It's done!
I'm not going to lie, it was the most stressful few minutes of my life. Even though we asked the nurse before we left Sheffield on Wednesday and she said it was 0.5ml, naturally we doubted ourselves. All of the previous injections have been in pre-filled pens (like Gonal F) or you draw it into the syringe yourself but use the full dose (like Cetrotide). It's been so long since we had the tutorial that I was really nervous about doing it wrong.
Fortunately, ALS kept a level head as always, got 0.5ml in the syringe and injected me as normal. It must have been a thicker needle as it was really tough to pierce the skin and quite painful - nothing unbearable though. The other reason for this could be because we had to use the same needle to draw the medicine up as we did to inject it, therefore piercing the rubber on the bottle may have blunted the needle somewhat.
Either way, it's not hugely painful in the grand scheme of things and that is the LAST injection (at least until we start getting ready for transfer).
I've been absolutely drained today so I'm looking forward to an early night and not having to get up at 6am to do the Cetrotide. Tomorrow will be all about relaxing before heading to London as our train doesn't leave until 8pm!
My next post will be after egg retrieval, probably when we get home on Tuesday.
Wish us luck.
Saturday, 3 September 2016
Friday, 2 September 2016
Cetrotide Top Tip!
I've found that my Cetrotide injections are either really painful or I pretty much don't feel them - with no middle ground. The other day I read something about keeping the bevel of the needle pointing upwards so the sharpest bit goes in first. We made sure we did that this morning and lo and behold, I didn't even notice it go it!
As you can see from the image above, if you're putting it in with that pointing down it's going to be trying to force the blunter bit through first.
Just thought I'd share that with you in case you're having the same problem - it's always something worth trying.
Other people have mentioned using ice packs to numb the area beforehand but I haven't found this to be necessary so I haven't tried it. I did forget to take my injection out of the fridge earlier than I needed to do it this morning so I did it cold and again, it didn't add to my pain. That's not to say that it won't make a difference for others though.
Any tips you'd like to share? Maybe you've found something that works with certain meds but not others, or something unusual?
As you can see from the image above, if you're putting it in with that pointing down it's going to be trying to force the blunter bit through first.
Just thought I'd share that with you in case you're having the same problem - it's always something worth trying.
Other people have mentioned using ice packs to numb the area beforehand but I haven't found this to be necessary so I haven't tried it. I did forget to take my injection out of the fridge earlier than I needed to do it this morning so I did it cold and again, it didn't add to my pain. That's not to say that it won't make a difference for others though.
Any tips you'd like to share? Maybe you've found something that works with certain meds but not others, or something unusual?
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Patience and Preparation!
The biggest thing I can tell anyone who is wanting embark on an IVF journey is patience is a virtue. It can be very frustrating, especially not being able to plan things and not knowing. Uncertainty is scary. I'm a reasonably patient person anyway and I'm finding it hard work but I imagine if I weren't, this would be very much unbearable. I'm somewhat torn at the moment between wanted to stay busy to keep myself distracted and being way too drained from the medications to do anything! I'm well aware that once I get to the 2 week wait (the 2 weeks between having an embryo transferred and finding out if you're pregnant) it will be the longest 2 weeks ever so practicing distraction techniques and patience now is not a bad idea.
The other important thing, especially if you're wanting PGD IVF for a genetic condition, is to get started early. From our first appointment with the GP to starting our first IVF cycle was 18 months. That was with everything going pretty smoothly as well! I'd read on another blog (www.survivinghuntingtons.blogspot.co.uk) a few years ago that you should get the process in motion before you're ready because if you wait until you're ready to have kids, you're then looking at another couple of years after that before you even have a chance of being pregnant. She completely hit the nail on the head. I've always known I wanted children by my mid 20s and we had our first appointment when I was 22. I'm now 24 so if this cycle works I'll give birth sometime when I'm 25. If not, I've still got a few years to play with. If we'd waited until now to see our GP I could have been in my 30s long before I had a child.
