The thing about finally getting pregnant after infertility
is you’re simultaneously in a state of disbelief, excitement and terror. You’ve spent years waiting to get to this
point and consequently can’t possibly let yourself believe that what until now
you’ve believed might be impossible has actually happened.
After the embryo transfer in IVF there’s the infamous 2 week
wait – for me it was actually about 12 days – where you have to wait to take a
pregnancy test to see if the embryo has taken.
This is naturally torturous, wondering if all the injections, tests and
pain will have been worth it. I was
incredibly blessed that I only had to do this once and the outcome was good, I
can’t imagine how it must feel to have that wait and then get a negative result,
my heart really goes out to those ladies.
For me this period of time was in a way overshadowed by being so horribly
ill, in pain and ending up in hospital.
I felt also that being ill put more pressure on the wait because I felt
so terrible I wasn’t sure I could ever bare to have another round of IVF. I feel differently now, in hindsight I would
go through that again without a second thought in order to get pregnant, but at
the time it was hard to keep that perspective.
For Matt and I the 2 week wait was cut short by a day, I
warned Matt that along with my other bloods they’d being checking my HCG
(pregnancy hormone ) level and that they might just come and drop the results
on us and I was right. The night before
we were due to test the Dr and the ward Sister came in, I think their exact
words were “It looks like you are pregnant.” I can’t remember what I said, I
don’t think I said a lot, I don’t think I really took it in. I just remember when they left climbing out
of bed and sitting of Matt’s lap (which wasn’t very easy in my fluid filled,
bloated state) and hugging him and not saying anything, I remember Matt
shedding a few tears. After the hideous, scary week that we’d had it was
suddenly all worth it, somehow it didn’t matter how awful I felt anymore. Feeling a bit better that evening we ventured
down to the canteen, all I fancied as a celebration however was a bottle of
apple juice and a new puzzle book, not how I would have imagined celebrating
the news!
We still had to do the ‘official’ urine test from the clinic
the next day and for both of us it didn’t seem entirely real until we’d done that. Matt came into the hospital early at about
6.45am before work. I remember doing the test and then going to sit on the bed,
putting the 3 minute timer on my phone and waiting before going back to get it
from the bathroom. It wasn’t quite the
moment I’ve imagined so often over the past 3 ½ years because obviously we’d
been pre-warned but still, there it was, that 2nd little pink line
that I had wondered if I would ever see.
Worse than the 2 Week Wait
That moment you’ve imagined so
long is amazing but it’s really just the beginning of another agonising wait
which in many ways is even worse that the original 2 week wait. You have to
wait another week to take a further test to confirm the result. Then you have to wait until you’re 7 weeks
for the clinic to do an early scan to make sure that the pregnancy is
viable. It’s horrible waiting for that scan because
part of you wants to jump for joy but there’s this horrible part of you that
knows that there’s a chance that you’ll go for the scan and they’ll tell you
the devastating news that they are unable to find a heartbeat and the pregnancy
is going to fail. I was a little bit
luckier than many people in a way as I was having regular bloods to monitor my OHSS
and they also checked my HCG meaning I could see that this was going up nicely
as it should in early pregnancy. In
other ways however the after effects of the OHSS made the wait more difficult
as it gave me a lot of pain in my lower left abdomen which meant got myself a
bit worked up that the pregnancy might be ectopic.
First Scan Day
When you go in for the scan they
naturally talk you through “I might not be able to find it straight away, give
me a few minutes to have a look…” etc. I
could see the screen however and quite quickly I could make out the little
heartbeat, I can remember half crying half squealing, “I can see it’s little
heartbeat!” It’s a difficult moment to
describe. After so long of wondering if it was possible, wondering if my body
was even capable of getting pregnant to see that little miracle right there is
beyond words. It looked much like a little jellybean or a monkey nut, we’d
already been referring to the baby as jellybean so that’s just stuck. I could have just sat there all day and
looked at that little beating heart.
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| 7 week scan, 10.3mm long |
More Waiting, Less Eating
Of course as soon as you’ve had
one scan been reassured the fear creeps back in and you then become fixated on
the next scan. I had a midwife
appointment at around 9 weeks, this was the initially ‘booking in’ appointment
which is a pretty dull series of form filling but yet it will felt ridiculously
exciting. It felt almost wrong to be
going for a midwife appointment as if I was going through somebody else’s life,
I couldn’t possibly be allowed to go for a midwife appointment, I felt like I must
be just being ridiculous as if the midwife was going to turn round and say to
me, ‘I’m sorry you really shouldn’t be
here.’ Once this appointment is done you’re
then sent a date for your ’12 week’ scan, mine actually turned out to be booked
for 13 weeks which is perfectly normal
but still disappointing as I was just desperate to see my little jelly bean
again.
This period of the pregnancy was
pretty hard work. I wasn’t actually vomiting but felt nauseas almost all day,
every day for a few weeks. I felt desperately hungry but at the same time I
really struggled to find anything at all I fancied eating. I survived mostly on
potato waffles, fish fingers, dry granola and oranges. I felt so rough and tired and was having at
least a couple of naps a day. It was
difficult to separate the early pregnancy symptoms from the after effects of
the Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome, for example the exhaustion I was feeling was
probably a combination of the two. The
nausea also made it difficult to get over the OHSS as I’d lost weight and a lot
of fitness while I was ill but struggled to eat anything to get my strength
back.
I found this whole period very
strange. I’d waiting to be pregnant for
so long I felt guilty complaining that I felt so unwell. I kept saying to my
husband “I am happy, but I just feel so rough.”
