The First Cycle

I had blood tests and scans every other day in preparation for egg collection

Each cycle of IVF generally runs like this: you start taking a drug containing the hormone FSH (mine was called Bemfola) to encourage follicle growth in the ovaries from day two of your cycle (day one of the cycle is the day your period starts). This is taken by injecting into your stomach. You inject this everyday until advised to stop by the clinic who scanned me every two days from day six to check the follicle development. For us this meant a lot of trips on the train to London and back. Whilst other clinics may have been closer for us to attend, our research pointed to our chosen clinic as giving the best possible results (about 50% success rate which is above the average nationally currently). The clinic normally advise to start injecting with the antagonist drug into your stomach (mine was called Cetrotide) from day six. This drug ensures that the eggs are not realised too soon. Two days before your egg collection (egg collection is normally around day twelve of your cycle) you are asked to take a trigger injection in your stomach (mine was called Ovitrelle) to ensure that the eggs reach final maturation. Egg collection is normally done under sedation (my husband had to make his sample of sperm on this day). As we were advised to complete an extra procedure called ICSI this meant that the sperm and eggs were artificially joined rather than being left to fertilise as they would be during IVF. Embryo transfer is a quick procedure not requiring sedation and occurs on day fourteen of the cycle with one of embryos that has developed from the joined sperm and eggs. It’s then a waiting game for two weeks before taking a blood test to determine whether the cycle has been successful.

After a number of scans of my ovaries in my first cycle, the clinic wanted to abandon treatment for this cycle and start again next month – I would not be funded on the NHS because I had only produced one follicle. This generally meant, there would only be one egg at most retrieved. Certainly no ‘spare’ eggs to be frozen for a later transfer. With the knowledge I had previously mentioned with the FSH levels in my blood being so high, I wanted to persist so went privately with the one and only follicle remaining. I continued this round of IVF, and at the end of the week, I went for the egg collection. This is a short procedure where I was put to sleep while the follicle was taken from my ovary, but as I was coming around from the procedure I broke down as no egg was in the follicle. I was devastated. How could I know I was going to produce any more eggs? I’d wasted most of my savings on pushing through with this one follicle only to be told there was no egg in it. This, I thought, was supposed to be the easy bit of IVF, and here I was, back at square 1.

This is when I started to write this blog. The following day after the procedure, my husband and I went for a long walk and spoke about what we were going through. I felt that I wanted to support other women, as I’d felt very ill-prepared for the emotional rollercoaster I was on – I was not aware that this part of the IVF treatment could be so difficult. At this moment of writing, I don’t know how things will turn out. I’m really hopeful for a successful outcome, a few cycles down the line, but I just don’t know, and I think that’s a lot of the frustration for other women and couples going through this: you have such little control over something supposedly so ‘natural’.

Looking online at literature I did not feel there was much out there. I want to turn my experiences, as they happen, into positives. For me, an additional worry is the cost of IVF.

The cost of a standard IVF cycle is generally in the range of £2000-3000. But when you add on costs of medication, blood tests, egg collection, freezing, sedation and so on, the final cost can soon double. This cost is then made even greater when using the specialist treatment that my husband and I are going through called ICSI. I’m in a relatively lucky position that I have some savings, as well as family who are willing to help out. However, for those who can’t afford several rounds of IVF, it must be so stressful.

When we began this journey, we thought IVF was a single kind of treatment. Upon research, when we were looking into choosing a clinic, we found that there are in fact many types of IVF (again, you can find all this on www.hfea.gov.uk, there is a section that breaks down the different types of treatment offered under the umbrella of IVF.)

As a couple, we’re not suited for IVF, as my husband’s sperm was slightly abnormal, and this mixed with my high FSH levels meant that even normal IVF (where the sperm fertilises the egg naturally in the petri dish) wasn’t necessarily the right option for us. We are going with the more involved treatment of ICSI. ICSI is where the sperm is manually ‘injected’ into the egg, which has higher success rates for couples like us.

So with the heartache of the first cycle behind us, and after parting with such a big sum of money, we picked ourselves up and began towards our next cycle, the following month.