So today was the day I had my drugs appointment for our frozen embryo transfer cycle. The clinic rang me two hours early, which in fact woke me up so I’m sure I sounded ridiculous whilst confirming my details with the nurse. Still once my brain knew this was the important call, I seemed to be fully awake within minutes!
I blogged about our drugs delivery last week and how I had received the drug Norethisterone and wasn’t really sure why. The first thing the nurse said was that I am to start Buserelin injections CD23 (cycle day 23)! I got excited but managed to ask what about the Norethisterone I’ve been sent? The nurse was just as confused as I was at receiving this as it turns out it wasn’t on my prescription! She made me check twice that I had it and that I’d checked my drugs delivery notice carefully. After seeming flumuxed the nurse said I should just ignore it for now. She went on to reconfirm that I would be starting my Buserelin injections on Sunday 8th November, that is this Sunday! After 2-3 weeks I will have a baseline scan which has been booked in for 9:30AM, Thursday 26th November. All being well and my womb lining being thin enough I will get a date to start my Progynova tablets at that scan. All not going so smoothly in my womb lining isn’t thin enough, I will have to take Buserelin for a bit longer. At this point I will have to take Norethisterone (lucky I have some right) to bring on a bleed to give the womb a fresh start! If this happens my embryo transfer won’t be until after Christmas due to my clinic Christmas shut down during which they do a deep clean. I’m praying my womb lining thins enough, not only because I want to have my frostie baby with me as soon as possible but also because I can’t imagine doing Buserelin and being in a state of fake menopause for so long!
I’m very happy with my clinic as I actually got a callback to specifically talk about my epilepsy and this cycle of treatment. I really appreciated this as I had been a bit worried that the down regulating drugs would have a big effect on my seizures. My first IVF cycle was a short protocol cycle using ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection, sperm injected straight into egg) so this medicated FET is the first time I will have down regulated. The fact that the length of hormone injections will be longer is a red flag for seizures. I often have seizures around the time my period is due, this is because of surge of hormones and changes in the body. Fingers crossed fake menopause doesn’t bring on anymore seizures! At the moment I am about 5 months Tonic Clonic seizure free. This is an amazing achievement for me. I still have daily absence seizures but these I can cope with. My clinic today asked if my neurologist knew I was undergoing fertility treament, that I had undertaken epilepsy pre-conception counselling and I was taking 5mg of Folic Acid daily. All of which I could confirm. The fact my clinic took the time to ring me back and talk to me about my epilepsy is brilliant. To me it shows that my treatment really is personal and I’m not just another patient.
So all in all a good appointment! I start Buserelin on Sunday, 0.5ml once daily injected into my tummy. This is it we are on our way! I pray my womb lining behaves, we have our transfer before Christmas and we will have a baby due in 2016.
Blog/Tweet soon @HopeEpiMum x
Epilepsy, IVF and Babies. 