Injection Archives - The IVF Club

The IVF Waiting Game

November 30, 2009 By Carol 3 Comments

Well I am officially in the 2 week waiting zone but the reality is, when you are doing IVF, every aspect of your life can become a waiting game. And it’s a game that is not always fun.

The problem with IVF is that all one ever does is WAIT! Your life becomes measured in units of time.

You wait to get your period so you can start IVF. You wait day after day to ovulate so the frozen embryo can be transferred. Yout wait until it can be transferred. You wait for your next blood test. You wait for your next ultrasound appointment. You do the two week wait. You wait to get pregnant. You wait before you do the pregnancy test. You wait for the fertility clinic to call you back. You wait for those test results even though most times you already know the answer.

You wait to start the contraceptive pill. You wait to start the nasal spray. You wait to start injections. You wait to do the final injection. You wait to have sex so the sperm is at it’s peak. You wait for Egg Retrieval. You wait for embryo transfer. You wait to hear news about the rest of your fertilization rates so you know how many you have left on ice. You wait to get your period.

You wait until you are in a better emotional state to tell your friends and family the outcome. You wait for the grief to disappear. You wait until you can get your next appointment. You wait another month before can start again. You wait for it to be your turn to be pregnant. You wait for your weight to return back to normal after all the weight gain from ferility medications. You wait for your skin to return back to normal because the fertility medications have made your nose look like Rudoph the Red nose reindeer. You wait in a job you no longer enjoy just in case you might be pregnant.

I don’t know about you, but I feel I’ve waited long enough! I just want a positive outcome. Four more days til my next blood test. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Antagonist IVF Cycle and Acupuncture

November 12, 2009 By Carol 3 Comments

Today is Day 7 of my cycle and the 6th day of follicle stimulating injections. I had my first ultrasound and blood test for cycle 9 yesterday. Goodness my IVF cycle count is getting on the high side.

The ultrasound was interesting – they spotted 16 follicles in the right ovary and 14 in the left – the largest follicle was getting close to 16 but the rest were much smaller 11 and 12 and some still unmeasureable. Its really all meaningless at this point because the follicles have a lot of growing to do before egg collection.

As a consequence of one follicle being slightly larger, I had to take my first antagonist injection this morning to prevent ovulation. I had wanted to do a photo blog of it this time but I got camera shy. I thought it might be a novel twist. Maybe another time. Although I am not sure I want to expose my belly that is starting to bloat and become bruised from the treatment to the world. This injection is not too bad, relatively painless but it takes a bit more pressure to pierce this particular needle into my belly and the injected area tends to be quite itchy for an hour or so. I’ve done my second injection for stimulating my follicles tonight and will be back to the clinic tomorrow for another ultrasound and blood test.

Once I have a date set for egg collection, I will be ringing my acupuncturist for some treatment before egg collection and plan to have some more treatment around embryo transfer time. I didn’t do this treatment the last few cycles – mainly due to the fact that I developed an aversion to needles and that I had to drive for an hour in peak hour traffic just to get treatment. I figured the stress of the journey worked against me. However, acupuncture seriously is about the only other thing that has been documented in studies to assist in conception. My new acupuncturist seems quite capable too and specialises in gynaecology of Chinese Traditional Medicine from Beijing University.

IVF Tests, Scans and Costs

July 27, 2009 By Carol Leave a Comment

Today marks the third scan and blood test that I have had in less than a week. The good news is that my follicles are coming along nicely and there are now 10 reasonably large follicles (hopefully with some eggs inside of them).

It seems that at certain point, the ultrasound team don’t measure the small follicles – just the larger ones. What I’d like to know is what happened to the other 20 plus follicles that were detected only a few days earlier!! I suppose they are still there in hiding.

In any case, that question goes unanswered as I learn that I am scheduled for egg collection this Friday 31st July. This means taking the day off on sick leave and not working at my part-time job on Saturday.

It also means two more injections tonight and two more tomorrow night and then a final one on Wednesday night to trigger ovulation. All good fun. My aversion to needles is back with a vengence. The veins in my arms have gone into hiding. My stomach is looking pretty bruised from all the needles. I am starting to feel bloated and uncomfortable again from my swollen ovaries. My purse is $166 lighter after paying for two more antagonist injections. Is it worth it? Definately if we get a positive result and a healthy baby at the end of it all.

Losing IVF Medication

July 26, 2009 By Carol Leave a Comment

Oh dear! I am using a new injectable medicine called Orgalutran. This is an antagonist medication that prevents ovulation.

The medication comes in the form of a syringe rather than a nasal spray. The syringe is not adjustable like some of the pen style syringes where you can adjust the dosage. This little baby is all ready to go. In most cases, you are supposed to depress the syringe until the air comes out and there is a little droplet of the medicine at the end of the syringe.

The only trouble is that I pushed it too far and it seemed to me like a gush of medicine came out. At $83 per injection and the risk of ovaluating this is not good news.

Fortunately on closer inspection, it does not seem like I lost more than a third of the medication so I injected it anyway. What else could I do. Its the weekend. I rationalise that it is early days and I only had my scan today and only 2 follicles were 14mm while the other 28 were still pretty small. Since its the weekend and the clinic is closed on Sunday, I will tell me nurse tomorrow.

IVF Antagonist Cycle

July 23, 2009 By Carol 1 Comment

I am now commencing IVF cycle #7. This should be interesting. My Doctor has changed the treatment protocol and I will now be having an antagonist cycle???

An antagonist cycle essentially means that at a certain point of the cycle I will need to inject twice daily – the first injection being a follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and the second being a injection that apparently stops you from ovulating. For those familiar with IVF, the second injection is a substitute for the nasal spray.

The antagonist cycle is more intense but the benefit of this cycle is that it is quicker than a normal IVF cycle. I have been told that generally the aim is for less eggs but more quality. Given I produce a lot of eggs, this should be interesting.

In any case, I had an appointment at the IVF clinic to test my hormone levels and also how many follicles I had. My expectations weren’t that high given it is only Day 6 of my cycle and I have been injecting FSH for the last 3 days (although tonight’s dose makes it 4).

Fortunately I don’t have to have the second injection just yet as the follicles are too small and immature. However, during my ultrasound visit I learnt that I had 18 follicles in one ovary and 9 in the other. Amazing! I only counted 5 of the 18 and expected a lot less at this early stage.

I am now hoping that they don’t all mature because there will be hell to pay as I get nearer to egg collection. That many eggs = bloating and sore tummy. My highest number of eggs collected was 22 so with a bit of luck there won’t be any more than that.

So my next visit to the clinic will be in two days time. Lucky me – I get to get up early on Saturday morning for an 8am appointment.