My top 10 tips for surviving IVF

I thought I would share with you how I’ve got through this (in the absence of wine! ha ha). Hope they are helpful and tell you something you don’t already know.

1. Acupuncture – weekly then twice weekly. Find a clinic that specialises in IVF. My experience was that the acupuncture almost completely eliminated any side effects. Read here for more info.

2. Yoga – if you’re a fitness junkie who likes to flog your body doing cardio, I reckon it’s time to be kind to yourself (see point 5). Yoga allows you to flex and strengthen not just your body but your mind. You mind being your greatest asset or worst enemy, sometimes simultaneously. The stillness and focus that comes from a yoga practice can help you recognise this. And ooh it’s good to stretch and work those joints if you are still feeling some side effects despite having acupuncture.

3. Meditation – by continually bringing your mind back to the “now”, you access calm and quiet, free from anticipation of the future and memories of the past. I also use it for goal-setting – visualising exactly what I want (while calm and relaxed) and then sending that intention to god/the universe/the field of all possibility (whatever appeals to you) to sort it out. Then let go of the attachment to the outcome.

4. Rest – lots

5. Be kind to yourself, even treat yourself to a pampering. Recognise that yes, you do have  a lot going on right now, so it’s not the time to be running marathons/ moving/putting in long hours at the office/helping out friends who won’t help themselves/keeping the house in perfect order… or whatever else takes you away from yourself. Have a massage, go to a yoga class (see point 2), go for a walk in nature.

6. Someone to offload to – your partner, or if you’re doing this solo like me, a sympathetic friend. Support is crucial.

7.  Lots of healthy food – I read a book called The Fertility Diet by Sarah Dobbyn which I found very useful. Not that I followed every one of her rules but it’s still good to keep in the back of your mind.

8. Remember your life outside of IVF.

9. Stay positive. No point otherwise.

10. I’m going to go all yoga on you again and say, “Tapas, swadhyaya, isvara pranidhana” which roughly translates (or the way I have learnt it anyway) as do all you can, gain as much self knowledge as you can, but know that sometimes, you have to surrender to a higher power. And I know that’s a hard one.

Go the acupuncture

I’ve been having twice-weekly acupuncture treatments at a specialised IVF acupuncture clinic, and let me tell you, the difference I feel between this cycle and the last one is amazing.

Last time – lethargy, night sweats, thumping headaches every second day when I started Gonal-f, puffiness, achy joints, a revolting period, and just general not-feeling-greatness.

This time – perfectly normal. Really – perfectly normal. And I’m also on a higher dose of the Gonal-f – 600 units, which I think is a LOT. Ok, so I did have some night sweats in the first week, but I think even they have stopped. (I had continued to get the night sweats even last month – between cycles when I was not on any drugs – so not getting them now is great, especially since it’s about 35 degrees today, and hot at night.)

Let’s hope that it has the same positive effect on the final result…ie a big fat BABY. Actually not too big, I still have to carry it around for nine months, then get it out.

What’s the deal with acupuncture?

• Apparently in clinical trials acupuncture has been shown to be quite effective not only for reducing side effects, but also to increasing the chance of success – so I can say empirically it has worked for the side effects for me.
• They recommend you go for a treatment on the day of embryo transfer as it can help implantation – last time I went for acupuncture a few days AFTER transfer (and not to a specialised IVF clinic) so this time, I’m more prepared.
• It prepares the uterine lining by improving blood flow and improves hormone levels. Last time my period was, in a word, yuck. This time, I’ve hardly noticed it. Awesome.
• Apparently it can help women who have a history of infertility or miscarriage (can’t vouch for this one as I have no experience).

So I would highly recommend anyone going through IVF to seek out an acupuncture clinic that specialises in IVF. Apart from anything else, it’s really relaxing, which is crucial in this process.

And I’ve got a week and a half off work now, so I’m relaaxxxed…………. just need the timing to go my way – ie, day in hospital for egg collection next Monday, a couple of days to recover, then back to work Thursday with no-one any the wiser. (Though I may have to take the Thursday off the put the embryos back in… but you know, c’est la vie).

Right, now I’m going to meditate on lots of healthy eggs, and a healthy, happy, fat baby.

x

Agonising…

… pain. Not the agonising two-week wait.

