I left the clinic with more ventolin tablets, progesterone pessaries and progesterone oily injections to ensure the uterus is conducive to support implantation and pregnancy. Our 2 weeks wait has started.
For the first 2 days after the transfer, I did not do anything heavy. My mom continued to stay with me to help me out at home with cooking and household work. On a daily basis, I had to take my ventolin tablets and progesterone pessaries. And every three days, I drove to a nearby clinic to get a doctor to administer the oily injections on my buttocks. Now that is one really painful injection. But Dr Ho, the lady doctor who did my injections was really nice, careful and gentle throughout the injection.
The nurses at the fertility clinic told me to eat normally, don't overstress myself and no heavy work. They also told me not to eat four types of fruits i.e. bananas, papayas, watermelons and pineapples. Apparently, these fruits have high level of serotonin that may cause uterine contractions.
Other than that, I begin to write from home, and try not to think too much or even reading too much into every symptoms or the lack of it that is indicative of pregnancy. But still I can't prevent the gamut of feelings that I went through - hope, anticipation, excitement, anxious, wondering and at times doubtful whether we would be successful.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Our IVF journey - Embryo transfer
Before we left the clinic after the eggs collection, there were more medicines to take. Specifically, they were Ventolin tablets to control uterine contraction, progesterone pessaries and progesterone oily injection to prime the body with lots of progesterone that is essential to support successful implantation and pregnancy.
My embryo transfer was scheduled 2 days from the eggs collection day, and in the meantime I had to start taking these medication to prep my uterus. As explained by the clinic, they will perform a routine Day-3 embryo transfer and if let's say there are a few fertilised eggs to select from, the clinic may do a Day-5 transfer where the embryos are more mature. Unless the clinic call me over the next few days to inform of a change, they will proceed with the routine transfer.
I had a Day-3 transfer. On the day of transfer, no prior fasting was required and since Hubs can't extend his stay, I had my parents came up to KL and to help me out during this period. Just before it was my turn to go into the procedure room, the embryologist explained to me that the clinic will transfer two Day-3 embryos.
We only had these two viable embryos because out of the 6 eggs initially collected, two of them were not mature enough and only 4 made it to ICSI fertilisation. After fertilisation, two of them did not get fertilised while the remaining two did and have already developed into 4-cells embryos of grades 8/10 and 9/10. I can't help to feel disappointed that we only had two but the embryologist explained that they were good grades embryos, so hopefully they will stick to the uterus.
About 45 minutes before the procedure, I had to drink 500ml of water. Apparently the reason for this is to ensure that the bladder is full enough (but not too full) so that when I lie down, the full bladder will help "straighten" out the uterus for ease of transfer. No anesthesia was required for the transfer and I was able to observe the whole procedure through the ultrasound. First the nurses showed me my embryos. And they were beautiful! Like in medical textbook. I was hopeful.
Then Dr Wong arrived for the procedure. When he saw the ultrasound scan, he had a "oh man" look on his face. He then explained to me what the procedure involves and that my uterus was a bit S-shaped and would be a bit tricky to maneuver. And then the procedure started. One of the nurses pointed out to me a blinking light on the ultrasound which is the transfer catheter containing my two embryos. And I watched them slowly making their way through the cervix and finally into the uterus where two small 'x' appear on the ultrasound, marking where Dr Wong finally deposited the embryos. I was overjoyed! We made it!
My embryo transfer was scheduled 2 days from the eggs collection day, and in the meantime I had to start taking these medication to prep my uterus. As explained by the clinic, they will perform a routine Day-3 embryo transfer and if let's say there are a few fertilised eggs to select from, the clinic may do a Day-5 transfer where the embryos are more mature. Unless the clinic call me over the next few days to inform of a change, they will proceed with the routine transfer.
I had a Day-3 transfer. On the day of transfer, no prior fasting was required and since Hubs can't extend his stay, I had my parents came up to KL and to help me out during this period. Just before it was my turn to go into the procedure room, the embryologist explained to me that the clinic will transfer two Day-3 embryos.
We only had these two viable embryos because out of the 6 eggs initially collected, two of them were not mature enough and only 4 made it to ICSI fertilisation. After fertilisation, two of them did not get fertilised while the remaining two did and have already developed into 4-cells embryos of grades 8/10 and 9/10. I can't help to feel disappointed that we only had two but the embryologist explained that they were good grades embryos, so hopefully they will stick to the uterus.
