Flashback #2 - It begins

We started our first IVF/ICSI cycle in July 2007. At first we were hopeful and excited. I had a friend who got pregnant on her first IVF cycle so we were hoping that the same would happen. I didn't find the injections too bad, and seemed to not be too irrational with all of those hormones, although I did get alot of bad headaches. At the EPU, the FS came in and told me that he had gotten 18 eggs! That was fantastic. But it also meant that I became a little hyperstimulated. I was told that the pain following the EPU would be minimal, but boy were they wrong! We nearly went into the hospital at midnight that night, but didn't and by morning I was feeling a little better, although very sore and bloated. You can contact the laboratory to check on the progress of your embryos and I was really saddened to find out that only 11 of the eggs were good quality, and that only 5 had fertilised. I know that this can be quite good compared to some people's responses, but it was the first wake-up call that things might not go so smoothly.
The day of the transfer I was really anxious that none of the embryos had survived, but when we got there they said that they were good quality, so we had two transferred. Later that day was when the enormity of what we had done sunk in, and I lost it. James and I call that the "mopping incident". I spilt something on the floor and just lost it, began crying and manically mopping the floor. Its quite funny on reflection, but not at the time. It wouldn't be the last time that I lost the plot though and said and did very irrational things.
Two weeks later, we got the result, BFN. I was upset that the result came back negative, but also a bit philosophical. I thought that we still had embryos frozen, so it would happen next time. It did however make me question my life, and the work stress that I was under. So I promptly quit my job. I was lucky that a friend put me in contact with a department that needed an OT so I started there doing casual work which was great. In between times we did our first FET. This negative hit me alot harder. I remember questioning the receptionist when she said it was negative as I couldn't believe it. We moved on to anther FET, also BFN.
I was starting to become more emotional about it now. Infertility was affecting every aspect of our life. It's amazing how much you think about it constantly, and the two week waits were the worst.
We quickly moved onto our next fresh EPU cycle. At that cycle I had 11 eggs, and only 5 fertilised. But I still had some mild OHSS and was in agony. We got the negative result on New Years Eve. By this point we had been doing back to back cycles and I had had 3 operations in 6 months. So we took a break for a few months and then did another FET, again a negative. I began seeing the counsellor at the clinic as I was getting so despondent about everything. James and I were fighting alot, and I couldn't be optimistic about anything. Which is hard with IVF, because every aspect of it breeds hope.
With the support of the counsellor, I changed FS's. I felt really guilty about this, like I was cheating on him. But I felt like he wasn't offering me enough options, and also his secretary was annoying. (she wouldn't let me book an appointment when I wanted to). It took me a while to figure out that something simple like his secretary being rude meant a big deal to me, as appointments were one of the few things I could control and she was taking that control away.