4 years….
4 years….that’s how long it took me to get to this stage.
They were a long hard 4 years,
especially when all your friends were having babies and you would go round for
hugs and cuddles, but secretly a small part of you was dying inside. I found it particularly hard when my nieces
and nephews came along…I don’t know why, I was elated for them, but found it
really upsetting at the same time, continuously thinking “why not us”?. It just seemed so unfair when some people
could fall pregnant without even trying, yet I had to jump through all these
hoops……😢
I can remember how happy I was when I got my letter through
to say that my name had reached the top of the IVF waiting list, inviting me to
go for a screening appointment. We both
had to provide photographic identification, fill in forms and be screened for
HIV and Hepatitis B and C, my husband also had to do his bit…..ha 😜. We were also lucky, because the NHS that we
came under funded 3 treatment cycles, other areas only get 2 (there is a campaign right now about this issue scream4ivf). I can also remember sitting in the hospital
waiting room on that first appointment, overwhelmed by how busy it was and
realising just how common a problem infertility was!!!!
I’ve decided to go into a wee bit of detail about my first
cycle, just in case anyone who is reading this needs the info for their own
comparison, so please bear with me…😊.
This is where the fun began….not! Healthy eating and no drinking and the
rollercoaster ride of emotions that was ensured to happen!!! I had to go for a hormone profile and was given
my Prostap injection home to self-administer and depending on my bloods (as you
know from my previous posts, I don’t have a cycle as such, so this was to
determine where I was by my hormone levels).
Prostap is given approximately 21 days into your cycle to supress your
cycle, this then brings on your period. I
then had to go for bloods tests and an internal scan to see if I was ready to
go onto the next stage.
The results of this showed that I was ready to start my
hormone injections…..eeeek! And to this
day, I still think my husband secretly loved injecting me…because I couldn’t do
it myself!!
I was on injections for around 8-10 days and then I had to
go for another internal scan to check the progress. The hormone injections were to help increase
the number of eggs your ovaries produce.
I can remember being sooo nervous when I went for my scan to check on my
progress, because this is where my journey could have ended for my first
cycle. If you don’t meet the criteria
for the amount/size of eggs produced then you don’t go to the next stage, this
being egg retrieval. Thank god I did and
my egg collection date was set.
I had to take ‘Snuff’, this was inhaled in one nostril 4
times a day and it had to be done 3 days before my egg retrieval. Then 2 days before, a booster injection had
to be self-administered, then I was ready to rock and roll!
The day of egg retrieval came and I couldn’t eat or drink
because egg retrieval is done under sedation and my husband had to play his
part ….and I can remember him saying he was mortified as he could hear
people laughing outside the room, while he was doing his bit for society 😳 Well, it’s hardly a barrel of laughs having
your legs up in stirrups on a regular basis….was my response!
When I came to, I was informed that 5 eggs were collected
and I would have to wait a couple of days to see if any of them
fertilised. Those couple of days were
awful, it’s all you can think about…you just want to know, and nothing takes
your mind off it. Sadly when I phoned to
find out how they had gone, none of them had fertilised😢!! I was devastated, there was no consoling me,
although my husband and family tried to comfort me…there was nothing they could
say or do that could make the situation any better and I know my husband felt
helpless. I can’t describe how I felt at
the time, it was just devastation, but I had to pick myself back up, as I still
had two attempts left.
As it was coming up to Christmas, I decided to enjoy my time
over the festive period and booked myself in to start my second attempt at the
end of February.
Please subscribe and hang in there to find out what’s in
store in my next blog.
