Our journey to a family : IUI

The first time I took fertility medication was 6th March 2013. 

It was clomid.  Clomid (also known as clomiphene/clomifine) is a medication used to treat women who suffer from infertility and do not ovulate. 

Before taking clomid me and my partner had not been using any contraception for over 12 months and nothing had happened.  We decided to go to our gp who did some blood tests that showed my progesterone level was on the lower side. This indicated that my ovaries do not function properly.

I took the clomid for 5 days as instructed during our holiday to Cyprus. You generally ovulate 5 – 10 days after taking the last pill during which time you have timed intercourse for the best chances to get pregnant. Unfortunately this did not work. 

We had 2 more cycles using clomid before being referred to the fertility clinic at our hospital under the NHS. 

Where we live in south Wales we are entitled to 3 rounds of iui and 2 rounds of ivf.  Depending on where you live you are entitled to more or less than this. It was now time to start our first round of iui.

This was a scary prospect. I thought that we would get pregnant like any other couple. You take it for granted that when you decide you are ready to have a family that it will just happen. And after so long trying not to get pregnant, it comes as a shock when you suddenly find yourself in a fertility clinic!

IUI stands for inter uterine insemination. Over a period of a few weeks you stimulate your ovaries into producing more than 1 follicle while taking another drug to stop you ovulating.  These drugs are taken in the form of 2 injections a day. During this time you have internal scans to check on the progress of your follicles to make sure you have not overstimulated. You should not have more than 3 follicles as each follicle can contain an egg and in turn could produce a baby. When your follicles are the perfect size you take what is called a trigger shot. This makes you ovulate approximately 36 hours later while you are at the clinic. You are then inseminated with your partners  (or donors) washed/prepared sperm.

Our first iui produced 1 follicle. I was then inseminated and has to wait 2 weeks before I did a pregnancy test.

The day I did the test it came back with an extremely faint line......I was confused . Had it worked??? The next day I did a clear blue digital test which came up that I was in fact pregnant! This was amazing! I was over the moon. 

The next few days I was on cloud 9. We went to out friends wedding and all day all I could think about was “wow I’m pregnant”. It was what I thought about from the minute I woke up until the time I went to bed.

My excitement was short lived. 

1 week later I had begun to bleed.

Alot of people bleed duting early pregnancy but I just knew that this was the end.  I rang the clinic who did blood tests over a few days which confirmed our fears.

Over the next few months we had 3 futher iui treatments.  One cycle we had to cancel half way through due to me overstimulating and producing too many follicles. The other 2 cycles failed to produce a positive result. Although this was so disappointing we still had 2 opportunities for IVF on the NHS, so we had to move forward.

In another blog post I'll be telling you all about our experiences with IVF on the NHS.