It is Tuesday 25th August 2020, my period has arrived and this means that today is the day we (/I) start medication ready for our IVF treatment.
And if I asked you to guess what medication I am beginning today, I am not sure you would guess it…
Because never in a million years would someone (who has never had IVF or know someone closely who has) guess that the contraceptive pill is how some people start their treatment.
Yes, you read the right!
To start our cycle of IVF to help us hopefully have a baby, I am officially back on contraception.
It makes no sense when you first hear about it but actually the reason I am on it is so that the clinic can control when our ‘proper’ treatment is. Side note: By ‘proper’, I mean the injections, the egg collection and the embryo transfer. The clinic are aiming for me to have my embryo transfer on a specific date (30th October) because I have to have a general anaesthetic because of my heart, which is why they have to control my cycle so specifically.
So tonight, in a Travelodge in Baglan, Port Talbot, South Wales, I went back on the old pill so that I can have a baby…
So what next?
Well, I am on this for 21 days and after that, I begin a drug called Norethisterone. All I know about this drug is it is tablet form, it delays your period by continuing to grow your uterine lining (oooh, nice) and it turns the calmest of women into actual, living monsters. I am really excited about this drug.
Not.
Then after about 17 days of this, I will begin injections…yes, I have to inject myself… The first set of injections are the ‘Down-Regulation Phase’ of IVF where it basically takes your body’s hormonal cycle back to neutral and the hormones it releases/stops your body releasing can cause quite a change in the way you manage and feel emotions. It stops you feeling your ‘happy hormone’. The drug I’ll be on is called Buserelin.
After a couple of weeks on that injection, I reduce the dosage of Buserelin and introduce Gonal-F, which is another self-administered injection. Gonal-F is part of the ‘Stimulation Phase’ where it stimulates your ovaries to produce more than 1 mature egg. With IVF the aim is a get a good amount of mature eggs that are ready to be fertilised outside of the body before being put back in to the uterus.
Once I have been on this for about 8 days, I will go for a tracking scan where they will see how many good sized follicles I have. The follicles are what house the eggs and this is a good indicator of how many eggs they might be able to collect. If this goes well, I will have my egg collection. For me, I am having to have a general anaesthetic where normally most women are just heavily sedated. I have to have a GA because of my heart!
Hopefully following this, they will fertilise as many eggs as possible with Pete’s sperm sample. I won’t go into details as to how this is produced, I am sure you can guess ;).
Then a few days later, hopefully 5 days, an embryo will be put back into me.
And how am I feeling?
Journeying to Family 