About 45 minutes before the procedure, I had to drink 500ml of water. Apparently the reason for this is to ensure that the bladder is full enough (but not too full) so that when I lie down, the full bladder will help "straighten" out the uterus for ease of transfer. No anesthesia was required for the transfer and I was able to observe the whole procedure through the ultrasound. First the nurses showed me my embryos. And they were beautiful! Like in medical textbook. I was hopeful.
Then Dr Wong arrived for the procedure. When he saw the ultrasound scan, he had a "oh man" look on his face. He then explained to me what the procedure involves and that my uterus was a bit S-shaped and would be a bit tricky to maneuver. And then the procedure started. One of the nurses pointed out to me a blinking light on the ultrasound which is the transfer catheter containing my two embryos. And I watched them slowly making their way through the cervix and finally into the uterus where two small 'x' appear on the ultrasound, marking where Dr Wong finally deposited the embryos. I was overjoyed! We made it!
Friday, November 9, 2012
Our IVF journey - Eggs collection day
About a week before the scheduled eggs collection date, the ultrasound scan revealed that I had about 8 egg follicles of various sizes. Some were at about the right sizes already, although there were a few that were a little bit small. Hence Dr Wong up my dose of Gonal-F for all the eggs to reach the right sizes.
Hubs had to fly into KL for eggs collection because that was the day that the clinic had to collect his semen sample for fertilisation as well. The eggs collection procedure is almost like a mini-surgery, which meant that the night before I had to take some meds to completely empty my bowel and no liquids after 12am and no breakfast on the day itself. In the procedure room, the nurse helped me up onto a bed with an attached stirrup, which after that they tilted the bed to a certain angle until my legs were at a higher level than my head. As soon as the Dr arrived for the procedure, the nurses put me under gas anesthesia and that was the last thing I remembered.
The next thing I knew when I woke up was the end of the procedure where they have taken away the anesthesia. The nurses helped me onto another bed before pushinge into a recovery room where I promptly fell asleep again. I don't think I slept for long because I woke up suddenly, remembered that Hubs had to catch a flight later that day, promptly got dressed and made my way to the reception area to meet Hubs. In the end, the clinic collected 6 eggs that were of good sizes for fertilisation.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
A small compliment
Well, I just couldn't resist putting this up, after such a long and hard day of work that also saw me meeting the ultimo CLIENTZILLA!
A small complimentary note for an article well-written by moi! :)
A small complimentary note for an article well-written by moi! :)
Our IVF journey - Finally it's IVF!
The Zoladex injection caused me not to experience any mestruation close to four months and this is really to temporarily stop any hormonal stimulation which is basically what endometriosis feeds on. When I finally got my period, I was so happy, and immediately called up the clinic to schedule an appointment.
After some explanation from Dr Wong about the protocol that he was going to use on me, and some discussion with Hubs, we decided to start our first IVF in September. Dr Wong put me on the long protocol which involved down-regulation of the ovaries first using a combination of oral contraceptives pills followed by daily injection of buserelin. After one month of this, I started another injection i.e. Gonal-F which is to stimulate the ovaries to produce more eggs. In a normal unstimulated cycle, a woman typically produces one to two eggs only.
I had to learn to administer these injections by myself. After the first few attempts, I kinda got used to it, although the Gonal-F injections were slightly more painful to administer. Hubs was supportive all the way because I had to take these injections in the early morning. He tries to wake himself up every now and then to be an observer most of of the time. LOL! The only down bit with these injections is that I have very sensitive skin, which resulted in a lot of scarring at the injection sites.
Roughly about 2 weeks into the egg stimulation phase, I had to go into the clinic for scans just to check that everything is going as planned. These visits became more frequent as egg collection day approaches, so that Dr Wong can adjust the dosages of the injections which he did in order for us to harvest more eggs.
After some explanation from Dr Wong about the protocol that he was going to use on me, and some discussion with Hubs, we decided to start our first IVF in September. Dr Wong put me on the long protocol which involved down-regulation of the ovaries first using a combination of oral contraceptives pills followed by daily injection of buserelin. After one month of this, I started another injection i.e. Gonal-F which is to stimulate the ovaries to produce more eggs. In a normal unstimulated cycle, a woman typically produces one to two eggs only.
I had to learn to administer these injections by myself. After the first few attempts, I kinda got used to it, although the Gonal-F injections were slightly more painful to administer. Hubs was supportive all the way because I had to take these injections in the early morning. He tries to wake himself up every now and then to be an observer most of of the time. LOL! The only down bit with these injections is that I have very sensitive skin, which resulted in a lot of scarring at the injection sites.
