IVF Journey: 14w0d pregnant

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for four years now, and have a diagnosis of 'unexplained infertility'. We have finally reached the top of the waiting list for IVF - a form of assisted conception. I'm blogging about what happens as it happens, as a kind of therapy for me and as an awareness raising exercise of what IVF is all about.

Ups and downs.

Having gone cold turkey on the prochlorperazine I spent a day feeling much better, than a day of feeling a bit better, then things got a bit crappy again. I guess the prochlorperazine left my system.

The nausea was… on the borders of bearable. I felt like I might be sick quite a lot of the time, but I had some energy and felt quite positive. It was concurrently more severe, but more acceptable. But after all this time I just couldn’t bear it.

In the end I decided why be a hero, I have drugs for this.

First I had a meltdown though, I cried and cried. I was just so disappointed that I still can’t manage unmedicated. And so disheartened that this likely means I’m stuck with either nausea or drugs for a bunch more weeks because usually by 14 weeks this crap would be done with and given it isn’t I may well be stuck with it. I don’t want to have to take drugs in pregnancy, and I don’t want to have to keep on dealing with this. I’m feeling so low about the relentlessness of this and am considering seeing what the NHS is prepared to give me in the way of counselling (probably nothing although NICE guidelines would recommend otherwise). It is overwhelming.

Instead of taking the prochlorperazine again I’ve gone back to the cyclizine (a less hardcore drug) and I’m trying not to take the full dose. I took one yesterday, that just about did the job.

On the plus side I feel OK in my head, no longer sedated. This makes sense – the cyclizine is an antihistamine with drowsy side effects, whereas the prochlorperazine is a more serious drug that actively shuts off bits of the brain (“it works by blocking the effect of a chemical in the brain which is thought to affect thinking, feelings and behaviour”).

Yesterday we made a big trip (for me!) out to Glasgow to watch a cabaret show, and today the husband took me to the pool and I (very slowly) swam 15 lengths which is less than half than I’d usually do and twice as slow. But I’ve done no exercise in 14 weeks so hopefully this is the start of getting back to normal life and normal socialising.

Albeit still medicated.