Drugs Part One: Down Regulation

As our first – and only – round of IVF was thankfully on the NHS, so were our drugs. Upon leaving our injection training demonstration we were given a massive prescription to fill. Here’s a handy note for anyone embarking on this journey: take a copy of your prescription! You’d be surprised at the amount of people who’ve said that as soon as they opened their drugs boxes at home, they realised that their prescription was wrong! I got the prescription filled at the hospital pharmacy and raced home to inspect what the next few weeks of my life would look like. And it was something like this... 

Our 'Baby in a Bag' shopping!

As I was on the long protocol of IVF treatment, I had been taking the pill for about three weeks at this point and had to get ready for my Down Regulation drugs. From what I’ve read about, most people take a morning shot of Buserelin (my dose was 0.3ml). This can also be taken in the form of a nasal spray for some people. The sole purpose of the down regulation drugs is to shut down your reproductive system and suppress any eggs from starting to grow. In other words – you enter into a sort of early menopause! And believe me, if you thought your hormones were bad when you’re on your period... just wait! Menopause will be a whole other ball game – yikes! 

My first injection was terrifying. They don’t bother me normally, but the reason behind taking them and the fact that I was giving them to myself made me really emotional that morning! I had scheduled to take them at 7:30am, as I knew that when it came to taking the evening shots in a few weeks that they had to be 12 hours apart. Well, that first needle didn’t pierce any skin until 7:50am!  

I won’t go into great detail about how to take them, or tips and tricks to make it easier. This blog isn’t an IVF blog – it’s a blog about my life and experiences, after all! I was however, instructed to take them in my upper thigh. You see in the movies couples injecting themselves in their butt, or tummy, but I was told simply to do it in my leg because it hurts the least! Simple as. J alternates taking his insulin injection in his tummy or his leg just primarily because he takes four a day and it’s good not to keep going in the same place to reduce swelling, bruising etc. So, I knew it was perfectly safe! 

After a few days of down-regging, I was getting into the swing of things and was perfectly fine administering the injections myself. But then came the side effects – temper tantrums (well that’s just my usual behaviour, but let’s blame it on the drugs for now!), night sweats, hot flushes, feeling weepy all the time – and all in the height of that massive heat wave of 2018! Just as fast as I would apply my makeup in the morning getting ready for work, it would just melt off again. Jesus, I was HOT. 

Not a pretty photo - but these hot flushes were the side-effects of the DR drugs... in the middle of a bloody heatwave!

After a fortnight of these drugs, I was sent for a baseline scan at the clinic. Ahh, I got to meet the elusive Wanda. Wanda, in case you’re new to this, is the affectionate name we IVF’ers call the probe that scans your uterus. It kinda looks like a wand, I guess. And she goes up your hoohoo. Yep, the scan is transvaginal – no tummy ultrasounds for us, yet! This scan is important, as it checks to make sure that your lining is nice and thin, ready to start the Stimulation drugs. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, and by now I was quite used to getting my southern area out for strangers! The nurse told me everything was looking good, and my lining was less than 1mm thin – yay! My body was doing something right! I was sent back to the waiting room whilst I waited for a consultant to call me, and after a few minutes I was taken into another room. “Congratulations, it’s time to start stimming!” she said. 

KEB x

Bride Squad Goals

Oh yeah. And before any of this happened, I had already bought my bridesmaid’s dresses. Oops! Another thrift-buy – when I was still working in retail and the date of my leaving day was drawing ever-closer, I snatched up two beautiful Debut dresses from Debenhams while I still had my staff discount. I had always dreamed of pale pinks as the colour theme for our wedding, but as the girls tried them on during numerous “let’s pretend you’re a bridesmaid” trips, we quickly realised this colour just did not suit them. The colour of the dresses baffled me for months. People would ask and all I could tell them was that yes it was a greeny-bluey-colour, but not aqua and not teal and not sage green and not Tiffany blue… I was stumped! I’m so good with colours! I grew up in retail, where everything is described as mustard/cobalt/fuschia/oxblood – what was this colour!? 

