My infertility story- IVF part 1

I wrote announcing that i was pregnant a few months ago now, but it wasn't easy for us and i wanted to write about our struggle because it is something that is very common but the couples that are fortunate enough to not have gone through the struggle of infertility will not understand how mentally and emotionally hard it is and those couples who are suffering will understand completley and i wanted to share my story with you so you can be more understanding towards struggling couples and to those of you who are struggling to let you know i understand and i am here for you and to give you the heads up for what lies ahead.

I will do this in two parts as it's such a lot of information to fit into one big read, especially if you are reading this on your phone, so please come back for part two.

So lets start at the beginning  :)..

I have always wanted to be a mum, since as far back as i can remember. I was always maternal as a child and when my little brother was born in 2002 i was over the moon and i mothered him as much as i could and enjoyed every moment ( I still do and he is 14 now :p). 
I suspected i may have problems conceiving a good while back now but the doctors always put my missing monthly cycles down to hormones and pretty much fobbed me off every time, until i went for a blood test because enough was enough and like i suspected i did have something wrong with me, i have a very common condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). What that means is that a womans levels of the sex hormone estrogen and progesterone are out of balance and this leads to the growth of ovarian cysts. Pcos can cause problems such as fertility issues, missing menstrual cycles, cardiac function and even appearence.

Darren and i had been together for a long time and realised we where not falling pregnant naturally so i went to the doctors where they did another blood test and reffered me to the fertility clinic in the womens hospital in liverpool. 
My first appointment was 31st dec 2014. The first few visits where pretty boring, just paper work and weigh ins and more blood tests when you get your period etc..
One of the hardest parts of having pcos is that you can gain weight very quickly and it is very hard to lose that weight. At one of my appointments when she weighed me i was told i was obese and this really hit me hard! i was devastated i was a size 14 in most things and weighed around 13 stone. I was told in order to recieve any help i had to lose the weight (hence why i was doing the slimming world). 
I also had to have something called a hycosy where basically they put a catheter through your cervix with a clear solution and when they put that solution into your uterus they watch to see if it goes through your fallopian tubes so they can rule out blocked tubes. Thankfully mine where fine. Darren had to have tests done too so they could check on his sperm.

At my next consultation it was with a consultant who gave us darren's results and the plan of action for our course of treatment. Sadly due to both of us having troubles and finding out i do not ovulate, their decision was to go for IVF. I could not believe i needed ivf, me?! 
I have never known anyone more maternal than myself and i needed science to help me have a baby, i was so shocked and devastated, As where my family. I was told at that appointment that they would give me 6 months to lose 2 stone and i said i am not waiting 6 months to even get started! so she said 4, and i had to meet her in the middle so i said ok. So she gave me a date to aim to and off i went on my 4 month journey to lose weight! 

The appointments where very far apart and so far i had waited 9 months before even recieving any treatment. I handled it very well so far as i had the weight loss to focus on, that was my goal to drop 2 stone and i was also put on 500mg of metformin 3 times a day to help me get to that goal. Most days where ok but others where hard, sometimes i would find myself in tears thinking about how unfair it was for people to fall pregnant so fast and when you go through something like this, it feels like everyone around you is pregnant. 
What a lot of people don't understand is that when you suffer infertility, it is a real strain on your emotional wellbeing as well as your mental wellbeing. I know for me i felt like having a baby was just what we are made for ( im not being sexist, i mean that we are naturally able to concieve because we have the body parts to do so) so i felt like a failure and people say oh "it will happen" and "your time will come" and my most hated one "just relax and it will happen", i do not ovulate so how can i get pregnant?
It really is hard to want something all your life that seems so easy to achieve yet your body is unable to do so. I went through a stage of resenting myself which was very hard.
Darren was amazingly supportive through all of this. I absolutely adore him!

So i lost the 2 stone and at my weigh in appointment which was 1st september 2015, i was told i was successful and that they where able to put me through for the funding permission for the ivf. I remember walking into town with darren and feeling like someone had just told me i was pregnant, all my hard work paid off and we where on our way to becoming parents.

(fast forward a bit)- We where told we where granted permission to go through with the ivf and the next step was to recieve an information pack with a dvd in it and once we had recieved all of that we will soon have a consultation with a nurse to decide what our ivf protocol would be. So at that appointment they decided the short cycle was what would be best for us and she gave us some information and took more blood ( I had so many blood tests through this process) and we where sent on our way. Basically i just had to wait for my period which was so frustrating as it was so irregular and i just wanted to get on with it. Our next appointment was with a nurse for a drugs teach appointment, they basically go over what the dvd covers and you get to have a go at touching the needle you will be using and you can ask any questions you may have with the nurses. 
 This was really strange and exciting. I'm holding this needle thinking how the hell am i going to be able to stab this into myself? but i mentioned being excited because i was one step closer to hopefully being pregant...


To be continued in part two xx