I hadn’t intended to be away from my blog this long. I had been planning to keep quiet about the
outcome of the IVF and post some general thoughts on struggles with
infertility. Not really sure why I haven’t been posting, I’ve certainly had the
time as I’ve only been back at work a few weeks as
it took me a long time to recover from the Ovarian Hyperstimulation. I just
feel a bit like I’ve been on another planet for a while, living
somebody else’s life not quite believing what’s happening.
Before my announcement my last post was a couple of weeks after discharge from
hospital with Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). Things were gradually improving but
still causing me quite a few problems. I was hoping the recovery would speed up
from that point but it’s taken me a long time to get better.
Pain – After getting out of hospital the pain gradually improved and became intermittent rather than constant with occasional really sharp pains particularly in my
left side. This meant I could come
off the pain killers, which I didn’t like taking because of the pregnancy, and
just manage the pain with rest and relaxation.
It was scary having the one sided pain as I was terribly
worried that the pregnancy would turn out to be ectopic. It defys logic to me but an IVF pregnancy actually has a higher chance of being ectopic. In a normal pregnancy the sperm usually meets
the egg somewhere in the fallopian tube and it then makes its way to the uterus
and implants, but in an IVF pregnancy they put the embryo directly into the right place so I can't understand why it's more likely to implant in the fallopian tube than a normal pregnancy.
From when this first occurred to me to when I had my scan I was terrified,
I knew it was more likely that the pain and lumpy feeling in my side was to do
with my OHSS but until you know for sure there’s always that horrible chance in
the back of your mind. It probably took
about 4 or 5 weeks after coming out of hospital for this pain to subside
completely, it was uncomfortable but probably useful in a way as it made me
aware that though a lot of the swelling had gone down I still needed to be very
careful not to do anything strenuous that might cause damage of bleeding.
Bowels – as much as I don’t particularly like to share this
in the interests of it being useful information to other people going through
the same thing I will. One of the worst
ongoing problems I had was with my bowels.
I’d feel constipated all day and then suddenly get excruciating
abdominal pain that I knew was related to my bowels and have to run to the loo
with terrible diarrhoea. There was a couple of times on car journeys
(fortunately Matt was driving) when I had very close calls and literally had to
run out of the car to the toilet. Matt
had a good laugh at me and I can see the funny side now but at the time it was
hideous. I really feel for people with
chronic bowel problems for whom this can be a life long problem. This continued for about 6
weeks before it finally began to settle
down properly, I've never been so excited to do a 'normal' poo!
Blood tests – The main problems with my blood tests after I
left hospital were with my liver function and blood clotting, fortunately my kidneys, which can be a major problem in OHSS had held out. As the swelling went down my liver function
improved over a couple of weeks. The blood clotting – namely that my platelets
were quite high – took a longer to settle. This meant I continued with blood
thinning injections – Dalteparin – for around 8 weeks after leaving
hospital. OHSS makes you higher risk of
deep vein thrombosis – blood clots in your legs – that can be very dangerous if
they shift into other parts of your body so this, combined with the high
platelets meant more daily injections into my stomach. My GP was unclear on when to stop these and was
in the process of getting advice from my IVF clinic however when I was about 10
weeks pregnant I had some bleeding. I
couldn’t get hold of my of the GP I had been seeing at the time and though I
did see a different one I wasn’t sure that anybody else would have in depth
enough knowledge on OHSS to really advise me so I took the decision for myself,
I knew my blood tests were normal and my symptoms and swelling had settled down
so I decided to stop taking it. I would
not however advise anybody else to stop such drugs without medical advice. I spoke to my GP a few days later and she
said the IVF clinic had advised to continue until 12 weeks but by this point I
was about 11 weeks so she agreed in seemed reasonable to not restart them for 1
more week.
Energy Levels and General Fitness – In total I was off sick
from work for 8 weeks and I’m now on phased return which finishes this week. The main thing that made it take so long to
get back was just how much of my fitness and energy the OHSS took. When I was
really poorly and the first few weeks out of hospital I barely had the energy
to do anything, I’d take the dog for short walks and sometimes I’d have to stop
and sit down to rest and get my breath back half way – this is a big shock to
the system for somebody who is normally really fit! I’d usually have a couple
of naps a day and couldn’t get though the day without at least 1. This just took such a long time to gradually
get better, building up my fitness with gradually longer dog walks, trying to
do little bits and pieces around the house to push myself a bit. I’d lost weight while ill (once all the
fluid had come off) and it took me to about 12 weeks pregnant to get back to my pre-IVF weight. Putting on weight and improving my energy
levels wasn't made easier by 8 weeks of morning sickness making it
difficult for me to find anything I fancied eating but gradually things
improved. I still get tired easily but I’d say I’m pretty much at a level you’d
expect for somebody who’s 15 weeks pregnant.
Sleep – I think I’ve already, unknowingly at the time, had
my last full night’s sleep for a very long time. Back, sometime in April, perhaps
just before I had the egg collection I had a full nights sleeps. Since then I
have been up at least once at night, at the start many times a night with pain, now with needing a
wee at least once a night. I guess it’s something that I’m going to have to get
used to and it’s only going to get a whole lot worse when the little bub
arrives.
So this kind of sums up where I’ve been in terms of my
recovery over the past 8 weeks or so
since I last posted. It’s difficult to
pull this apart from what I’ve been experiencing in terms of early pregnancy
but I wanted to make that distinction in order to try and help those who might
be experiencing Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome understand what to expect
from their recovery, my next post will cover the really exciting bit!
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