Seafoam green was how Pinterest – the Mother of all wedding planners – described my wedding theme. 

In fact, the dresses were the only seafoam green things around. The boys would be in grey, and our theme had turned very woodland/rustic/earthy/natural – therefore my thinking was that the greeny hue was another nod to Mother Earth. We eventually teamed them with light peach ribbons and brooches, just to give it a pop of colour. The flower girls also had sale-buy dresses, which were in fact just a sheer stroke of luck. I had adored a beautiful white bridesmaid dress that Monsoon Children had, which was adorned with green leaves and pale pink blossoms. Everything was tying in perfectly with our colour palette – except they were £55 each and there was no way I was paying that for something they’d probably spill chocolate cake down. One day as I was mooching around town with my mum, I thought we could pop in and I’d show her what I’d seen – and lo and behold – they had just gone into the sale for £15 each. Kerching! Sold! As for accessories, all four girls’ shoes were from Debenhams, where I chose pretty ivory ballet pumps for the little ones, and gold glittery embellished peep-toes for the adults. A and H each had a gold glitter clutch bag from Linea in House of Fraser. Both the adults’ shoes and bags were reduced to half price in the January sales – another bargain win! 

Everything for my 'maids outfits were discounted - one way or another!

I had absolutely no trouble choosing my Bridal Squad. J and I are lucky in the sense that we didn’t feel obliged to ask any sisters or close cousins to be bridesmaids. I just don’t agree with that fact. Why should your family have to be in your bridal party? Who decided this?! Fair enough, if you’re really close then do whatever you please – but I can name a handful of friends who are already married and chose their ‘maids based on the fact that they shared the same DNA with them. One of them even chose her husband’s sister to be her Maid of Honour – and she didn’t even come to her Hen Do?! And then there’s the people who choose them out of obligation and then moan all-day-fucking-long about the fact that Miss Had-to-be-a-Maid doesn’t like her bridal hair style. Or her heels are too uncomfortable. Or she went and dyed her hair blue. Just fuck off. Choose the girls who are by your side no matter what. The ones who are there for you through the best of times, and the times when you just want to cry and cry and cry all night – haplessly sobbing that you can’t have the flowers you always wanted because they’re not in season. I can honestly – hand on heart – say that My Girls are the only two things in the entire wedding planning process that I can’t complain about. They were absolutely phenomenal to me, and for that – I am eternally grateful and blessed to be able to call them my very best friends.

I met my Maid of Honour A through a funny turn of events. Let’s just say childhood boy drama brought us – surprisingly! – together! We’ve been the best of friends since we were 15 and just get each other. I’m not going to get all mushy about her. She’d hate that, she’s hard as nails and blunt as fuck. In fact, not many girls like her for this reason. But I love her! My second ‘maid in command was H, who is such a darling. I love that even though A and H didn’t really know each other before, by pushing them together as my bridesmaids it has made them best friends, too. Us girls just seem to click together – why hadn’t we all hung out before?! H is the sort of person you couldn’t say a bad word about. I met her in my first retail job when I was 17, and we quickly became so close! Funnily enough, when I was a bridesmaid for H, I then became really close to her best friend, C, too! It’s so lovely how weddings can bring people together – surprising, when I’m sure you know how much they can rip them apart, too! :P 

A & H were the perfect 'maids - and now our squad is complete!

Two gorgeous little ladies completed our Bride Squad as our flower girls. We had R, J’s cousin who I’d known since birth and am very close to. O is the daughter of our family friends’ whom J grew up with. She was the first baby born in J’s group of mates, and when her parents announced they were expecting, J even got a bit teary-eyed about it! Bless him, what a sap. So it was very cute of him when he said to me that he’d like O to play a part in our wedding – see girls, your men need to make decisions in the wedding planning, too!

