Diary of an IVF baby: Part One
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CONTENT WARNING: This series contains themes that some readers may find distressing.
IVF. It’s amazing. It’s horrific. It’s incredible. It’s soul destroying.
Anyone who has been aboard the Hormone Express knows the high highs and low lows you endure. When you’re in the thick of it, the end of the tunnel is a speck of hope and the ride becomes about the journey itself rather than letting yourself believe it will end in success. Because if you think that you will get a baby then you’ll second guess yourself and think you’ve jinxed the whole thing. But if you don’t think positive you’ve jinxed that too.
The online world is a rainbow of opinions and advice—eat a whole pineapple and it will work (tried it—it didn’t work), don’t eat a pineapple it will work (tried it—it still didn’t work). Every day is a challenge. It’s a day closer to that next blood test result, ultrasound, check-up. Every day you are counting down to something else. Every day you are pretending that everything is fine, that your pincushion belly is just bloated because you had a big lunch, that you like wearing long sleeved tops in the middle of summer (seriously, your battered, blood-tested veins make you look like a junkie) and that the dropping hormone levels that the last tests showed don’t actually mean that this cycle is going to fail.
Every day you slap on a crooked smile and keep putting one foot in front of the other, through the agony and the panic and the hurry-up-and-wait.
I did this during the early days of my IVF treatment. I wore the smile and I acted like I was f.i.n.e. Talking about IVF is scary. Those gorgeous friends who could opt for a baby based on the season they wanted to give birth in didn’t always know what to say and sometimes, I hate to say it, the hormone treatments didn’t make me as receptive to some comments (if another person told me to ‘just relax’ I was going to pop).
The journal you’re about to read was scratched and scribbled down on the road to our second baby, our darling Eugenie. It was a coping mechanism for me—especially in the down times—with the hope that one day I might sit down, just like I am now to transcribe my words, and hope that my story might help some of the other amazing, strong, lady warriors out there as they ride the unpredictable train that is their IVF journey.
I realise that, for some, hearing another ‘success’ story is the last thing you need right now. If that is you, stop reading, go and have a cup of tea, chocolate, call a friend, do something that will make you happy—because you deserve that. But if you want to read an often ugly, sometimes uncomfortable but ultimately wonderful story, here is my roller coaster ride.
19 April 2016
Cramping cramping cramping. We saw the specialist a week ago. She sent us away with a handful of papers for tests—I had the first one done today, a HyCoSy ultrasound (the full legs in stirrups shebang, using a syringe they squirt water into your uterus to ‘get a better look’). Given the pain it caused they better have discovered a sixth dimension in there. Worst cramping and most uncomfortable thing ever (slight exaggeration but you get the picture—they sure did).
The cheerful doctor said, ‘You’re totally normal, go have a baby’. Bit back a retort confirming that three doctors so far have said I’m decidedly not normal (hence needing IVF, thanks to Polycystic ovarian syndrome) but mission accepted anyway.
4 May 2016
Saw the specialist again today after having a blood test this Monday. Fainted during the test. Mortifying. This is going to be a long road. Must invest in full face helmet for future tests—protects the head and hides who I am, hence avoiding future humiliation. All blood tests and HyCoSy results normal. Sent away to make an appointment with the nurses to start a full-blown IVF cycle. Start line getting closer.
1 June 2016
Blood test and first visit to the IVF clinic. Given I fainted last time, was super nervous and my veins seemed to be shy also—they grew legs and slunk into the back of my arms, taking the nurse on a wild goose chase to find them. Upshot is I have the bruises of a seasoned junkie after one test. Winning. Let the era of long-sleeved shirts commence.
2 June 2016
Meeting with the IVF nurse to talk me through the cycle. She was very matter-of-fact and reassuring. The spiel she provided sounded so practiced it was like the voiceovers before a theme park ride: ‘please keep all hands and feet inside the carriage…final destination, baby’. Apparently, I am at ‘Day 1’, the magical day on which I can start jabbing myself with synthetic hormones. Ovidrel and Proganova. They sound like a grouchy Russian couple. Fingers crossed this pair don’t send me crazy. #likely.
6 June 2016
Monday morning—the perfect winter activity is a before-work blood test. Veins are like prize fighters as I am ‘resting’ the ones recently jabbed and rotating through the less capable ones. Not sure what actual prize fighters think of my strategy. Will check. Hormones not at all impacting my ability to focus. Blood test showed ‘not much change’. I was cordially requested to attend the clinic again tomorrow for another blood test. Next prize fighter warming up.
7 June 2016
Tuesday morning – perfect winter activity is a before work blood test with a bonus internal ultrasound thrown in for free (not really, I mean Medicare is amazing, but this still costs a shedload).