Since my last post at the beginning of the week, I took a turn for the worst, and in all honesty, couldn’t have cared less if I was pregnant or not. When I had that thought I tried to turn it around, but really, ugh. All I could think was, “I want to feel normal again”. And I guess one of the implications of that was that “normal” was not “pregnant”.

So if anyone out there in the great big interweb googles “extreme crippling pain following ivf egg collection”, here is my week in a nutshell:

• Intense, stabbing pain in my right ovary – this may be because I had more eggs taken from the right ovary, but when I called the clinic, they could not confirm as my records were “elsewhere”.
• Intense, stabbing crampy pain in my uterus.
• Intense pain in my bowel every time it contracted (releasing nothing mind you), which radiated throughout my lower abdominal area. I’ve spent a lot of time in the foetal position, or with my cheek against the cool tiles of the bathroom floor. There’s something very comforting about those cool bathroom tiles.
• Really sore boobs.
• General miserableness and feeling-sorry-for-myselfness.

I called the clinic almost every day, explaining my symptoms and asking if anyone else had experienced this. They said it was ok for me to take paracetamol (which I hadn’t been taking), so that kind of dealt with the cramps, and said sometimes girls had complained of constipation, and kept on telling me to take Metamucil and it would be fine.

I was in so much pain on Wednesday night I knew I wasn’t going to make it into work the next day. By Friday, the cramping in my uterus had all but stopped but I was still as bunged up as  – can’t think of an appropriate simile – what’s something really, really bunged up? More Metamucil and other fibre supplements. More doubling over in pain every time my bowel contracted (always with no perceivable result). I could only think – is this what child birth is like? Getting in some super-early practice if it is.

It got even more gross, but I will spare you the details, that’s just between me and the bathroom floor. By Saturday I thought surely those fibre supplements will have got to work. But no. They hadn’t. I was really thinking I was going to have to go to hospital and get it sucked out of me. Really, all that waste matter cannot be good for anyone, let alone someone with a tiny baby bud growing in the next compartment.

So I went to the closest GP – on the corner of my street and Bondi Road, the one that I didn’t have to walk too far to (I had tried to go to my GP yesterday in the city but she wasn’t in and all the other doctors at that surgery were fully booked. Wouldn’t want to be dying).  He was very lovely and serious in a Russian way (lots of Russians in Bondi), pressed my belly and pronounced that he didn’t think it was serious and I wasn’t going to die (my interpretation). He just prescribed a more heavy duty treatment, and so here I sit, waiting for it to work its magic.

I can’t tell you how much better I felt after seeing him. I felt so miserable, and really thought there was something dreadfully wrong. And as he was talking, he said, “and because you might be pregnant” but then he corrected himself and said “well you probably are pregnant”, which I thought was a really nice thing. He obviously understands the longing and hope and effort and money (he did mention the money) involved that he didn’t want to just say, “oh you might be” . That’s how it seemed to me anyway.

Weakened state eats away at willpower

In my physically and emotionally weakened state, I have had all types of cravings for bad things. Donuts. Icecream (gave in to that one). Pies. Pizza, chocolate (gave in to that too). And bags.

Yesterday on my slow and agonising walk from the office to the train station, I seriously had the urge to buy a shit-hot new bag – even though I was sick as a dog. What’s that about? I looked in Mimco – sales. Managed to walk out empty handed. I sidled past Burberry. Thought better of it – phew. I just knew the pleasure would be very short lived. So I’ve bought myself Vogue and Grazia as consolation. They’re not though. They are designed to make you lust for crazily beautiful, insanely overpriced stuff.

And have me thinking I’d really like a pair of pink skinny leg pants this summer. And some in electric blue too. But I’ll probably be wearing mu-mus instead. I’ll just have to channel my thwarted fashion cravings into shoes. Or baby stuff.

Now that I’m feeling better, or will be any time now…  I can go back to positive baby thoughts. I have had more than a few moments this week when I’ve thought, oh my God, I don’t really want this. What have I done? But I’m sure it’s the misery talking and the fear that comes around any sort of life change. Change is a good thing.

Hmm, I think this post needs to be filed under the “too much information” category, for which I apologise, but really, you’re reading because you want to know right?