Round 1 – Part 1

Finally, starting time! This is what I have been waiting for. A bit of a warning might be needed for these next few posts, as there may be a little too much information that some may not want to read! If you have read the rest of my posts, you can probably understand what is coming up!

So after the sperm had arrived, I had a chat with the nursing team, who detailed the next steps in the process. What I needed to do was to contact the nursing team when I got my period next. This was so I could arrange to start coming into the morning clinic for blood tests to monitor my ovulation. I also had to go pick up some medication from the chemist to help with my ovulation. I think this is due to having PCOS. Just trying to make sure everything is doing what it is supposed to do!

I called so they could register that I was starting my cycle. On day 6, I was to start taking my medication. The meds, if anyone is interested, is called Puregon.

Well, the medication was in the form of a needle. Every night! I should have realised this already, but maybe I didn’t want to think about it until I had to! Anyway, the needle comes in a pen form, so I just needed to screw on the needle, dial up the right amount on the pen, and inject it under my belly button. Easy right? Ha! The first time I was so scared to do it! I had to call my mum to talk to me while I did it! If you are going through this process, don’t let the needle scare you. It’s long but so so thin. You can barely feel it. Easier than a blood test. But yes, it’s scary to inject yourself. The pharmacist and the nurses both told me to look up how to do it on YouTube. There really is everything on there! Here is a good one for you to see how to use it.

So I was to do this needle daily, from day 5 of my cycle, then come in for the first blood test on day 8. I happen to have a reasonably long cycle, so after my day 8 bloods, I ended up coming back every 2nd day to monitor. I also needed to have an ultrasound.

I don’t really know much about it, but the first blood test results they gave me were: Oestrogen:187, Progesterone:3 and Luteinizing Hormone: 5. Trying to find out more about what all of this meant was not easy. While the nurses explain it to you if you ask, I struggled to understand it. I’m not a medical person. Give me something to do on a computer, and I can do it, but medical results just go over my head. What I might do on a future post is to link to where I found some good blogs/websites that helped me understand all the tests and terminology. I just need to put all of this together.

A couple of blood tests later, I had the ultrasound. Warning for future mums going to do this. This is an internal ultrasound. And for me, not very pleasant the first time. Painful, actually, as she wasn’t able to locate my left ovary to measure. This ultrasound takes measurements of your follicles (a small sac of fluid in the ovaries that contains a developing egg) to determine if they are big enough to release an egg. I had a couple of them on the right ovary, but the left was hard to find and relatively high up, apparently.

Due to this, I was asked to come in 2 days after to measure again. This time, they were able to find my left, and the right follicles had shrunk back down, with the left being the dominant one. I tried to find some information on this, but it seems websites vary a little in this. The size at which the follicle is ready is approximately 18 – 25mm. This is when, naturally, they will release the egg. However, with the IUI I was about to undertake, we would give me another shot, Ovidrel, to “trigger” the release of my egg. This would allow for the correct timing with my IUI.