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| We had pushed GO! on our 3rd Round of IVF and we were excited! |
Unlike after the first round of IVF, we didn’t have a WTF appointment after the second. We basically covered everything we needed to in a follow-up phone call when I let them know that I had started my withdrawal bleed after the meds had stopped doing their thing. This time, I was a bit more demanding, and asked to be put back on the same stimulation drugs as I was on the first time – Bemfola – and on a higher dose of 225iu as opposed to 150iu. They agreed, as Menopur obviously had a poor response to me, so I was really pleased to know that we could potentially come out with an even greater egg haul than the first round!
It was March 22nd 2019 when I left a voicemail for the clinic to let them know that I had come on my period, and we were ready to start IVF Round 3. When they called back it was my favourite nurse, Rebecca, on the other end of the line to tell me that I had JUST made it into their current batch of patients, as it was the last day to be accepted into this cycle – phew! I had been carrying around my leftover contraceptive pills from the last round with me in my handbag waiting for this exact call – and she promptly told me to get on them straight away! I was so prepared for that moment, and I was excited!
The next process is all old hat to us now, of course. I went back on The Pill for 18 days – less than three weeks! That just shows how last-minute I had made it onto that batch, as I was on it for 6 weeks on the previous round, due to getting in there so early! I was then back on my down regulation drugs – Buserelin – for two weeks until I had my baseline scan to check that everything was quiet with my womb. My lining was less than 1mm, and my follicles were clear! *fist pump*
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| My baseline scan was looking perfect - a thin lining and no follicles - win! |
Two days later I started my new, higher dose of stims. I was so glad to be back on the pre-filled injection pens, what a relief compared to the nightmare I’d endured with Menopur! At my next follicle scan, I was so relieved to see some good numbers that I just cried during the whole scan. It’s transvaginal remember, so the sonographer didn’t have an easy go of it with me!
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| Back on my preferred stimulation drugs - Bemfola - and a higher dose, too! Grow follies, grow!!! |
The third scan, however, was a different story. As you’ll see, I documented every scan with an update photo to upload to Instagram one day. I was so upset after this scan that I didn’t even take a photo, I just wanted to get out of there. There was a nurse that was quite unsympathetic, and didn’t even close the curtain whilst I got undressed for the scan. I know people have the mindset of “oh, they’ve seen it all before!” But just a bit of human decency would’ve been nice! She then proceeded to scan me, only to tell me that not only did I have less follicles than before, but they were actually even smaller, too!? The clinic just put it down to the fact that it was a different scanner on different days, which I think is just unacceptable and there really needs to be more continuity there.
The head doctor of the clinic then said that it would be he who would scan me next in a few days – I think they realised that there had been a major cock-up somewhere, so he wanted to be the one to scan me for reassurance. This would then be my fourth scan, with a view to having egg collection a couple days afterwards. This was such a crucial time for my little follicles to be growing properly, and I had massive anxiety that we were headed for another abandoned cycle. Throw in the fact that this was the first time a male doctor would be dealing with my nether-region, and I was quite scared, to be honest. I had no idea which way our fate would go.
As it turned out, the odds swung in our favour at the next scan. The doctor believed he could see roughly 5 good-sized follicles, and was happy for me to take my trigger shot and get ready for egg collection 36 hours later. Again, we had no idea what to think – this round was supposed to be bigger and better than before?! But we trusted the good doctor and got ready for E-Day.
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| We 'pulled the trigger' 36 hours before egg collection - my last shot for a while! |
Egg collection rolled around all too quickly, and before I knew it was taking the ‘trigger shot’ injection at 10pm on Monday 6th May 2019. I had a drug-free day on the Tuesday, and resumed the usual nil-by-mouth diet before I was wheeled into theatre on the Wednesday. Dr Acharya at the Ocean Suite sat me down after I had all my preliminaries done, and explained again that he thought they’d get 5 good eggs. I was quite disheartened, I won’t lie. I really thought the trigger shot would’ve given me another boost and I’d come away with eggs in the double figures!