With having a child naturally there's always the risk that you may have fertility issues and take a while to get pregnant, but at the same time if you start early you could get caught straight away. With PGD you know that it will be a long process from the outset. These are the steps we've been through from the beginning - often with a couple of months in between:
The other important thing, especially if you're wanting PGD IVF for a genetic condition, is to get started early. From our first appointment with the GP to starting our first IVF cycle was 18 months. That was with everything going pretty smoothly as well! I'd read on another blog (www.survivinghuntingtons.blogspot.co.uk) a few years ago that you should get the process in motion before you're ready because if you wait until you're ready to have kids, you're then looking at another couple of years after that before you even have a chance of being pregnant. She completely hit the nail on the head. I've always known I wanted children by my mid 20s and we had our first appointment when I was 22. I'm now 24 so if this cycle works I'll give birth sometime when I'm 25. If not, I've still got a few years to play with. If we'd waited until now to see our GP I could have been in my 30s long before I had a child.
With having a child naturally there's always the risk that you may have fertility issues and take a while to get pregnant, but at the same time if you start early you could get caught straight away. With PGD you know that it will be a long process from the outset. These are the steps we've been through from the beginning - often with a couple of months in between:
- Appointment with the GP to ask for a referral for PGD IVF.
- Appointment at our local hospital with a Clinical Geneticist to discuss the genetic side of things and our options for IVF.
- Appointment in Sheffield (satellite centre for Guy's Hospital in London) with the Genetics Team to discuss in more detail the process involved from a genetic viewpoint. We also had bloods done at this stage (myself, ALS and his father) to enable them to create the genetic test for embryo biopsy.
- Appointment with the Fertility Unit in Sheffield to discuss the fertility side of things and arrange preliminary fertility tests. This also involved an internal scan.
- ALS had to provide a sperm sample and I had to have bloods done on day 2 and 21 of my menstrual cycle.
- Further appointment with Fertility Unit in Sheffield to go through the test results - fortunately everything was OK.
- Multidisciplinary meeting with Genetic Consultant, Fertility Consultant and Fertility Nurse (who was our main point of contact from this point going forwards).
- Appointment with Fertility Nurse to discuss treatment cycle and to be shown how to do the injections ourselves. We were given the date to stop my pills and to come back to the clinic to start the cycle (19th August).
And that brings us up to date...
Wednesday, 31 August 2016
End of my tether...
I just had the phone call from Guy's. They aren't happy doing the egg collection on Friday and as they don't do it at weekends we have to wait until Monday. My ovaries may explode before then - I feel huge already.
This means I need to go back to work for the next 2 days and book off Monday and Tuesday the following week. I was hoping to have the weekend to recover as well but it's not to be as it'll be the beginning of the week and I'll be back at work on Wednesday.
The real kicked in this situation is that, for the third time out of 4 appointments in the last fortnight, our usual PGD nurse was not there today. Another nurse did my scan and told me that if I wasn't listed for egg collection on Friday it would be Saturday (the Assisted Conception Unit in Sheffield works 6 days a week). As Guy's do not work 6 days a week it will be Monday and we now only have enough medication to keep us going until Saturday.
Saturday night will be the trigger shot so that's the last injection and I have enough Gonal F for tonight, tomorrow and Friday. I however only have enough Cetrotide for tomorrow and Friday morning and I will need one on Saturday morning. This means that this afternoon I have to do the 100 mile round trip to Sheffield AGAIN to pick up a prescription due to their oversight. ALS is currently on the phone to them trying to get them to send the prescription over to Derby so I can pick it up locally but they're not keen... so much for not putting yourself through any stress.
We will just have to wait and see!
UPDATE 1.9.16
Fortunately a very kind consultant in Derby, whom I work for, sorted out my prescription for me so we did not have to go to Sheffield. I could have hugged him!
This means I need to go back to work for the next 2 days and book off Monday and Tuesday the following week. I was hoping to have the weekend to recover as well but it's not to be as it'll be the beginning of the week and I'll be back at work on Wednesday.
The real kicked in this situation is that, for the third time out of 4 appointments in the last fortnight, our usual PGD nurse was not there today. Another nurse did my scan and told me that if I wasn't listed for egg collection on Friday it would be Saturday (the Assisted Conception Unit in Sheffield works 6 days a week). As Guy's do not work 6 days a week it will be Monday and we now only have enough medication to keep us going until Saturday.
Saturday night will be the trigger shot so that's the last injection and I have enough Gonal F for tonight, tomorrow and Friday. I however only have enough Cetrotide for tomorrow and Friday morning and I will need one on Saturday morning. This means that this afternoon I have to do the 100 mile round trip to Sheffield AGAIN to pick up a prescription due to their oversight. ALS is currently on the phone to them trying to get them to send the prescription over to Derby so I can pick it up locally but they're not keen... so much for not putting yourself through any stress.
