#atozchallenge - IVF

I’ve had quite a bit of time to come to terms with the fact that it’s going to take IVF to have a baby. It’s hard to hear that you’ll never have a baby naturally; particularly hard if you’re hearing it right after coming round from surgery to investigate why you’re not conceiving. It seems big and scary and that’s because it is, but I’ve sort of got used to the idea.

IVF is In-Vitro Fertilisation, which is basically how a test tube baby is made. In simple form it involves taking an egg from the woman, a sample of sperm, sticking them in a dish and letting them have a party. Once they’ve done what they have to do, the resulting embryo gets popped into the woman and if all goes well, she has a baby nine months later.

Of course, it’s not that simple. First there’s the drugs to stop your cycle, then there’s the drugs to make you produce lots of eggs, then there’s the egg collection, then there’s the party in the petri dish, then there’s putting everything back where it belongs. It means lots of trips to hospital and injecting yourself with things and the discomfort of it all.

As I’ve not started it yet, I can’t really say much about what it’s going to be like. Though through various forums and groups online I’ve got an idea of what will happen. If you keep following this blog over the next couple of years you’ll probably find out far more about the IVF process than you’ve ever wanted to know.