About to Burst

After my first IVF retrieval, I remember feeling that awkward pressure/pain in my nether regions, which lasted a few days after the procedure. By Day 3, when my one surviving embryo was transferred, the pains had vanished, and I was just left with the overwhelmingly attractive bloat that stayed with me until my cycle was over.

The procedure was much smoother this time, but I have found the recovery to be a lot harder. I took Monday off for retrieval, and Tuesday off for recovery. I was sore yesterday, but nothing too bad - mainly that familiar tender feeling before/after using the loo. This morning was painful - really painful. I could hardly roll over, the bloat was big and the pain was quite bad. 

I didn't know what to do; should I go to work, see how it goes? I decided to wait a while longer, since I had to take my Crinone and additional progesterone pessary - the one which requires you to lay down for 30 minutes until it is fully absorbed. Unfortunately, lying on my back was agonising, so I flipped to my side & texted my poor supervisor, to tell her that I just couldn't get in today. I felt awful at the time, but it was the best thing I could have done.

I've spent the day in pain - horrible, bloaty, windy pain. I researched everything I could about OHSS, sure that this was a sign of it. (How weird would it have been to get hyper-stimulated from only three eggs? While I've got the bloat and the abdominal pain, I've got no other signs at all. I'm drinking and peeing like a racehorse, I'm breathing fine. I feel like I've got really bad gas pains, like trapped air. It's painful, like whoa.

Since I've read that it can be a normal thing after egg collection, I haven't been too worried about it. I've tried nearly everything to combat it. Litres of water, Gatorade, Powerade. De-Gas, twice. Panadol for the pain. Fizzy lemonade to try and burp the gas out, metamucil to (ahem) move things along. Nothing is working! Yargh.

I haven't heard anything about our three embabies, but that's normal. I'll hopefully get an update tomorrow, and hear that they're doing well - or, worst case, I'll be brought in early for a 3-day transfer. At this rate, I'm praying for them to get to blastocysts, just so I can have some time to recover down to my normal size!

The worst part is that hubby's man-flu isn't doing real well, so we've both been feeling more than a little sorry for ourselves. We're getting by, though. Jase is taking tomorrow off from work, and I'm heading back - so fingers crossed we'll both shake our lurgies off soon.