In my post ‘From Egg to Embryo’ you might recall I
wrote this about my experience between egg collection and embryo transfer, “The
main problem I had over the weekend was that I was extremely bloated and
uncomfortable. Every time I ate something I felt uncomfortably bloated, full
and a bit sick. I was beginning to get a
bit worried about ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome – which until I looked it
up I didn’t realise generally starts around 4 days or so after egg collection”. By
the day of the embryo transfer however the bloating had gone down somewhat and
though I mentioned it to the clinic they didn’t seem overly concerned
as all my monitoring blood tests and scans didn’t highlight that I was
particularly at risk. Since the bloating had improved and I was feeling more
comfortable I didn’t push the issue. I had no idea what was to come…
The 2 Days After Embryo Transfer
I had the
embryo transferred on Monday 27th April. On the Tuesday and Wednesday I felt OK, I
spent my time just trying to relax and wonder how I was going to pass the time
until test day constantly wondering whether I was pregnant or not. I had the natural instinct to stay as still as
possible as if somehow the embryo could fall out if I moved too quickly or
sneezed but I just tried to focus on relaxing and taking it easy. It’s a very
strange feeling sitting there wondering what’s happened to that little embryo
inside you, wondering if it’s even still alive and wishing you could just do
something to make it stick!
3 Days After Embryo Transfer
 | ||
| On the Thursday, very bloated but it was going to get a lot worse |
On the Thursday after the embryo transfer I started to feel unwell, I had diarrhoea when I got up in the morning (sorry if it’s too much information but I feel it’s important to tell people about all the symptoms to help other people be aware of what to look out for in similar circumstances) and generalised abdominal discomfort and felt mildly bloated. It was worse in the morning but settled a bit throughout the day though when I walked to dog I didn’t dare venture too far from home.
4 days After Embryo Transfer
On the Friday
morning I woke up with severe pain in my upper abdomen, I was doubled over by
the side of the bed, sweating, clammy and distressed, it would go off for a few
minutes and then come back worse than ever.
I felt so hot and dizzy that I opened both the curtains and both the
windows in the bedroom not realising or caring that it was 5.30 am. I had more diarrhoea and felt nauseous
although I wasn’t actually sick. I
thought for a while Matt was going to have to take me to A&E straight away
and I made him get up and feed the dog so we were ready to go. After a little while however the pain started
to settle and I was able to get back into bed and rest for a while. By the time I got up a few hours later I was
feeling quite a lot better, mild abdominal discomfort and bloating but I was a
lot less worried than earlier.
That morning
I decided I’d ring the clinic. I haven’t mentioned which clinic I’ve
been having my treatment at in this blog and I won’t mention it now, there care during treatment was excellent but their advice at this point was absolutely useless! I appreciate that they can’t diagnose over
the phone but I would have expected at least some basic questions on what my
symptoms were, what I should be looking out for, what I should do if they got
worse etc. Instead they looked at my
bloods from before the egg collection, the amount of follicles I had and
eggs collected and just said ‘it doesn’t look like you’re a risk, it just
sounds like a stomach bug.’ At the very minimum at the point I would have
expected them to get give some basic advice on Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) – i.e. drink plenty of
fluids, if you notice any of these symptoms seek help, etc. However all
I got was being told that it didn’t look like I was at risk, well here’s some
news for you, you can definitely get OHSS even if it doesn’t look like you’re
at risk! As it happens I'd posted something about being really bloated on the Fertility Friends forum and somebody had said it sounded like OHSS which was lucky because I had thought that if you were going to get OHSS you'd get it a lot earlier, i.e. during the stimulation injections. Subsequently I'd done some research myself so I knew the right things to do and what
to look out for so I made sure I looked after myself for the rest of the
day. I was still managing to eat
reasonable amounts at this point although it took an awful lot of effort and I
was incredibly uncomfortable for a long time after each time I ate. I continued
to have intermittent diarrhoea but it
wasn’t a consistent symptom which made me think it wasn’t a stomach bug.
The Weekend
On Saturday
the pain really started to kick in – the main areas I has pain were in my lower
abdomen on the right and high up in the centre of my abdomen. I couldn’t stand up straight as it was too
painful, if I deep breathed it was painful and if I coughed or sneezed it was
excruciating, like being stabbed in the stomach. All I could do was curl up on a chair with a
pillow on my stomach and groan and I could barely eat now, all I managed all
day was a little bit of fruit and a cup-a-soup and even this made me feel
painfully full. By the afternoon I didn’t know what to do anymore and I’d had
enough so I made Matt take me to A&E.
This was a difficult decision for me as
it’s so drilled into me that you don’t go to A&E unless you REALLY need to,
so you know how bad I must have felt to go in. I just didn’t know what to do
with myself anymore I was in so much discomfort and pain.
In A&E
they were quite efficient, I was seen by the triage nurse and sent through to
get changed into a gown and put on a trolley to be seen. When the Dr saw me I was at least relieved
that they took me seriously enough to take some bloods, put in a cannula and
put up a litre of fluid because I was feeling very dry by this point. They offered me pain relief but I’d already
taken Paracetamol and I was so nervous about taking anything stronger in case I
was pregnant that I refused anything else.