KEB x

IVF Got This

Our GP had recommended us for assisted conception after the devastating diagnosis of J’s sperm analysis. At this point in our journey, we are now up to October 2017 – 18 months after we started trying for a baby. We already had a rough idea of what would happen, as our local assisted reproductive centre – the Ocean Suite in Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital – regularly holds open evenings for couples trying to conceive, and we attended one that summer. We discovered that our CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) provides one round of IVF free to patients who are under the age of 40, whose BMI is under 29, and who don’t already have children or step-children. We ticked off all of those categories, so our first round was, thankfully, on the NHS. This is something huge to consider if you’re thinking about going through IVF. It’s no secret that it costs thousands of pounds, and unfortunately the NHS really is a postcode lottery. Recommended guidelines state that actually THREE rounds should be offered, but ultimately, it’s down to the local CCG to decide on what they can afford. Some areas don’t get any :(

My IVF Babble pineapple pin, pineapple bracelet and my late gran’s watch are little reminders to keep me going!

Our initial consultant was a lovely lady named Bridget, and her mannerisms and soft but candid voice put me at ease at once. She advised that due to our results, it would be preferable to bypass all of the other types of assisted conception e.g. Clomid tablets/IUI etc., and just go straight to IVF. Well actually, we would be trying ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection), a more concentrated form of IVF for couples with MFI (Male Factor Infertility). This is because In Vitro Fertilisation is the process in which an egg is fertilised “naturally” by a sperm in a petri dish (not the stereotypical test tube the movies would have us believe!) by the natural “survival of the fittest” process. ICSI involves “cleaning” an egg, and carefully picking up a pre-selected single sperm with a tiny needle, and injecting it directly into the egg. Both procedures have a list of pros and cons, so please don’t think that ICSI sounds like it should be more successful – not all eggs fertilise despite this process. The egg also becomes more delicate due to the cleaning, again putting fertilisation chances at risk. 

Women are also subjected to yet another test – a HSG (Hysterosalpingogram) scan. It’s similar to a smear test, except that you’re in a room with about 5 other people, you’re emotional any way because of why you’re there, and actually it really fucking hurts. You lay down with your legs akimbo, and they insert a catheter into your hoohoo. An iodine dye is injected into you, and x-rays are taken while you’re on your back, your side, and your front. This gives the doctors a clear indication of what your uterus looks like, and whether there are any blockages in your fallopian tubes which could be hindering your fertility. I bawled my bloody eyes out throughout the whole thing, and the nurses couldn’t have been sweeter about it. It was the first time I'd really let my guard down to my parents about it all too, and knowing that my mum was on the other side of the cubicle whilst I got changed into my gown was such a comfort. It was a proper “I need my mummy” kind of episode!

A few weeks later, I received the results of my HSG scan and got the all-clear – everything was fine with me in the doctor’s mind. It was now January 2018, and after another consultation with our clinic, we made the decision to officially go for ICSI. At this point, I was then ordered to do yet another blood test (we’re up to 4 now!) and sent home with some pretty bulky consent forms. This is a big deal. Your consent appointment is almost like a legal preparation between you, your partner (if applicable) and the doctors. You take the forms home and read through them meticulously, because it asks you all sorts of things like “in the event of your partner’s death, what would you like to do with any remaining embryos you have in storage?” Heavy stuff!

At the end of February 2018, we finally had our consent appointment, and given a provisional date for ICSI in June. EEK!! We were scheduled for a drugs demonstration, which didn’t bother me as I’m fine with needles (J has Type 1 Diabetes, so needles are a-plenty in our household!). However, my friend K is so terrified of needles, she just had to face the wall and cry throughout the entire thing whilst her partner took notes and became Needle Administrator for her!

Patients are either given a long or short protocol, and I was on the long one. This means that in order to prep your body ready for the clinic’s schedule, they put you on the contraceptive pill. Weird, huh?! To finally get pregnant, one must go back on that dreaded thing you had flushed out of your system! So in early April, I started The Pill again. This helps to shut down your reproductive system and get you in sync with your clinic’s diary, and then they tell you when to stop it and start taking your first round of injections: the Down Regulation drugs. 

KEB x

The Dress

Ahh. My dress. One of the most excruciating parts of our wedding planning journey.

