Day 6 of Buselerin and day 4 of my stims - Menopur - and my evening pre-bath routine is starting to resemble a scene out of Breaking Bad. My husband, aka Jessie Pinkman, is called up to the bathroom at around 10pm every night, and while I give myself my second Buselerin injection of the day, he cooks up the meth, otherwise known as snapping the ampule and adding 4 vials of Menopur, and switching the needles.
I handed this job over to him as I had a full blown pity party the first time I tried to do it on my own. I felt overwhelmed at the amount of stuff I needed to mix, the size of the needles and that it seemed like a f*ck load of drugs to be sticking in my tummy. He was very good bless him, and said all the right things, and gave me a hug. I was shaky beforehand but even more so afterwards and felt all kinds of odd as it kicked into my system.
I purposely didn't read the side effects as I knew it would freak me out and I would start imagining having most of them. But then yesterday my left ovary, which has never felt as happy and healthy as my right ovary, started really aching, like it does sometimes when I'm ovulating, but much more so, and today I decided to google the side effects. I ended up finding a few forums and entering into the online IVF community and to be honest it felt a bit overwhelming.
Early on in my TTC journey I was chatting to a friend who is also TTC and I mentioned I hadn't been on any of the forums yet as I just didn't fancy it, and she counselled me to avoid it if possible, as she had got into them and found it quite a lot to deal with. I had a look around a couple today, and while it did feel lovely to see so much support, I also felt this undercurrent, quite understandably, of desperation, fear, and dwindling hopes, intermixed with all the support and positivity. And I wonder how people feel when they bond with another going through the same thing on these forums and one of them gets pregnant and the other doesn't. I am a very sensitive person, both to other people's emotions and my own, so perhaps it isn't for me.
That being said though I did enjoy it when I opened up my anonymous twitter account - @TabithaRoseBlue - to support this blog and some lovely people welcomed me into the community, and I felt a little less alone on this journey. Meanwhile my friend I mentioned recently who is undergoing natural IVF without drugs had her first pregnancy test on Friday after her 2ww and it was only a faint positive so she had another today and it was the same. She shared all this, as she has with all of her IVF journey to date, on facebook, and the outpouring of support being sent her way is beautiful. I admire her openness and courage, but I still prefer my quiet refuge of anonymity because if the worst happens and I don't get pregnant this time around, I will have the space to try and deal with my emotions, and if the angels and baby dust are working their magic and a little soul does decide to come into our lives, I will also have the first couple of months to hopefully also process this with my husband before anything is announced.
If I had my way I would happily move countries when I became pregnant, keep it a secret and say that I was going travelling, then move temporarily to a lovely Mediterranean country and eat lovely food in the sunshine and then arrive back 9 months later with a little bundle of love, and avoid all the stress and worry that comes with other people knowing and potentially planting fears in my mind about my age (42) and all the other things that people talk about the put the fear of god in someone at this very sensitive time.
Wednesday will be my second scan and hopefully all will be looking good in there and we can get a date for egg collection. I can't think too much about this process as it scares me so I'm still taking it one day at a time. I'm also taking the injections one day at a time and trying not to get too freaked out at i-time, as it says on my phone reminder, twice a day.
Thankfully I don't seem to be having to too many side effects, so far just a big spot on my cheek, a place I never get them, which I think correlates to a liver imbalance in that area, so I'm getting lots of fresh veggies in to juice tomorrow, and I am more emotional than usual, having just bawled through a couple of TV programmes that really weren't that sad. I'm doing a bit of self healing which is helping and just trying to keep myself busy and not think too far ahead in the future. Although I am aware that this time next week I could be very near to having some lovely healthy embryos transferred into me. Eeek!
I handed this job over to him as I had a full blown pity party the first time I tried to do it on my own. I felt overwhelmed at the amount of stuff I needed to mix, the size of the needles and that it seemed like a f*ck load of drugs to be sticking in my tummy. He was very good bless him, and said all the right things, and gave me a hug. I was shaky beforehand but even more so afterwards and felt all kinds of odd as it kicked into my system.
I purposely didn't read the side effects as I knew it would freak me out and I would start imagining having most of them. But then yesterday my left ovary, which has never felt as happy and healthy as my right ovary, started really aching, like it does sometimes when I'm ovulating, but much more so, and today I decided to google the side effects. I ended up finding a few forums and entering into the online IVF community and to be honest it felt a bit overwhelming.
Early on in my TTC journey I was chatting to a friend who is also TTC and I mentioned I hadn't been on any of the forums yet as I just didn't fancy it, and she counselled me to avoid it if possible, as she had got into them and found it quite a lot to deal with. I had a look around a couple today, and while it did feel lovely to see so much support, I also felt this undercurrent, quite understandably, of desperation, fear, and dwindling hopes, intermixed with all the support and positivity. And I wonder how people feel when they bond with another going through the same thing on these forums and one of them gets pregnant and the other doesn't. I am a very sensitive person, both to other people's emotions and my own, so perhaps it isn't for me.
That being said though I did enjoy it when I opened up my anonymous twitter account - @TabithaRoseBlue - to support this blog and some lovely people welcomed me into the community, and I felt a little less alone on this journey. Meanwhile my friend I mentioned recently who is undergoing natural IVF without drugs had her first pregnancy test on Friday after her 2ww and it was only a faint positive so she had another today and it was the same. She shared all this, as she has with all of her IVF journey to date, on facebook, and the outpouring of support being sent her way is beautiful. I admire her openness and courage, but I still prefer my quiet refuge of anonymity because if the worst happens and I don't get pregnant this time around, I will have the space to try and deal with my emotions, and if the angels and baby dust are working their magic and a little soul does decide to come into our lives, I will also have the first couple of months to hopefully also process this with my husband before anything is announced.
If I had my way I would happily move countries when I became pregnant, keep it a secret and say that I was going travelling, then move temporarily to a lovely Mediterranean country and eat lovely food in the sunshine and then arrive back 9 months later with a little bundle of love, and avoid all the stress and worry that comes with other people knowing and potentially planting fears in my mind about my age (42) and all the other things that people talk about the put the fear of god in someone at this very sensitive time.
Wednesday will be my second scan and hopefully all will be looking good in there and we can get a date for egg collection. I can't think too much about this process as it scares me so I'm still taking it one day at a time. I'm also taking the injections one day at a time and trying not to get too freaked out at i-time, as it says on my phone reminder, twice a day.
Thankfully I don't seem to be having to too many side effects, so far just a big spot on my cheek, a place I never get them, which I think correlates to a liver imbalance in that area, so I'm getting lots of fresh veggies in to juice tomorrow, and I am more emotional than usual, having just bawled through a couple of TV programmes that really weren't that sad. I'm doing a bit of self healing which is helping and just trying to keep myself busy and not think too far ahead in the future. Although I am aware that this time next week I could be very near to having some lovely healthy embryos transferred into me. Eeek!