We will just have to wait and see!
UPDATE 1.9.16
Fortunately a very kind consultant in Derby, whom I work for, sorted out my prescription for me so we did not have to go to Sheffield. I could have hugged him!
Fingers Crossed!
Looking at my scan this morning I might be ready - I have one follicle that's made its way up to 21mm and a good few others in the late teens. We just have to wait for Guy's to ring us and confirm.
I'm absolutely shattered today. I couldn't sleep last night because it was so warm and I kept needing to get up to pee (silly large ovaries taking up my bladder space). I came home from Sheffield and went straight back to bed for a couple of hours and I'm now trying to drag myself up to make some lunch.
Wish me luck - with the eggs, not lunch!
I'm absolutely shattered today. I couldn't sleep last night because it was so warm and I kept needing to get up to pee (silly large ovaries taking up my bladder space). I came home from Sheffield and went straight back to bed for a couple of hours and I'm now trying to drag myself up to make some lunch.
Wish me luck - with the eggs, not lunch!
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
Still Not Ready!
I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty fed up today.
I went for my scan and bloods this morning and our normal nurse wasn't working today so we saw another lady. She was quite impersonal and didn't speak to me the whole time she had a camera stuck up my lady parts. Unfortunately my follicles were all around 14-16mm (they need to be 16-20mm) so they're still not quite ready. It took 2 attempts to get my blood due to the nurse insisting on using butterfly needles, despite me saying a normal needle was more than fine. We were told that I could not trigger today and would possibly need to go back for another scan tomorrow morning. They were going to email Guy's Hospital in London and ask whether they wanted another scan doing or if they would just be happy for me to trigger tomorrow night. So we were sent home with another prescription for a few more days of injections (just in case) and told to ring at 14:30 to find out if I needed a further scan.
ALS rang them and by 15:00 he'd still had no answer. When he finally got through they said they had not heard back from Guy's so would let us know when they did. Come 16:00 we'd still heard nothing and I rang them again at this point as I needed to let my manager know if I'd be in late tomorrow. No answer again. Finally around 16:20 they rang ALS back to say I'd need another scan tomorrow.
I had planned to have Thursday and Friday off on annual leave for London but as that's now not happening until at least 24 hours later I can still work Thursday. So I've put tomorrow in to save rushing back from Sheffield AGAIN and Friday for hopefully egg collection to be done.
The IVF process itself is not stressing me out at all. I know that it's a long process, I know that it's unpredictable and I know that it will all be worth it in the end. However, trying to fit it around work is horrendous. I hate letting people down or leaving them short staffed, especially at such short notice and it just feels like I'm messing them around. Fortunately my manager has been really good about the whole situation, otherwise I really don't think I'd have coped at all - certainly in my last job I wouldn't have been able to go to so many appointments in such a short space of time.
I really can't reiterate enough that if you have the ability to take a week or two off whilst you're coming up to egg collection (and transfer, I imagine) then do so. The medications make you feel pretty naff and really tired as it is, let alone when you're getting up at 05:30 to do a 100 mile round trip for a scan and blood tests, followed by a full day at work (finishing late because you started late) and then getting home and ready to do it all again the next day. I haven't lifted a finger in terms of housework in the last fortnight. I'm pretty much coming home from work, having dinner and a bath and going straight to bed. Due to my EDS, I imagine I'm being hit harder with fatigue than a healthy person would but it's been pretty debilitating.
Anyway, I don't want to moan too much but I also want people to understand the reality of it. The injections themselves are insignificant compared to the enormity of the whole process and honestly they've been no trouble at all in the grand scheme of things. We have had some friends visit from New Zealand this evening, whilst visiting their family in the UK so that was lovely - they appreciated our situation and were happy to just come over and chill rather than going out (I even greeted them in my PJs).
Hopefully I'll have better news tomorrow - or at least I won't be so tired as I can go back to bed when we get home from Sheffield!