Did I have that “IT’S THE ONE!” moment in my dress? No. Does everyone? No! Society has taught us ladies that as soon as we put on the dress we should know instantly that that’s what you’re going to get married in, and you have this fantasy vision of you screaming “I said yes to the dress!” But that’s not reality. I think in total I tried on between 40-50 dresses before finally settling on the one I got married in. I say settle, as that’s exactly what I did – even thought it had exactly everything I wanted about it! Weird, huh? 

If you ever ask me what my dream dress looks like, it’s this: 

Photo courtesy of Naomi Neoh - I do not own this photo. Or this dress, for that matter. 

The Naomi Neoh Dita dress was the epitome of my wedding dress dreams. It was plastered over every wedding magazine for a couple of years leading up to our wedding – I couldn’t turn a page without seeing the advert for it. But it had a hefty price tag (around £2,500) to go with it, and I’m sorry, but I just CANNOT justify that for a dress. That I’ll wear once. For 12 hours. My parents wanted to buy my dress, and knowing that they weren’t the most well-off of people just made my heart break to think of them parting with that kind of money. I’m sure if I was adamant and asked them, they’d have bought it in a heartbeat. But that wasn’t the point. I wanted to set a budget of under £1,000 – if that was possible.  

So I put my frugal hat on, and started trawling the net. I tried various second-hand sites such as Preloved, Still White, eBay and Gumtree, trying to find Dita in a size 10 for a reasonable price. But everyone who was selling her still wanted an exceptional price for her (£1,200+) and again I just couldn’t justify it. I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t have her, and used her as inspiration for the next 40 dresses I tried on. Not one of them even came close to matching her glory, and I really, REALLY started panicking that My Dress wasn’t out there.  

The closest I came to trying on Dita in my local bridal shop! This one had pockets (!!) but just couldn't match up to her :(

This is where you brides have to start thinking outside the box. We dream up these visions of what we think we want, and 9 times out of 10 we walk away with something completely different to what we started with. This is what happened to me! I tried on every single style of dress in every single material, and this was a really good stepping stone for coming out of my comfort zone. I realised that despite wanting the big Princess gown, they just drowned my boyish figure. You notice that there are so many shades of wedding dresses – white, ivory, cream, champagne, oyster, pearl, blush – that not all of them will suit you and your complexion. I’m quite pale, and we found that something off-white really complemented my skin tone.  

The dress I got married in wasn’t chosen by me, but by the shop assistant. I can’t tag the shop I bought it in as it doesn’t exist anymore, but I was adamant that I didn’t want to go in there because nothing I’d seen in the windows had ever appealed to me. I only went in to appease my soon-to-be Mother in Law, who had actually bought her wedding dress from there many moons ago! Another point to consider – just have an open mind! You may be very surprised how first impressions can change.  

By the time I found my gown, I was frustrated and nearly in tears that I STILL hadn’t found anything. And I’d been trying on dresses well before we’d even got engaged!! However, we had a really good shop assistant helping my mum and I find a dress, and she’d really listened to what I wanted. I loved lace, I needed something off-white. I looooove bows (I have a bow tattoo!), and wanted a strapless, sweetheart neckline. I really hated corset-back dresses, so either a hidden zip or buttons would suffice. If it made my ass look fab and my waist tiny, then we were on to a winner.  

She pulled out a dress I had previously bypassed on the rails. It was by designer White Rose and the style number is R704. If I’m honest, I think other dress companies have bought out this style, as I’ve seen it listed elsewhere under a different name and designer. It had a price tag of £1,250 – still WAY over-budget – but I tried it on anyway. I came out of the fitting room, and my mum didn’t get all teary-eyed or scream with joy… But she was SO certain – that was it. Time to stop looking! 

"Breathe, not long to go now!"

And I mean, it did look kinda great on me. Not to be big-headed, but I do really like my bum. And this gave Beyoncé and J-Lo a run for their money. Waist was tiny – tick. It was off-white, as it had white lace with an oyster-coloured satin underneath. It had a bow, which even had a bit of pearl and crystal embellishment on it! A zip on the back was hidden by lace-covered buttons the entire length of the dress, right down to the puddle train at the bottom. And it had the most beautiful eyelash hem along the trim that was just perfect! Like, how, did she ever find this – and I completely overlooked it?! It just goes to show… don’t judge a book by its cover! 

