoes as I enjoy exploring new places by foot to get a sense of them, and one fancy outfit in case we go out to a nice place some evening!
4. What is the best meal you’ve ever had and where did you have it?
   That's really hard to answer! I've had lots of great meals but difficult to pick one in particular. Italian cuisine is my favourite and when I travelled to Rome with my family a few years ago I remember eating some really delicious food there - pizza and pasta! 
5. Which destination is on your ‘must see’ list? Why?
   Barcelona, as I've heard from lots of people it's really worth a visit and that it has beautiful architecture and design. And I love visiting Spain. It strikes me as a place that has the best of both worlds- lovely beaches for relaxing in the sun, but also lots of culture. 
6. What’s your favourite way to spend a free weekend afternoon?
   Meeting up with some good friends for a chat over tea and cakes, going for a stroll around the town and then afterwards having a date night with the GerMann, maybe dinner and a movie
7. Who would you pick to go on a cross-country road trip with you? Why?
   My sister! I don't get to see her often enough since moving to Germany and it would be nice to spend some quality time together. She's good fun to travel with and we could share the driving.
8. What are your blogging goals for the coming year?
   To make more time for blogging and to take part in the monthly #ExpatLifeLinky.
9. What’s your favourite blog post that you’ve written? Please share the link!
   After about a year living in Germany I wrote a post called What sort of expat are you when I was coming to terms with integrating into my new life in Germany. 
10. What’s a new blogging skill that you’ve learned recently?
    To focus on one main topic or theme per blog post and organize my thoughts better.

My nominations are:

1. Around the wherever
2. Nearly Irish
3. Starting over in Stuttgart
4. katekatharina.com
5. California Globetrotter
6. Diary of sugar and spice
7. Three sons later
8. Everyone else but me
9. Allie and the German
10. Expat eye on Germany

And now the questions;

1. Which celebrity would you like to invite to tea?
2. What do you normally blog about (link to some posts)?
3. Any good movies you watched recently you could recommend?
4. Likewise, any good book recommendation?
5. What meals can you cook well?
6. What is you favourite dessert?
7. If you could have a fictional character as a best friend, who would you choose?
8. If you won the lotto, what's the first thing you would spend the money on?
9. Who would play you in a movie?
10. What makes you laugh?