The next thing you would think
normal people would do in this situation is research. I mean, I was about to go through some pretty intensive medication, procedures and could potentially have my entire life changed after, it
was pretty important I knew what I was doing right?! Clearly not to me! This is where the whole me not being your average girls thing comes in again, I did very little research, I had no idea
what medication I would need, how I would take it, what procedures I needed, what these procedures entailed, nothing! I didn’t even know where I would begin looking for information either! Like I
said previously, you could bombard yourself with information and still not feel any clearer about what was going on, plus, if I am honest, I didn’t really care! Whatever had to be done, was going
to be done to get what I wanted. Plus, any questions I had, I asked the clinic, they were amazing and answered everything I asked and were so helpful! If i was doing this again, I wish someone
would have told me to ask a couple of things, just the key things you need/may want to know so, the few things I would recommend asking are;
How much does it cost and
how does the payment plan work? – affording this treatment can be quite a stressful time so some of them allow you to pay in chunks which makes it more affordable and helps with the
stress levels!
What drugs you will have to
take and when – this will help plan your timeline, getting medication can be a bit of a bitch so leaving yourself plenty of time to receive it will again help with stress
levels!
Will there be any side
affects to the medication and are there any conditions around taking them, such as on a full stomach, no alcohol etc
Is there any waiting lists?
The worst thing would be to get in your head that you want treatment at a specific time to then find out they have a 6-month waiting list!
If you are having the
treatment abroad like I was, ask about getting there, airports, if you need a hire car, where’s best to stay (a lot of abroad clinics get good rates with local apartments/hotels so always
best to ask)
Ask about the donor. They
may not be able to tell you much information as they are anonymous, but I got told that they will have the same hair, skin and eye colour as me and that they were
Caucasian.
The one thing I did do and found so
useful was join a couple of support groups on Facebook. My fave one being “IVF Support UK” there are lots of ladies in there, all going through the same thing and genuinely without this
group, I don’t know what I would have done half the time. I asked a lot of questions in here about how I should be feeling, if the things happening to my body were normal, a lot of the girls post in
there to start conversations with people who are at the same point in their cycle as you are. I have made some friends on here who were getting eggs collected etc all at the same time too, or just
before or just after me. It really helps because even though you have a massive support from your friends and family, they can only understand what you are going through to a certain extent, even if
they have had babies before, so I found this great. It is not all fun and games in these groups though, there is a lot of heartache, a lot of people have unsuccessful rounds, or miscarriages or
worse. Sometimes it’s really hard because you almost don’t want to hear all of it but obviously for these ladies it’s a good way of communicating what they are going through. And also, sometimes you
post in there and get complete horror stories from everyone (like I said, this happens a lot in pregnancy regardless of if you’re in a Facebook group or not!!). It’s all “My friends baby had 3
heads”, “My friends baby had no head”, “My friend now has to shit out of her vagina now because of a 17th degree tear!” OBVIOUSLY, I exaggerate but you get my point. The word “tear”
gets used a lot during pregnancy too and it makes me want to jump of a bridge, please guys, if you have pregnant friends who are about to go through the unknown, DO NOT tell them about your mate that
had to get 20 stiches because she tore so badly there was no differentiating her vagina from her ass hole – it’s really not what we need to hear.
Life tip; Have Gin in the house, always.
One thing about this part of the
process that I found fascinating was how the clinic choose the donor, I was gutted when I found out I didn’t get to sit and go through a book and judge all the donors until I picked “Mr Right”. I was
so excited to go through like, “Oh this one is a ginge, no thank you…” “Oh dear, this one is a Blues fan, FUCK THAT!” but alas, it was much more scientific than that! I had to send a
picture of me to the clinic, they then run that through their computer and match you and your features to the nearest donor they have on their system so that hopefully the baby looks like you. HOW
FANCY! I had to be careful about which picture I sent them, I mean, do I send a filtered to fuck one that actually looks nothing like me, but my baby will look like a bloody god/goddess or do you
just send a normal one and hope it doesn’t come out looking like a gremlin. I went for this one below... #nofilter. Fingers crossed I don’t get an ugly one anyway, I paid a lot of money
for this, I will be wanting compensation if he or she is a minger.
As time went by and more people were
asking me about what was going to happen etc, I started to realise the huge amount of pressure it puts on me everyone knowing when I am going and what I am doing. If I am honest, I also started
getting impatient, I just wanted all this t happen now. So, I ended up changing mind about when I was going to go, originally the plan was to go in February after my 30th but I ended
up changing my mind and going in October. I had a holiday planned in September, so I thought I would enjoy that and then have time to do my medication (you have to start injections 10 days before
you’re due to go) and then I would go. I decided this time round to keep it a secret when I was going. Everyone still thought February. When I look back, this was 100% the right thing to do, when I
think now what it would have been like with people asking me about what was going on, if it was successful, how I was feeling all the time, it would have been too much. And what would have happened
had it not been successful, I wouldn’t have necessarily wanted to talk about it all the time and with everyone I knew! So, I ended up speaking to my Dad about it and asking him to come with me. I
also really liked the idea of going with my Dad and sharing it with him, he is one of my closest friends as well as being the best Dad in the world and I knew he would just love being there with me
so much! I also really liked the idea of being able to surprise my mom and sister with what I hoped would be a positive pregnancy test! Everyone else in the group I was in got to do these big
announcements to their family and I felt like I was going to somehow miss out if I didn’t get to do that too and I would have just said “oh yeah its worked!” – seemed like it would be a bit flat to
me!
Dad and I met on one lunch at work in
Waitrose café and ended up just booking the flights!!! I was so excited, it felt really real now, this was around August time I think and so it felt like the countdown was on. As soon as I had the
flights booked, the clinic had no waiting list so they confirmed straight away the dates were fine and they gave us some recommendations for places to stay so the next job was looking into that and
booking a hire car (the clinic is around 2 hours from the clinic – hire car was the best way for us to get around). I then felt SO chill. I had a plan, it was all worked out and this was really
happening… in a couple of months’ time, I could be pregnant!! AAAHHHH!!!