Roughly about 2 weeks into the egg stimulation phase, I had to go into the clinic for scans just to check that everything is going as planned. These visits became more frequent as egg collection day approaches, so that Dr Wong can adjust the dosages of the injections which he did in order for us to harvest more eggs.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Our IVF journey - Recovery from a very thorough laparoscopy
After some adjustment of schedules and such, I went for my second
laparoscopy in May. And Dr Wong did a very thorough job. So thorough
that 2 hours later when Hubs came to see me, the nurses told him that I
was still in surgery and according to the nurses, "Dr Wong's surgery can
take awhile coz he's very thorough."
Physically, I felt the thoroughness of the surgery because it felt like someone took a blunt knife and gutted and scraped my insides. During my first laparoscopy, my parents who came and visited for the weekend, saw that I was still independent. However, for this second one, my mom decided to stay with me during the recovery period and noted that I was a lot more immobilised.
Anyway, 2 weeks later, I went back to the hospital for the post-surgery follow-up and was presented a video recording of the entire surgery. Dr Wong explained that during the surgery itself, he found that I actually had stage 4 endometriosis. On top of the 4 cysts in my ovaries which he removed, he also had to surgically snip of endometrial tissues that have caused my uterus to stick to my bowels.
So I'm pretty happy that he did a good job, but we couldn't start our IVF process immediately. In order to ensure that the endometriosis has less chance to recur at the next menstual cycle, Dr Wong started me on first, a one-month zoladex injection, followed by a second dose which lasted close to 3 months. So more waiting...
Physically, I felt the thoroughness of the surgery because it felt like someone took a blunt knife and gutted and scraped my insides. During my first laparoscopy, my parents who came and visited for the weekend, saw that I was still independent. However, for this second one, my mom decided to stay with me during the recovery period and noted that I was a lot more immobilised.
Anyway, 2 weeks later, I went back to the hospital for the post-surgery follow-up and was presented a video recording of the entire surgery. Dr Wong explained that during the surgery itself, he found that I actually had stage 4 endometriosis. On top of the 4 cysts in my ovaries which he removed, he also had to surgically snip of endometrial tissues that have caused my uterus to stick to my bowels.
So I'm pretty happy that he did a good job, but we couldn't start our IVF process immediately. In order to ensure that the endometriosis has less chance to recur at the next menstual cycle, Dr Wong started me on first, a one-month zoladex injection, followed by a second dose which lasted close to 3 months. So more waiting...
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Our IVF journey - Getting to the bottom of things
Our journey into IVF started sometime between Oct/Nov of last year, when I had my first laparoscopy to remove a cyst in one of my ovaries which my first gynae thought could be the reason of unexplained infertility. After the surgery, we were given green light to try naturally again but no pregnancy. At my next cycle, even after ovulation induction with Clomid, we just couldn't get pregnant. And that was when in February of this year, we decided to see a IVF specialist to really find out what is wrong.
Dr Wong came highly recommended through a friend of Hubs who works in the pharmaceutical industry. We also did some internet scouting of our own and after comparing some rates between fertility centers, we decided to pay Dr Wong a visit. Through that connection, we managed to squeeze ourselves in 2 weeks earlier than my original appointment. Dr Wong sure runs a very busy clinic!
At our first visit, the news we received weren't good. Ultrasound scan showed that despite my earlier laparoscopy, I still have 2 cysts each in both my ovaries. Because of the cysts, Dr Wong strongly advised us against going ahead with the IVF treatment, and instead recommended me to go through another laparoscopy.
We were kinda disappointed because we just didn't want to wait anymore. However, according to Dr Wong, the presence of cysts greatly reduces the IVF success rate from 50% to 30%, and it would be pretty pointless. In the end, we decided to go for another laparoscopy.
Dr Wong came highly recommended through a friend of Hubs who works in the pharmaceutical industry. We also did some internet scouting of our own and after comparing some rates between fertility centers, we decided to pay Dr Wong a visit. Through that connection, we managed to squeeze ourselves in 2 weeks earlier than my original appointment. Dr Wong sure runs a very busy clinic!
At our first visit, the news we received weren't good. Ultrasound scan showed that despite my earlier laparoscopy, I still have 2 cysts each in both my ovaries. Because of the cysts, Dr Wong strongly advised us against going ahead with the IVF treatment, and instead recommended me to go through another laparoscopy.
We were kinda disappointed because we just didn't want to wait anymore. However, according to Dr Wong, the presence of cysts greatly reduces the IVF success rate from 50% to 30%, and it would be pretty pointless. In the end, we decided to go for another laparoscopy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
