Our journey to a family: IVF......now its starting to feel serious
When I started this blog post I thought I would put our story of IVF and ICSI into one post. However, looking back at everything that we did during that time I realised that too much had happened to squeeze it all in. So in this post I've decided to share my experience of IVF on the NHS and I'll talk about our journey with ICSI at a private clinic another time.
We had our initial consultation on 10th June 2014. It seems like a lifetime ago now. I remember thinking to myself that it was definately going to work. The clinic was a new one to us at a different hospital from the one we had the IUI at. The clinic was solely for fertility treatment. Before we had started fertility treatment, I had no idea how many people suffered from fertility problems. 1 in 7 (I think). This clinic was always busy, packed with scared, hopeful people. For some reason, it always surprised me to see so many people there. We weren't the only ones, but it didn't make it any easier.
Where we live, you are entitled to 2 courses of IVF/ICSI on the NHS. Depending on where you live this varies. Its a postcode lottery.
Our first course of IVF began on 22nd July 2014. When you do IVF the goal is to get as many mature follicles as possible without overstimulating. Hopefully each (or as many as possible) of these follicles will contain an egg to fertilise. This is done by taking an injection to surpress your natural cycle and to stop you ovulating. this gives the effects of a mini menopause (that was fun!). You also take another injection to stimulate your ovaries into producing as many follicles as possible. During this time you are monitored by the clinic with a number of internal scans which check the progress of your follicles, and which also check things such as your lining or for any cysts etc. The next step is a trigger injection which will make you ovulate aproximately 36 hours later. This is when egg collection is done under sedation. The semen sample is then placed with the eggs and hopefully they will fertilise. You then wait a period of between 2 and 5 days before any fertilised embryos are put back into the uterus and hopefully implantation will take place. 2 weeks later you take a pregnancy test to find out if you are pregnant. The process takes around a month to 6 weeks depending on how well you respond to the medication.
During out first cycle of IVF it soon became apparent that my ovaries weren't responding to the medications as much as we had hoped they would, and I was soon put onto the highest dosage of medication possible. During the course of the treatment, we could see that I had managed to produce 9 follicles. Egg collection day came but only 3 eggs were collected from my follicles, 2 of which fertilised. I did not get pregnant. This was heartbreaking.
Our second cycle began on 30th December 2014. I only produced 3 follicles. As we knew from my last cycle, there was no guarantee that any of these follicles had an egg in them. As we had understimulated, we decided the best thing to do would be to cancel the cycle and try again. I remember crying in the consulation room. My body had already failed me many times in this journey, but it seemed like my chances were just being snatched away. I couldn't even get to egg collection. I was so upset.
Our third and final cycle that was funded by the NHS began on 9th February 2015. This time we had 11 follicles so things looked much more promising. On the day of egg collection, 4 eggs were collected, which was the best yet for me. The next day the embryologist rang and told me that none of the eggs had fertilised. None of them! This only happens to approximately 5-10% of IVF cases. I was shocked. I didn't even think that this would be something that could have happened. It totally devasted me.
During our follow up appointment we didn't really get any answers. To be honest we left the appointment pretty deflated. We were simply advised that due to the failed fertilisation, the if we decided to pursue fertility treatment at a private clinic, then ICSI would be strongly recommended.
At this point I think we both needed a break from it all. It was all consuming and undeniably affecting our entire lives. In June 2015 we attended an open evening at a private clinic that we liked the look of and made the decision to use this clinic once we had a few months to recouperate.
Our first course of IVF began on 22nd July 2014. When you do IVF the goal is to get as many mature follicles as possible without overstimulating. Hopefully each (or as many as possible) of these follicles will contain an egg to fertilise. This is done by taking an injection to surpress your natural cycle and to stop you ovulating. this gives the effects of a mini menopause (that was fun!). You also take another injection to stimulate your ovaries into producing as many follicles as possible. During this time you are monitored by the clinic with a number of internal scans which check the progress of your follicles, and which also check things such as your lining or for any cysts etc. The next step is a trigger injection which will make you ovulate aproximately 36 hours later. This is when egg collection is done under sedation. The semen sample is then placed with the eggs and hopefully they will fertilise. You then wait a period of between 2 and 5 days before any fertilised embryos are put back into the uterus and hopefully implantation will take place. 2 weeks later you take a pregnancy test to find out if you are pregnant. The process takes around a month to 6 weeks depending on how well you respond to the medication.
During out first cycle of IVF it soon became apparent that my ovaries weren't responding to the medications as much as we had hoped they would, and I was soon put onto the highest dosage of medication possible. During the course of the treatment, we could see that I had managed to produce 9 follicles. Egg collection day came but only 3 eggs were collected from my follicles, 2 of which fertilised. I did not get pregnant. This was heartbreaking.
Our second cycle began on 30th December 2014. I only produced 3 follicles. As we knew from my last cycle, there was no guarantee that any of these follicles had an egg in them. As we had understimulated, we decided the best thing to do would be to cancel the cycle and try again. I remember crying in the consulation room. My body had already failed me many times in this journey, but it seemed like my chances were just being snatched away. I couldn't even get to egg collection. I was so upset.
Our third and final cycle that was funded by the NHS began on 9th February 2015. This time we had 11 follicles so things looked much more promising. On the day of egg collection, 4 eggs were collected, which was the best yet for me. The next day the embryologist rang and told me that none of the eggs had fertilised. None of them! This only happens to approximately 5-10% of IVF cases. I was shocked. I didn't even think that this would be something that could have happened. It totally devasted me.
During our follow up appointment we didn't really get any answers. To be honest we left the appointment pretty deflated. We were simply advised that due to the failed fertilisation, the if we decided to pursue fertility treatment at a private clinic, then ICSI would be strongly recommended.
At this point I think we both needed a break from it all. It was all consuming and undeniably affecting our entire lives. In June 2015 we attended an open evening at a private clinic that we liked the look of and made the decision to use this clinic once we had a few months to recouperate.
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