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[pearlfectwellness-myivfjourney]

I bled on 1st Jan!!! What are the odds that I would actually start my actually IVF journey on a holiday!!!

Kkh nurse told me that I will need to do my scan by D3 of menses. So 3rd morning I had to take MC to go in for my first scan.

Went to kkh and realised I forgotten to take pregnancy test. So had to buy and take on the spot before I went got my scan.

Tada!!! All clear to start!!

Was nervous when I first entered. Due to covid restrictions, the husbands are not allowed into IVF centre. All of the husbands have to wait outside of IVF centre. So hubby wanted to wait near me, he sat at the reception counter at clinic D since the door connecting to clinic D is theIVF centre.

It was pretty awkward when I did my first scan. It was messy as I was still bleeding. But the nurses were all nice. They felt my nervousness so they helped me relax by talking to me and made me laughed.

I don’t think mine was that messy considering I usually end my menses on D4 and the scan was done on D3.

So this first scan is to see if there are substantial number of follicles to kick start the journey. And yes!!! I had good number of them.

So started my Stimulation and Antagonist phase.

[pearlfectwellness-myivfjourney]

2021 when measures are better, I got a referral to kkh. The journey was a confusing one as kkh has weird protocols (scan first, see later)

As a lady with hormonal health challenges, I was anxious whenever I did my scan, had to ask the sonographer is everything ok? Any cyst? How big the cyst. Their response is always the same, “your doctor was explain to you” & my reply to them is also always the same “but I need to wait another month, can u tell me first?”

I even mixed up the name of my gynae when she called and I wanted to check with her whether if it’s ok for me to proceed to get myself vaccinated.

We tried 2 different doses of medication - latrozel, first then clomid. Remembered when my gynae changed to clomid, she warned me that clomid has a possibility of having 2 follicles = twins. My response to her was “aiya, we should have started with that from the start, it’s easier to have 2 at one go considering we tried for so long” I remembered her facial expression, she was shocked when she said “not many wants to try clomid once they heard of possibility of twins.

So we tried the medication for a while and decided that it wasn’t working for us, and we wanted more help- iui/ivf

But I wasn’t too keen on IUI because

1) I did it in 2017 and knew that the success rate was much lower.

2) I’m not that young anymore to really go try IUI again.

3) the pain process is almost the same at the initial stage( where I need to self inject during pre-stimulation stage).

4) wasting of subsidised fundings even though it was an option given.

Gynae said I could go for IVF if I wasn’t keen on IUI as I have tried it before. So in Aug’21 we decided to go ahead with IVF and gynae said since we have decided for IVF and there is a waiting queue for it, she gave us the green light to have ourselves vaccinated. So in we took both our doses on 3rd sept 2021 and 24th sept 2021

We finally got our month! Dec’21 to go for briefing, but we will have to go for a blood test on the last week of Nov’21.

[pearlfectwellness-myivfjourney]

Continued seeing my gynae until pandemic hits, and I got afraid of going to the hospital for any reviews, so I stopped seeing my gynae.

I started focusing on using my young living supplements and oils to support and building up my hormonal health so that my body is more ready when it’s time to try fertility again.

Used the following oils and supplements. Don’t be alarmed by the non-exhaustive as by 2020, I was a more seasoned oiler and was ready to use that much (I only started out with 3 oils in 2019)

1) progessence phyto plus

2) clary sage (alternate with dragon time)

3) endoflex

4) scarlessence

5) femigen

6) super B

7) Vit D

8) black seed oil

[pearlfectwellness-myivfjourney]

2019 when I fainted at my GP, i had a referral to see my panel specialist at Mount E Novena. The first time I saw my Gynae, I was amazed!  My gynae was a super fashionable lady and she never fails to amaze me at her variety of clothes. In the emotional state I was in, I would say that cheered me up a lot.

In 2019 when Gynae checked my condition, I was still diagnosed with endometriosis, with a retroverted womb. As surgery is the last thing she wanted me to do, I started taking a medication called visanne for a duration of 6 months.

I had a lot of confusion from this medication as the side effects were things I would usually get when I’m stressed or tired:

• headach->migraine

•vomitting

•teary eyes due to sensitivity of light

•numbness on the right side of my leg ( I thought was due to my RTA in 2018)

Had a chat with my gynae on the 6month review mark and gynae decided for me to stop the medication due to the side effects I faced.

She then recommended us to try fertility again, by which this time it’s natural fertility under supervision. So when it’s about ovulation time, I will need to go for scans every other day to see if the follicles have reached optimum stage, how many follicles I had for that month.

Once she said “Pearly, you have 3 follicles this month.” And the nurse started cheering but I was confused until gynae explained.

3 follicles = there’s a chance of a triplets

Can you imagine the joy and fear I faced!!!

[pearlfectwellness-myivfjourney]

Pending down my thoughts on my IVF journey here.

I got married in 2015 with the idea of

•get married at age 25

• give birth to 2 children by age 28

• then stop my fertility with 2 children

But hubby wanted multiplication and his idea of multiply is to have more than 2 children. So the common consensus is to have max 3 children in the only scenarios:

1st pregnancy- 1 child, we try for 2nd pregnancy, 2nd pregnancy is a twin, That will make a total of 3 children

If 1st pregnancy is a twin, we will stop there.

But things don’t often go our way as we wanted. I had problems conceiving despite our efforts of trying.

2017, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I went to Thomson medical to get a check and the doctor said it was an intestinal issue. So he wrote me a referral to A&E to get it check.

I went to mount E novena’s A&E, saw a gastro doctor, did endoscopy and colonoscopy only to find it was all clear. Got recommended to see a second opinion and that’s when I was officially diagnosed with aedomyosis and endometriosis after multiple blood tests, scans. Gosh I can’t remember how many scans I actually did.

That year, my Gynae also did a egg count test and did not recommend and surgery due to the Low amh count. As such, he recommended the fertility route which I did my 1st IUI. At that point in time, I was only 27, I was quite blur on what’s happening.

All I remembered was results were negative, and I was so emotionally depressed, financially drained. That level was stress was something I don’t handle well.

So I took a super long break for the entire 2018 and early 2019. In fact, I actually dint have plans to go back to a gynae cos I lost all hope. But God is good, he let me faint at my GP one day and I got referred to see a panel specialist. That’s when I started seeing a gynae again.

Only difference from back then and this pane gynae in Mount E, I had already gotten to know YL, even though I was very newly exposed to YL, I started some oils to help with my cramps.