You may be surprised to hear there is a certain lack of dignity when you are propped up in stirrups pre-coffee. In fact, it’s probably the same post-coffee but as I’m doing IVF my entire world is pre-coffee at the moment. I miss coffee. Decaf has a definite placebo effect though. Mood in waiting room reflected the same—a bunch of women, pumped up on hormones, desperate to not look at each other or recognise anyone. Totes awks.
Mining expedition by ultrasound identified 11 or so follicles per ovary (great effort ladies), 9-15mm average. The follicles have to be 20mm to be winners but I have to lower my dose of the stomach injectables because there are so many of them and there is a risk I could hyper stimulate—a fun side effect the result of which can include death. Apparently, the ride warning did mention this. I feel like I’ve swallowed a watermelon (unlike the pineapple this is not a recommended fertility treatment on the non-medical IVF sites that I obsessed over. #triedit #didntwork). Also, have developed acne, so basically I am a 30-something teenager. Started singing Backstreet Boys songs to make the effect more authentic.
8 June 2016
Another blood test this morning but at the pathology centre rather than IVF clinic to test for Rubella and HIV. I look and feel like a junkie (well I don’t mean to speak for junkies, but I imagine I feel how they might but without the amazing drug induced high).
According to the nurses I should count myself lucky because I have ‘good veins’. Can’t imagine what ‘bad veins’ look like but feel pity for the ladies who have to deal with them. Stomach is a pin cushion at the moment— am on two jabs per day of Proganova (Oestrogen), Orgalutranw (gonadotropin-releasing hormone or GnRH) with a bonus shot of Ovidrel (Human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG) every third day. I feel like it has already been a long time and I’m already sick of it.
9 June 2016
Darling husband had to get a blood test today to make sure his screening is up to date. Felt perverse relief that it wasn’t me in the chair. He had the good sense to read the room and not complain about it at all, knowing that if he had I would have ripped the sleeves off my shirt to show my bruised junkie arms and roared like a beast. Hormones don’t seem to be impacting on me at all. (#sarcasm).
10 June 2016
Today I felt ready to admit that the hormones are sending me wacky. Socially awkward moments are increasing but I’m not sure if that’s just my normal personality and I am just now more aware of it. My own voice is annoying me, and I want to scratch my skin off. Things are going well.
Also, I am like a sheep in a new paddock of fresh grass (poor things eat themselves stupid apparently) and my three main activities are eating, eating, and eating. This isn’t cool. What with the bloating I will never fit into normal pants again. Kaftans are my future.
I had another blood test today (just for a change) and an ultrasound at 7:15 am because that’s just how I roll. We (like the royals) have 17 follicles one side and 14 on the other. One ovary (the left, I’m not political but perhaps this means something) is always the underperformer so it’s nice to see they are both pulling their own weight. Well if they were actually pulling their weight, we wouldn’t be in this mess but that’s a whole other rant.
Estrogen is high at the moment. Nurses said to not take Progynova tonight but take Orgalutran in the morning and then trigger tomorrow night (the injection that makes the follicles pop out more making them easier to harvest) if tomorrow’s blood test looks good. They always make good news calls from the clinic earlier in the day and bad news calls later so will cross fingers for an early afternoon call.
12 June 2016
Early afternoon call came through! Had to trigger last night at 10 pm (I almost felt like I should go to bed beforehand and set the alarm to wake up) so pickup is at 0900 on Monday (this is the succinct term used for the medical procedure where your IVF specialist uses a mini vacuum cleaner to harvest your eggs).
The trigger is an Ovidrel injection, and instead of injecting teeny amounts each time you just empty the entire volume of the injector pen into your stomach. Well that’s what they told me to do. At this stage my respect for all diabetes sufferers has just gone to #saintstatus. Apparently, my oestrogen is above 22000 so the clinic has ruled out a ‘fresh transfer’ entirely (they take the egg, mix with sperm, leave to sit and pop the embryo back on a few days later) due to the possibility of me hyperstimulating (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome aka OHSS). A fun scenario where the levels of hormones in your system cause your organs to fail and you die. No thanks.
Frustrated at the prospect of having to freeze any embryos that we get, both because it’s just another cycle we will have to go through (a frozen cycle, nothing to do with the Disney movie), and the fact that so many studies talk about the better chance of success that fresh transfers have.
I am petrified about the pick-up surgery tomorrow (it ain’t a pretty process), thoughts about what may go wrong, the fact that I could go through it all and still not have any viable embryos for transfer. I’ve told everyone at work that I am sick so they aren’t suspicious when I take tomorrow off. Did I mention I was petrified? Cannot wait for this to be over.
PART TWO TO FOLLOW NEXT FRIDAY…
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