Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Full IVF cycle part 2

When starting IVF I thought it would be a simple case of complete step 1, step 2 and step 3 and ta da here are your embryos.

What I've learned is that like all of our bodies are different on the outside, they are also different on the inside. When it comes to faking your body into a hyper fertile state, there are so many variables and each fertility specialist has a different approach and drug regime to try and get you to reach an appropriate level of hyper fertility.

In addition to following the prescribed drug regime, there is a stack of monitoring. Monitoring involves blood tests and ultra sounds to ensure hormones are increasing appropriately and that the all important follicles are developing.

My daily injection is going fine, as it turns out I'm a professional. The monitoring is showing that each ovary is developing 5 or 6 follicles of about equal size. This is really good news. The follicles need to be developed to certain size for the eggs that come out of them to be mature. My doctor said that my body is doing exactly as it is supposed to do and wishes all his patients were as well behaved.

Some women have the case where early monitoring shows they don't have enough follicles, so their injection medication level is increased - however this can lead to follicles that develop late, and therefore are not mature by the time eggs are harvested.

I keep doing what I'm doing. I'm injecting at just after 7am and getting blood tests and scans as instructed. Finally my doctor tells me my follicles are all the right size and it time to do the 'trigger' shot.

The trigger shot is the hormone that tells your body OVULATE. Apparently after this shot it takes about 37 hours to ovulate. Therefore, about 36 hours after you do this final injection it is important that you are having the eggs harvested from the follicle.

The doctor tells me I'm booked for a 2pm egg pick up on Wednesday, this means that at 1am on Tuesday morning I need to wake up and give myself an injection. Clearly this timing thing is a little confusing. The doctor tells me, that is like Monday night you need set the alarm - it is really important that I get the timing right.

Given my policy on anything that will increase my chances of IVF success is on the to do list, I was awake at 12.45 am on Tuesday prepping the injection (that this time isn't in one of the easy to administer epipens). Once I administer the injection I'm straight back to sleep.

The next two days are great. No drugs at all. After 4+ weeks of nasal sprays and 2+ weeks of daily injections a two day drug break is a luxury. The break also means the business end of the IVF cycle is around the corner.



Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The year of medical interventions IVF part 1

I've been completely cheating on the blog. It is funny what comes out of the wood work with friends, family and strangers when you start writing some of your inner most thoughts and publishing them for anyone to read. In April I was hit by a few comments that led me to decide to take a break from the blog.

A lot has happened since I last blogged and I thought it was worth getting back to publishing.

May and June were all about IVF. I hoped July would be about first trimester musings, but as it turned out July was all about my gallbladder.

It will take me a few posts to catch up on everything. In case you have been wondering my first IVF cycle was unsuccessful in the sense that I still do not have a bun in the oven. On the other hand, the cycle was very successful in creating multiple viable embryos (essential for future attempts at achieving pregnancy) and for improving my mental health, where for the first time in a long time, achieving pregnancy seems imminent and therefore an overarching panic about not being pregnant has diminished.

In late May I left the fertility specialist's office with my very own cooler bag, filled with legal drugs in their own epipens for easy administration. I remember as I stood at the lift thinking 'I can't believe it has come to this'. It was overwhelming to think that now my conception chances were all about injections and nasal sprays, and not intercourse.

It just felt so unnatural. All those ingrained ideas and fears float around my mind. Perhaps as some suggest I am only a holiday and a bottle of wine away from getting up the duff (which for the record, I would like to state did not work on all attempts tried). Even worse I get all martyrish and think perhaps if you can't have children naturally maybe I'm not supposed to. And worse again I start thinking perhaps I'll finally get to have a baby, suffer from relentless post-natal depression, hate the baby and wish I had remained childless.

I sneak the drugs back into the office and hide them in the fridge on another floor of our office in an attempt to avoid any questions and try to conceal that I am doing IVF from my colleagues (ironic given that I write and publish a blog for anyone to read). Back at my desk for the afternoon I am distracted by continually reminding myself to not forget drugs in upstairs fridge. Must remember drugs, must remember drugs, that design looks good, must remember drugs upstairs.

Thankfully I remember the drugs when I'm leaving and get them home safely and into my own fridge. By this stage, I've already been taking a nasal spray for about a 2-weeks and I've had 1 blood test, just to make sure all my hormones are where they should be if the nasal spray is working. Tick - all go for commencing injections.

A few weeks ago Matt and I sat through a 90 minute session with an IVF clinic nurse in which we were shown how to administer all the different drugs. My doctor also has made me use one of the epipens in his rooms. He makes me dial up the dosage and over the bin I push down on the end of the epipen, hold for 10 seconds to witness how the release of drugs is a little delayed. When I get home I put my drugs in the fridge and find they've come with another DVD with instructions. I tell myself 'must watch instructional DVD to ensure correct procedure is followed, therefore increasing eggs produced and all chance of IVF success'.

In fact everything I'm doing at this point was about increasing chances of IVF success. Must not drink wine to increase chance of IVF success. Must exercise and eat well to loose weight to increase chance of IVF success (fertility specialist had again mentioned that any amount of weight loss would help, even 2 - 3 kg - which I decided was achievable and as would increase chance of IVF success was on the to do list!). Must get 8 hours sleep to help stay relaxed and stress free to help chance of IVF success. Must take multi vitamin, pre-conception vitamin, iron tablet and fish oil to increase chance of IVF success.

The next morning I have my set time for injecting. I have to pick a time that I can consistently meet everyday, including weekends, workdays, potential flights. I pick just after 7am as the most achievable consistent time for 10 - 16 days of injections. By this time I realise I don't have enough time to watch the instructional DVD (should have done so night before) and blowing caution to the wind proceed with first injection. I was extremely pleased with the ease of injection and zero pain and decide no longer need to watch DVD as clearly I'm a professional already.