I felt like I wasn’t allowed to complain because I was so incredibly
blessed that the IVF had worked but at the same time I just felt like the ill
feeling would never end! In time things
gradually started to improved, the nausea wasn’t so constant, it was more just
in the mornings and then eased off throughout the day, I gradually got my
appetite back and could eat more things. The only things I’ve really stayed off
are cooked tomatoes (yuck) and even things that contain them like pizza,
chocolate and tea. It’s a very weird to
be off tea and chocolate because these are 2 of my favourite things! I hope my taste for them comes back quickly
after the baby is born because I’m not sure how I’ll survive being a new mum
without tea and chocolate!
Scare
I remained on progesterone pessaries
until 12 weeks. Around 10 weeks when
giving this I started bleeding, initially it was probably around a tablespoon
of bright red blood. I just remember saying out loud “Please God no,” running
down the stairs and shouting at Matt in tears “I’m bleeding.” I knew that
bleeding is quite common during pregnancy, I know more ladies who’ve had
bleeding that those who haven’t but all this goes out of the window when it’s
happening to you. I felt like everything
I’d hoped for, dreamed of and waited for for so long was about to disappear. I
felt in a complete panic, in that moment a whole future of horrible fears
rushes into your head. What would happening if I was miscarrying, how would I
cope with having to go through the whole IVF process again after how ill I’d
been the first time, how was I going to tell my parents who were so excited
about being grandparents, I was just in a complete and utter panic,
hyperventilating and crying. Matt was
absolutely amazing! He must have been terrified but he stayed calm, sat me
down, calmed me down and looked after me.
There’s been a number of ladies from my church who’ve been praying for
me for a long time and throughout all the IVF as well as my bible study group
and my first thought was just to get them to pray so Matt contacted them for
me.
It was 7 o’clock in the evening which
made things difficult. I knew that if I
went to the hospital they wouldn’t do anything overnight unless the bleeding
was heavy enough to cause major concerns. I did ring the NHS 111 number and a
nurse rang me back but they just confirmed this advice (NB: Of course it’s
different for everybody and if you’re having bleeding I would always recommend seeking
medical advice). All I could think was “how
am I going to get through the night,” I couldn’t possibly imagine getting any
sleep at all. Matt managed to calm me
down and fortunately the bleeding didn’t last too long. I managed to get some
sleep overnight but woke every few hours to have that horrible moment of having
to see whether there had been any more bleeding.
After a whole night without any
more bleeding I was feeling a bit more hopeful but was desperate for a scan to
reassure me. I managed to get a Doctors
appointment for 9am but unfortunately they couldn’t fit me in at the hospital
for a scan until 9am on the Sunday morning 2 days later. I wasn’t annoyed about this level of wait, it
seemed reasonable in a sense given that the bleed had been relatively short
lived and wasn’t ongoing. I probably
would have managed to wait that long if it hadn’t been that I was going to see
most of my extended family that weekend many of whom knew about the IVF and who
I’d been intending to tell about the pregnancy. The thought of being there for
the whole weekend with them not knowing and worrying was horrible so I decided
to pay for a private scan at the clinic where I had the IVF. I was feeling much more optimistic about
things now but was still terrified and I remember sitting on the floor in my
bedroom having a good cry that morning before pulling myself together for the
scan.
When we got there for the scan
there was still another horrible wait to be called in for the appointment then
while she went through the paperwork it felt like forever. Eventually though we
got to the scan and almost as soon as she got it up on the screen she said in a
very jolly voice “well it’s doing gymnastics in there”! The sense of relief to see that little baby
wiggling around was immense, the scan wasn’t cheap but I can honestly say it
was the best £80 I’ve ever spent! It was
amazing to see how much it had developed in 3 weeks since the last scan. She couldn’t find any reason for the bleeding
or any evidence of it meaning it was likely to be just a superficial bit of
irritation to the cervix, perhaps for the pessaries. It was an immense relief, I could have stayed
and watched it wiggling around all day.
It was kind of laying on its back so you could see its arms either side.
After paying for the private scan
and feeling reassured I phoned up to cancel the NHS one as I didn’t want to
take up a space that somebody else could use but the nurse said “don’t worry,
keep this as well,” which was probably sensible as it meant they’d be a record
of it on my medical records. So in the
end we got to see the baby twice in 3 days which was amazing.
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| 2 scans around 10 weeks |
Starting to Feel Human Again
As time went on and I approached the
scan at 13 weeks I started to feel a lot better and was eating more normally. I
also started to notice my body changing and around 10 weeks and had to give up on
wearing my normal jeans undone and change to maternity jeans. The relief of
putting them on and being comfortable was amazing! I did seem to show quite
early from around 10 weeks, my theory is that because my muscles had all been
stretched when I was ill and swollen with the OHSS I showed earlier than I
would have otherwise. I didn’t mind though, I love my little bump and I
struggle to walk past a full length mirror without stopping to have a look at
it and I’m always showing it to Matt and going “Look!!!” It’s just so exciting
to finally be here.
13 Week Scan
Lots of people told me that when they went for their scan the clinic was running late and that
they were so bursting for the loo by the time the scan came it was a bit of a
close call. Consequently I was a held
back a bit on the drinking immediately before the scan. This then meant my
bladder wasn’t full enough and I had to go away, drink more and come back after
20 minutes, I didn’t mind really though, it meant I got to see the baby twice
(they could see it the first time they just couldn’t do the measurements). Everything was looking good on the scan and
you could see it having a wiggle around and moving its arms and legs. I keep
saying this but it was just so amazing after all that time to finally be there,
having a scan and seeing our little baby. I don’t think I need any final
words, this says it all…
