NBR: IVF

Hey lovely ladies, who else (if anyone) on here has done IVF? After a rough year of TTC (I have 2 gorgeous teenagers from when I was very young and my body could deal with the endometriosis....long story) with my lovely husband of 10 years, we are on the IVF train. what a rollercoaster (and not so flash for skin and hair it seems either)! I don't know anyone else in my social circle who has gone through it, just wondering if anyone else on here has gone through it, and what it was like for you, what helped, what didn't etc.

Hello!   We did IVF, nearly 5 years ago now. I had my first little one naturally, but with his birth I got a tear in the uterus which caused an infection, which was treated, but longer term we discovered that thanks to that my tubes were completely blocked - so the eggs had no road to travel. Of course we didn't know any of this until 3 years TTC #2.   I had a laparoscopy & procedure to clean up with uterus and then we started IVF the next month.  I was 38 at the time - and we were one of the lucky ones, I guess. We did IVF through Wellington FA - had Dr Andrew Murray who's amazing.  We got 18 eggs, and from that 3 viable embryos. We put one back (I wanted to put 2 back but hubby wanted 2 up our sleeve in case the 1st didn't work), and froze the other two. We were successful with that one cycle - and I now have a 3 1/2yr old little girl.  It's a really emotional process - not helped by all the drugs - but the waiting, and squillions of scans to get the right timing for eggs and putting them back etc. means you live and breathe trying to conceive for months. 

I did all the injections myself - it seemed daunting, but I was more scared of my husbands technique than the needle so got over my needle phobia and for the most part it was easy and painless.   I think the worst part was just before egg collection as you feel so heavy at the hips and standing on the scales I put on 4kg....   I joined a few forums - twoweekwait.com was a good one for IVF.   But I also spent too much time there at times analysing symptoms to others etc. and looking at statistics for success etc. You have to be careful not to read too much or you start expecting the worst rather than hoping for the best.  I did all the crazy stuff you read about during the cycle - like drinking lots of green juices of vegetables and juices for breakfast. Clean eating. No alcohol.  Drank tonnes of water after collection to avoid OHSS - I was borderline with ovaries the size of oranges - gah it hurt so much to walk for about a week after. I went without intravenous drugs for egg collection - just nurofen (maybe not my smartest decision because I had no idea they'd collect 18 eggs, which starts to challenge pain thresholds towards the end - but it was what I wanted at the time) 

After implantation I ate the pineapple core for the bromelain for the 5 days after. I also remember taking about 20 pregnancy tests once pregnant and graphing all my hcg results, because I started getting bleeding right from the positive test - but I ended up bleeding right through to 30 weeks as I had a subchorionic hemorrhage (common in IVF pregnancies) which was more an annoyance and something I worried about than anything else...  It's a real ordeal from start to finish. We saw so many ladies not as lucky as us - but Fertility Associates are amazing and the nurse I had was always a call away if I needed anything and Dr Murray is amazing at setting your mind at ease with everything.... Sorry - that was a bit of a long story

This was my blog through the journey (hopefully the link works) I named it eggneedsaplumber on wordpress - if you want a bit of a read. I wrote a blog to keep myself occupied but to also have something my little girl could read later in life. It also helped me in getting my thoughts out of my head so I could remain as calm as possible.  Happy to answer questions too - ask away. I didn't know anyone either that had gone through that, and we didn't tell anyone except my parents while we went through it. Didn't want questions and people wondering if we were pregnant. We announced we were pregnant on christmas day and I was 20 weeks... crazy times...   Thinking of you both on this journey  xxx

@MissDilly, Wow! What an absolute miracle, and a lovely blog for you to share with your daughter.  I hope you don’t mind, but I was curious and I clicked on your blog to have a brief look (my sister battled for 4 years before finally falling pregnant with a little girl), but it’s so well written that I got sucked in and spent 2 hours reading the entire thing!  Your “M&M’s” are absolutely gorgeous, you have a beautiful family, and are so brave to share your story. x 

Thank you for sharing your incredible journey MissDilly! I admire your tenacity.

I wish you all the very best KiwiLass x I hope to hear you have good news soon!

Many thanks Maree B, I hope I have good news in a couple of weeks too.....:)

And wow MissDilly that is a fantastic resource! I've bookmarked your blog and am going to be reading it avidly in the coming days. 
I've also stopped drinking, given up my 3 daily espressos (that one hurt), mostly given up sugar (apart from today for V Day), and am eating the meditarranean diet, getting accupuncture, and have a pineapple which I'm going to start on tomorrow. 
It's such a vastly different experience to my first pregnancies. Having your blog to read, and your fantastic, imformative post to read is so helpful, so thank you. And I' so glad it worked out for you too! :) xx

Not much help but totally agree with missdilly - look at forums.. or blogs.. I joined fb pages mostly. We never tried IVF but after 2 years of trying we were looking into it and I found some groups on Facebook quite helpful this was a few years ago now though. Good luck I hope it happens for you soon :) 

Thanks Helibabi :) I left FB a while back, but have joined a NZ forum, but it's like a ghost town....maybe I need to look at some of the US ones, they might be a bit more active. I'm so glad it all worked out for you! 

I'd forgotten about the caffeine - I even gave up green tea and switched to decaf because I needed a morning coffee. I left  nothing to chance - I had to try everything suggested
Just yell out or get in touch if you ever want to chat...always happy to answer questions or just be a friendly ear :-)  xx

Have been thinking of you  @KiwiLass - we've been talking with FA this past week,  as our journey with them has come to a complete close. All part of the path but still it's such an emotional thing beginning to end.  I hope you are all doing well with your journey   xx