The price still bugged me though. So off I went, back to my second-hand sites. And lo and behold! A lovely girl from Scotland was selling R704 in a size 10, had had the length shortened as she was only 5’4” (same as me!) and the bust let out slightly for her 32D chest (same as me!). It was the most perfect size for me and… it was only £500!! She was such a genuine seller, who had only worn it for her wedding ceremony in Vegas (where we had our honeymoon – like, it’s meant to be?!) and then her first dance. She’d had it professionally cleaned, and when I asked for more photos she was more than happy to send over 20+ photos of every single angle of the dress, which had absolutely nothing wrong with it. She even offered to pay for it to be sent by Next Day delivery, AND threw in her Wonderbra that she wore with it and never wore since! I mean, come on! Can you get more amazing than that?! I snapped it up (well, Bank of Mum and Dad did) and it was perfect.  

It just goes to show, that with a little persistence and research, you really can get the dress of your dreams. It doesn’t have to be The One you’d always imagined, and it doesn’t have to break the bank if you don’t want it to. I had absolutely no problem with the fact that My Dress was second-hand. When I tell people it is, they are completely shocked as it looked so brand-new! I didn’t feel that instant connection to the dress in the shop, and I think that’s what helped my ideology of what The Dress did, or didn’t, mean to me.  

Ultimately, it’s a dress that as I’ve said before – you’re only going to wear once, and not even for very long. Yes, it’s the most important thing you’ll ever wear in your life. But the most important thing about your wedding isn’t what you wear; it’s who you’re standing opposite when you wear it!  

And what are you even going to do with it after? Store it away in the loft, never to be looked at again save for when/if your future daughter wants to play dress-up in it? Would you sell it on? Cut it short and wear it to a cocktail party? I mean seriously, who has cocktail parties?! After having it professionally cleaned for around £80 (this does differ depending on the size of your dress etc.) I asked my mother, who is so amazing at all things crafty and creative (obvs passed down this to me in her genes!), if she would be up to the job of cutting it up into little pieces, and wondered if she could make me a teddy bear out of it! She – gulp – obliged, and set about chopping it up according to a pattern I’d found off eBay. I’d seen those people on Facebook who take baby clothes and turn them into bears, so why couldn’t it be done with a wedding dress? The only thing was, everyone I found who’d made a wedding dress bear made them look a bit… rubbish! There was just nothing special about them, and they looked quite sad! Maybe it was just what the seamstress had to work with, as some dresses are quite gopping, but I really didn’t want my dress in anybody’s hands except my mumma’s! And this was the end result… I’m sorry, I know I’m biased – but how fucking amazing is this bear?! Talk about THAT for a family heirloom! My aptly-named Lacey Bear takes pride of place in our bedroom, and one day will end up in our future child’s nursery. I think being able to look at my dress every day in the form of this beautiful keepsake is a much better use for your dress, post-wedding! 

My mum chopped up my wedding dress and turned it into Lacey Bear! 

She used the bow for a bow-tie and recycled the buttons to run down the back of her. 

Obviously, what you decide to do with your dress is completely up to you. Maybe you’ll frame it? Or use the offcuts to make pretty jewellery or a small keepsake, such as a decorative heart to hang in your house? Why not Trash the Dress in a messy photoshoot in the sea or jumping around in muddy puddles? The age-old tradition, of course, is to cut it into a christening gown for your baby. What would you do with your dress? 

P.s whatever you do decide to do, I highly recommend getting it cleaned as soon as you can after your wedding. Dry cleaners can store them in special tissue paper to preserve the dress, and provide keepsake boxes for them. Either way, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get out stains, so it’s best to sort your dress out ASAP! Just get one of your bridesmaids or your mum to take it to the cleaners while you’re on honeymoon :P

KEB x