After the traumatic memories of egg collection from Round #1, I was sure to tell them to up the ante when it came to the sedation. I was so, SO nervous about waking up again! Dr A was performing my egg collection this time, and he tried to crack a few jokes to make me relax more. It didn’t really work, and I think I just shakily laughed off his attempts at humour before it all went dark again.
About 40 minutes later, I came around and felt so much better already than the first time (maybe this was due to the tea and toast that they brought me afterwards, I felt like I had upgraded from biscuits because we were paying for it, this time!). I literally would’ve sacked off IVF altogether if it meant I had to go through another painful retrieval, and told J so, too! Dr A told us some great news – he'd actually got 10 eggs! I was relieved that we’d got a good number again, but I couldn’t help but feel like history was repeating itself... And I had a reason to believe that.
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| Egg Collection #2 - not quite so traumatic as the first round - and we got 10 eggs again! |
As you know, the next few days are crucial for culturing the embryos. The nerves I felt waiting for the daily call was just unbearable, and the day after the procedure I received the news I just knew was coming... Only three eggs were fertilised again. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn't going to work again this time. And just like clockwork, we got the same results each day – potentially go in for a Day 2 transfer, then it moved to Day 3. The only difference was that at Day 3, we were asked our own opinion on whether we’d like a Day 4 or Day 5 transfer. They said they couldn’t call which way our little embryos were going, so it was completely up to us! We decided to push on to Day 5 – if we could – and when we got our Day 4 update saying things were looking good, we knew we’d make the right decision to hold out a little longer!
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| "Let's do this, baby! Let's go get pregnant!" |
By the time we got to Day 5 – Monday 13th May – history did slightly repeat itself once again. One hadn’t made it, and we were back down to two precious embryos. The difference was that this time, they were really good quality! They graded them as follows: one was 4AA, and the other was 1AB. The first number corresponds to the size of the embryo according to the time that the time-lapse camera took the photo, but they said it doesn’t really mean anything, as the embryo expands and contracts as it develops. The first letter is the grade (from A-C, A being the best) quality of what will develop into the foetus, and the second letter is the grade quality of what will become the placenta. We were delighted – the doctors were really pleased with these grades!
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| Our precious grade 4AA blastocyst that we transferred on Day 5! |
With this being a self-funded cycle, we were also advised that we would need to bring payment for the potential fee of freezing and storing any surplus embryos for future use. At our clinic, this is £450, with an additional £200 per year for storage (and you can only store them for up to 10 years). I was a bit panicky as our IVF fund had dwindled considerably at this point, but thankfully the clinic offered an incentive to us: If we decided to just transfer the one embryo into me, and freeze the other, then they would cover the costs of this for us. This is because if we transferred both embryos, and both took resulted in a viable pregnancy, then the cost of a multiple pregnancy was far greater to the NHS than the measly £450 they wanted from us. This was such a relief for us! We accepted the deal, as that was what we wanted to do, anyway!
I was quite calm for my embryo transfer this time. I wore my Wonder Woman socks as a reminder that yes, I am a fucking wonder woman for what I’m doing! The nurses had a giggle at them, and one of my other favourite nurses Judy told me that she had Christmas socks on... well I thought for sure this was a good sign, as celebrating Christmas early is one of my favourite things to do! Ha! I asked if it would be Dr A performing my transfer, and they told me it would actually be Bridget – remember her?! She was the very first person we saw when we came to the fertility clinic, the one who made us feel instantly relaxed and warm to be with! I took this as another sign – we were coming full circle on our journey.
We – and by we I mean J and I, our parents, our brothers, their partners, our cousins, our aunties and uncles, my grandparents, my best girls, my work girls (hell, the whole office knew what we were doing at this rate!), my One O'clock Lunch Club, his work crew, his Xbox followers, my newly-founded Instagram followers, and even probably the cats – had everything crossed for the next two weeks. This was it.
KEB x
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