Disclaimer: This is our personal experience with our fertility journey, make sure to always consult your doctor.

My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for awhile now. You can check out our whole journey here. After all the tests, we found out that I had a rare physical affliction that led us to need to use IVF in order to have children.

I know there are many others out there who might also be going through IVF and it can be so helpful to hear stories from others in case it helps to ask your doctor specific questions. In order to also assist in understanding our story, I also have only one ovary AND it is poly-cystic. I don’t have PCOS, but my poly-cystic ovary was prone to many follicles. By God’s grace, even though I had other fertility needs against me, this was actually a positive.

Our Regimen

For our regimen, we were tasked with mixing our meds. This isn’t as scary as it seems! Turns out my doctor likes to be more specific with the meds so that it can be specific to each person’s needs.

Just remember, this is what we were given – but it’s different for everyone!

We had to check that our meds would arrive and schedule a drop off date. We also had to make sure we got medical equipment and a sharps container.

Before the egg-retrieval, we had to give me 1 shot per day in my stomach. It was recommended that we take the shot around the same time each evening.

I’m not sure how much each vial contained, but we were to mix 2 menopur and 3 Gonal-F vials with 1.5 ml of saline.

To mix our medicines, we used a Q-cap to attach the syringe to the vial and we pushed the saline into a vial to mix the powder and then pulled all the liquid out after the powder was mixed in. This was the process for each vial until we had all the medicines mixed together.

My husband was insistent on trying to get rid of as much air in the syringes as possible, but the nurse said that a few bubbles in the syringe wouldn’t hurt anything. Another tip our nurse mentioned was to pull out the liquid from each vial enough for their to be a little air at the top. This way we could ensure we got all the liquid. At the end you push the air out and a little liquid might squirt out too.

My husband did such a great job helping me get poked each night, which I have to be honest hurt each time. I’m not sure if it helped, but I’ve heard that applying ice before and after the injection can help. Personally, I felt like it made the sensation linger where I received the shot, since the ice created a bigger section on my stomach. I didn’t try it enough before the injection to know if that would have helped.

Another tip is to administer the shot in a different place each time. We switched sides for each night, which really seemed to help. Although, it was funny because one side seemed to hurt less than the other. No idea why haha.

After our final ultrasound, we learned that my estrogen was increasing well and they actually wanted things to slow down a little bit. We also started another injection, which prevents ovulation.

So now we were to administer 2 menopur and 2 Gonal-F in the evening. The process was exactly the same when mixing the meds as before and this regimen only lasted a few days. We also added Ganirelix in the mornings as our new injection to prevent ovulation. Luckily, this injection came in a pre-filled syringe and needle.

All in all, we administered shots for about 10 days, had 2 ultrasounds (1 at the start and 1 at about the end before they scheduled the egg retrieval), 2 blood work appointments, and then the egg retrieval.

If you are undergoing IVF, or researching on if this is for you, I wish you all the best! I pray for God’s blessings to be upon you and I’m thankful for technology such as this that can help us have those little blessings that we have been praying for!