I went for my scan and bloods this morning and our normal nurse wasn't working today so we saw another lady. She was quite impersonal and didn't speak to me the whole time she had a camera stuck up my lady parts. Unfortunately my follicles were all around 14-16mm (they need to be 16-20mm) so they're still not quite ready. It took 2 attempts to get my blood due to the nurse insisting on using butterfly needles, despite me saying a normal needle was more than fine. We were told that I could not trigger today and would possibly need to go back for another scan tomorrow morning. They were going to email Guy's Hospital in London and ask whether they wanted another scan doing or if they would just be happy for me to trigger tomorrow night. So we were sent home with another prescription for a few more days of injections (just in case) and told to ring at 14:30 to find out if I needed a further scan.
ALS rang them and by 15:00 he'd still had no answer. When he finally got through they said they had not heard back from Guy's so would let us know when they did. Come 16:00 we'd still heard nothing and I rang them again at this point as I needed to let my manager know if I'd be in late tomorrow. No answer again. Finally around 16:20 they rang ALS back to say I'd need another scan tomorrow.
I had planned to have Thursday and Friday off on annual leave for London but as that's now not happening until at least 24 hours later I can still work Thursday. So I've put tomorrow in to save rushing back from Sheffield AGAIN and Friday for hopefully egg collection to be done.
The IVF process itself is not stressing me out at all. I know that it's a long process, I know that it's unpredictable and I know that it will all be worth it in the end. However, trying to fit it around work is horrendous. I hate letting people down or leaving them short staffed, especially at such short notice and it just feels like I'm messing them around. Fortunately my manager has been really good about the whole situation, otherwise I really don't think I'd have coped at all - certainly in my last job I wouldn't have been able to go to so many appointments in such a short space of time.
I really can't reiterate enough that if you have the ability to take a week or two off whilst you're coming up to egg collection (and transfer, I imagine) then do so. The medications make you feel pretty naff and really tired as it is, let alone when you're getting up at 05:30 to do a 100 mile round trip for a scan and blood tests, followed by a full day at work (finishing late because you started late) and then getting home and ready to do it all again the next day. I haven't lifted a finger in terms of housework in the last fortnight. I'm pretty much coming home from work, having dinner and a bath and going straight to bed. Due to my EDS, I imagine I'm being hit harder with fatigue than a healthy person would but it's been pretty debilitating.
Anyway, I don't want to moan too much but I also want people to understand the reality of it. The injections themselves are insignificant compared to the enormity of the whole process and honestly they've been no trouble at all in the grand scheme of things. We have had some friends visit from New Zealand this evening, whilst visiting their family in the UK so that was lovely - they appreciated our situation and were happy to just come over and chill rather than going out (I even greeted them in my PJs).
Hopefully I'll have better news tomorrow - or at least I won't be so tired as I can go back to bed when we get home from Sheffield!
Sunday, 28 August 2016
Busy busy busy!
I have no idea where the last 2 days have gone! Not much to tell on the IVF front, still feeling bloated and painy but not too bad. Managed to do my Cetrotide all by myself a couple of times too which I'm pretty proud of.
I did have a panic earlier thinking I might have OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) which can be caused by the injections. I was having a lot of pain in my ovaries, feeling really nauseous, hot and sweaty, faint and just generally not well but I'd not eaten much or had much water all day and I felt a lot better after some food and fresh air.
The reason for having not eaten much is that we've been at a powerlifting competition all day. I couldn't compete due to the treatment at the moment but ALS was competing along with 4 other friends of ours and I was supporting - I made brownies, filmed all their lifts and screamed my lungs out at them. It was lovely playing mother for the day and I'm so proud of them all.
Fortunately I'll get to compete alongside them all at the World Championships in October once this treatment cycle is done and before we do our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer). It'll be my last competition for a year or two so I want to go out on a high - can't wait to get back to training.
Now I need a lie down...
I did have a panic earlier thinking I might have OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) which can be caused by the injections. I was having a lot of pain in my ovaries, feeling really nauseous, hot and sweaty, faint and just generally not well but I'd not eaten much or had much water all day and I felt a lot better after some food and fresh air.
The reason for having not eaten much is that we've been at a powerlifting competition all day. I couldn't compete due to the treatment at the moment but ALS was competing along with 4 other friends of ours and I was supporting - I made brownies, filmed all their lifts and screamed my lungs out at them. It was lovely playing mother for the day and I'm so proud of them all.
Fortunately I'll get to compete alongside them all at the World Championships in October once this treatment cycle is done and before we do our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer). It'll be my last competition for a year or two so I want to go out on a high - can't wait to get back to training.
Now I need a lie down...
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