What does the IVF process involve?

Today I shall give you a low down of my planned cycle. It is totally subject to change – dependant on whether I respond correctly to the medication or not.

Day 1-5 (day 1 being first day of menstrual cycle) Buserelin injections and Norethisterone tablets. This is to ‘shut down’ my body in order to ‘restart’ it.

Day 5-14 – Carry on with Buserelin injections. This is like a menopause, in super quick time – sounds fun right!

 At this stage my body will have shut down, and I will have a baseline scan to ensure we are at the right stage.

Day 15-29 – More injections – this is the stimulation stage, in which my ovaries are being stimulated in order to produce follicles which hopefully contain eggs. My ovaries, which are usually the size of a walnut, will grow to the size of an orange during this stage (ouch!!)

At this point, I will be going to the hospital constantly for scans to see if my eggs are the right size to be retrieved. Although this stage is meant to be 2 weeks, it can double, or even triple if my body isn’t co-operating – and hey, it doesn’t normally co-operate now does it!!

When, we get to the right stage, this is when they do the egg retrieval. The estimated date for this is 23/09/2011. This will involve being sedated and then in effect a needle will be inserted into my ovaries to retrieve the eggs.

The follicles that eggs grow in do not necessarily contain eggs. So, even if there are 20 follicles, there is still a possibility that none of those follicles contain eggs – at which point the cycle is stopped, and we will try again later. If, on the flip side, there are too many follicles, I will have responded too well to the medication and they will have to stop the cycle as I will be at risk of Ovarian Hyperstimulation (OHSS)

So, if we get through that bit, and they retrieve the eggs I will be told how many they get. 

Hubby will produce his little swimmers that day, and my eggs and his men will then spend a romantic night in a petri dish and hopefully, if the sat nav is turned on (which if hubby is anything to go by is unlikely) the next day some of the eggs will have fertilised. If not, we start again after a few months.

If we have fertilised eggs then they will be grown in the lab for up to 5 days, the doctors will decide when to put the blastocyst/embryo into my womb. If any are growing well enough.

Lots of ifs and buts right?!! I plan on working up until this stage. Unless I am suffering very badly from the meds.

IVF is supposed to be even more stressful than divorce apparently!!! (It certainly has been testing getting to this point!)

So, finally, the winning embryo (if there is one) will be placed into my womb. And hopefully implant. This is the worst bit in my head as then we wait. For two weeks.

Those of you who know my story well, will also know of my fondness for weeing on sticks lol. This is the point I will need all of you girls to forbid me from having pregnancy tests in my house! (although im pretty sure hubby will take away all access to bank accounts so I cant buy a sneaky FRER!!)

If the cycle fails, we have funding for another fresh cycle. If we get more than one viable embryo we will freeze some – which will give us another two cycles on the NHS – as frozen.

I expect everyone to have lots of questions lol, which I may or may not be able to answer.

I’ll be honest, I’m not looking forwarding to losing control in such a dramatic way – my body never does as it is told (if it did i’d be somewhat shorter than I am and a hell of a lot thinner!)

For those of you wondering about the success rates – well the chances of it working are around 35% - not brilliant is it?! Not to mention all the other problems that could occur if it does work.

Shockingly, despite having no tubes, I am still at risk of an ectopic! Apparently, the embryo could still make its way into the tiny remainder of my tube – I hope to god I am not this unlucky. But then, I never thought I could be that unlucky in April did I?!  

Hopefully, I have given you a bit of an overview regarding the process. I am trying to keep the language simple and not use TTC abbreviations (trying to conceive) although, it is difficult!!

Is there anything I can do to increase the chances? I hear you ask! Well, yes there is, Acupuncture is meant to be fantastic for IVF – and it was down to acupuncture that I fell in April. I do plan on having a few more sessions, however, am finding it hard to find the £35 a week at the moment – I will try and have a couple of sessions though. I am also on a health kick at the moment – cigarettes have gone, and I’m spending a lot of time exercising, in order to get myself as healthy as poss (having said that, I ate a huge chuck of chocolate cake last night lol)

I promise my posts won’t all be this long – it’s just a case of laying the foundations in advance of starting so all the info is here for my girls to see!