I could just about get myself to a manageable position when laying down
but when I had to walk to the toilet I was in a huge amount of pain again. The Dr examined me and felt my abdomen and at
this point it was distended but it hadn’t gone really hard and tight and though
it was painful the pain was very deep so on a reasonably gentle examination it
wasn’t that painful.
While waiting for my blood results they gave me a litre of IV fluid
which made me feel somewhat better. The only thing my bloods identified was a raise in my
white blood cell count, my other bloods were normal. The blood result I was particularly
interested in is called CRP – C-reactive protein – a marker of inflammation, as
I’d read that this is usually elevated in OHSS, however mine was normal. This normal CRP and just raised white cells
supported the Drs assessment that I was suffering from some kind of
gastroenteritis. I
was never at all convinced of this, I had had diarrhoea but it wasn’t
consistent and whenever I went to the toilet it didn’t seem to give me any
relief from my bloating symptoms. In
lack of any other evidence to keep me there however they discharged me, in
hindsight perhaps I could have pushed to see one of the gynae Drs as I don’t
think the A&E Dr really knew anything about OHSS however the fact that my
CRP was normal kind of put me off the sent and made me think that perhaps they
were right and I was overreacting. So
that is the second thing I’ve learnt, you can have OHSS and your CRP be normal.
Off home I went with Matt. I spent the rest of the evening curled up in a chair trying to
eat a little bit and drink as much as possible and groaning intermittently. I slept badly that night as each time I tried to reposition myself I was in a
lot of pain and had to keep getting up to go to the toilet. Sunday was an awful day. I spent the whole day curled up in a chair in
a lot of discomfort and pain, I was getting even more bloated and couldn’t fit
into any of my clothes other than pyjamas.
My sister was visiting and we’d planned to chill and play lots of board
games but I couldn’t even bare to do that, I managed one brief round of a very
simple game but that completely took it out of me. All I managed to eat was some plain rice and
some super noodles and each time I ate I felt so awful afterwards that it took
me about 4 hours to recover. All I did was keep trying to reposition myself to
minimise the pain, I was most comfortable slightly curled up and couldn’t stand
up straight at all, the pain was particularly bad high up in the centre of my
abdomen and occasionally would really catch me and I’d feel like somebody was
stabbing me.
Breaking Point
Sunday night
I was in bed at about 10.30pm, I felt like I needed an earlier night than that
but I couldn’t quite muster the energy to get up to bed and I knew I would
struggle to sleep. You know it’s going to be a bad night when you go to sleep
and wake up and it’s not even midnight yet. I woke up at about 11.45 but
managed to drop off again despite having a lot of pain in my abdomen. I then woke up again at around 01.00am and
tried to turn onto my other side but immediately started feeling nauseous and
began vomiting, luckily I’d been expecting this to happen for about 3 days so I
had a bucket handy. The pain in my
abdomen when I was vomiting was dreadful and I felt like it would never end. I
spent the next few hours trying in vain to get comfortable, I couldn’t lay on
my side but was so uncomfortable sitting up, every time I moved I was terrified
I was going to be sick again, the pain in my upper abdomen was getting worse. I dozed just a little bit between then and
4am but the half an hour between 4 and 4:30 seemed to go on forever. I was
completely at my wits end, I didn’t know what to do with myself to get comfy, I
was constantly thirsty but every time I moved to get a drink I felt terribly nauseous
and didn’t dare take more than little sips. I kept waking Matt up just for some
support.
By 4.45 I was
at breaking point, I just could not manage any more. I woke Matt up and told
him that I thought I’d have to go back to A&E but decided to try to the NHS
non-emergency 111 number first and they were brilliant. I phoned at
around 4.45am and once they’d gone through all the checking I wasn’t having a
heart attack etc questions they told me a Dr would call me back shortly. I still started getting myself ready to go
to A&E because I wasn’t sure that the Dr would be able to do anything. They
phoned back within ½ hour at around 5.15 and once I’d explained my history they
said they’d make me a Drs appointment, they offered me one at 9.30am in my
closest town but I said I wouldn’t make it that long as was on the verge of
going to A&E so they had another look and found me one a little bit further
away at 6am. I couldn’t quite believe
how good it was that they could make me an appointment that quick.
I collected
together a few bits, I actually already had a few essentials in a bag as I’d
been wondering if this might happen for a few days and once Matt had fed the
dog we were straight in the car and off to the on call Dr. I cried the whole way there, I can’t remember
if I said it out loud much but all I could think was 'somebody please help
me'. The GP examined my abdomen which had
me crying in pain and took some obs which showed my heart rate was 120bpm. When she said she was going to send me to the
hospital I was just so relieved that somebody was taking me seriously and going
to help me. The good thing about going
to the on-call GP rather than A&E was that she sent me straight to the
gynae ward at the hospital.
To be continued (don't worry it gets better)...
To be continued (don't worry it gets better)...
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