Our IVF Journey

by Kristine | Jan 31, 2021 | Uncategorized

It’s been a while since I’ve last written & boy have things changed! The world is still in the midst of a pandemic, Australia and particularly Western Australia have largely been spared the devastating effects of Covid-19. I’m really thankful that things have been relatively stable for us personally and we have jobs and a roof over our head.

As the title suggests, we’re about to embark on our first round of IVF-ICSI. We’ve been actively trying to conceive since around June 2019, but haven’t been successful. My periods aren’t regular, and have never really been but as time drew on, my cycles went anywhere from 27 days to 42 days and it’s pretty much a guessing game when Aunt Flo decides to make an appearance. We know hubby’s sperm wasn’t too flash either, so in a sense we were expecting to go down this route or at least have some help from our GP etcetera.

***I have to make the disclaimer here that this is our personal experience. We are not medical professionals and do not claim to be. We cannot give you advice pertaining to your situation, and this is a journal for our particular circumstances. I’m happy to talk about our experience, but my advice is to speak to your health professional about your particular circumstances and what your options are***

We went to our GP in August 2020 to seek some help. She made the decision to refer us to the Fertility Specialist. We made an appointment with our Fertility Specialist for September 2020. There usually is a waitlist to see the Fertility Specialist, I’ll have to detail more about this in another post.

We finally saw our Fertility Specialist (FS) in September 2020 and he sent us for a bunch of tests to determine our baseline and what treatment we needed. It’s usually 4 to 6 weeks between the first appointment and follow up appointment, to allow for the tests and the results as they are based on your cycle. Plus, our FS was on leave in between our appointments as he was hadn’t had a break in a while due to covid, and was going to Broome for a couple of weeks.

***Was just at this point of the post when we tuned into the news today about the emergency news conference by the Premier about the 5 day lockdown in Perth. It has been quite an eventful few hours for us as we went to the local covid clinc to get tested as Matt was at one of the exposure sites. But that’s another story for the next post. Gosh, there’s just so much to write about recently!***

We met again with the FS in November 2020 and he reviewed our test results and we discussed options. For us, IVF-ICSI was the most appropriate treatment and he talked to us about the timeline and medication protocols. Given that it was near the end of the calendar year and we hadn’t reached our Medicare Safety Net, he gave us the option to commence in the new year to maximise the Safety Net or to go ahead in 2020. We opted to wait till 2021, when it resets and should we need more than the one cycle, it won’t be at the higher cost.

We had our nurse appointment in January 2021 to go through all the paperwork, finance and how to inject myself. We also had the first look at the medication protocol I was being put on. I’m on 137.5iu Gonal-F, combined with Orgalutran when directed, and Pregnyl 10,000iu as the trigger. Also was given Crinone progesterone pessaries after the egg collection.

We decided to collect the medication yesterday, on my birthday as we had just gotten confirmation that Matt was given approval by the ATO to withdraw his superannuation under compassionate reasons. And we’re pretty much waiting on Aunt Flo to arrive and call the clinic to let them know. From my understanding, I will start injections on Day 2 of my cycle and have monitoring blood tests and ultrasounds throughout to keep an eye on what my body is doing under treatment.

Which brings us to today’s announcement. WA is going into 5 days of hard lock down as of 6pm tonight till 6pm Friday 5th February 2021. At this stage Aunt Flo hasn’t shown up yet. Just 3 days ago I was googling how to delay the onset of a period as we were waiting on Matt’s super to be approved for release. Yesterday I was googling how to bring it on, and today I’m reverting to googling how to delay it yet again. Rationally I know old wives’ tales aren’t going to work, but when it comes to the desire to have a child, rationality just goes out the window sometimes. I’ve yet to contact the clinic as I know they’re going to be swamped with the same questions from every person receiving treatment currently, so I’m waiting till they announce something. We’re just trying to stay positive at the moment and wait to hear what is next for us.

I’m hoping to break down our experience in a number of blog posts, detailing each step of the way and our personal experience with this all. I hope it provides comfort to others who might be going through the same thing and have a million questions like I did. Let me know if you have any questions about the process and I’ll be happy to answer them 🙂