Before starting this post I took a quick look at my list of tags. This is the 16th post in my IVF journey. 16 posts and I'm still faffing around with dreams of effective IUI! I'm irritated that I didn't take the advice given and move on faster to the real treatment. I'm bored with how long it took quite frankly. I suppose at the time I didn't realize how long the journey would be (four years in total). If I had I would have been devastated. So, because I cannot bear to go through it all agan so slowly, I am gong to speed up the telling.
I had been prescribed Cetrotide (stops early ovulation thereby allowing the eggs to mature longer), Gonel F (to stimulate the growth of more eggs) and Ovitrelle (stimulates the final maturization of the eggs and releases them from the ovaries). On day five of my cycle I went to the IVF unit at Haddassah, Mt Scopus. Blood test done, ultrasound approved and the nurse took me into a private room to show me how to inject myself with the Gonel F.
I was nervous but I know diabetics who have to inject several times a day for their whole lives. I could certainly do it for a short time in order to have a baby. The Gonel comes in a pen. You set the dial for the doseage, screw in a very fine needle, and pull out the end (it comes out according to the set doseage). You swab your stomach with an antiseptic wipe, push in the needle and squeeze down the end of the pen. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. My hands were shaking just handling the needle, let alone jabbing it into my stomach. I held my breathe and....surprise! It didn't hurt at all. The needle was so thin it was like acupuncture (I imagine :-) ). Then I squeezed the liquid medicine into my flesh where there wasn't a space for it and it killed - OWCH!
I was told to take 225 units a day and come back four days later. At this point I want to say something about the Cetrotide. I honestly don't remember taking it. I don't even remember what it looked like. I do remember having something left over which I never used and this could be it. On googling Cetrotide I found out that it is usually taken between days five and seven. By this time all the medicines have probably changed anyway so let's just move on.
On day nine I had about six or seven eggs big enough to measure on both sides. And there were more little ones visible. The nurse showed my chart to the Prof. "You're shooting too many too fast," he said. "You're producing them like a 22 year old. We'll have to slow you down!" He certainly knows how to give a compliment that Professor.
My doseage of Gonel F went down to 150 units and then 75 units per day. And one day I went into the clinic to be greeted with the news that I would not be having IUI but instead would be undergoping IVF. There were simply too many eggs for IUI. It would be irresponsible as I could end up with a multiple pregnancy. As they didn't want to waste all those fabulously large eggs, they had arranged it all with my health fund and I would probably have the operation in two days time.
I was stunned. Stunned and excited. I was to take 37.5 units of Gonel F this afternoon, have the Ovitrelle injected into my bottom at 9pm tonight, not eat or drink from 10pm tomorrow as I would be having general anaesthetic, and turn up at 8am on Thursday morning. Sometimes it's best when desicions are taken out of your hands.
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