Satsuma’s Revenge

We can’t not have a little melodrama around here, Gentle Readers.

So, we transferred one absolutely perfect embryo on Thursday – a Day 6 transfer, because of the testing. Friday, I felt fine. H and I went to see the GP in the morning, to see if i could get the next 12 weeks-worth of medication on the NHS should it become necessary, and could i be dealt with by the high-risk obstetrics team rather than the midwives? answers yes and yes, and the GP was ever so sweet and concerned, which made me feel weepy. I took a short walk to the town centre to do a couple of errands, and then mostly lounged about. Saturday, I felt fine. H and I went on an outing to the great big botanical gardens and wandered through the trees and flower beds in the pleasingly slightly-cooler weather, eating ice-cream.

Sunday, therefore, I woke up at about six in the morning, feeling sick. The nausea faded a fair bit after a cup of tea and a few spoons of yoghurt, so we decided to stick with our original plan and go out for breakfast. By the time we’d walked the 20 minutes to our favourite purveyor of stonking great breakfasts, I was feeling sick again, bizarrely short of breath, pale, and sweating profusely (I don’t sweat profusely. I just get sticky). I only managed about four or five mouthfuls, handed my plate over to H, and sat sipping my ginger tea in increasing discomfort, yawning and gasping for air. We decided that I should get the bus straight home.

After lying down and drinking a bottle of Gatorade, I felt distinctly better, but disgustingly bloated. So I weighed myself. Holy hell, I’d put on seven whole pounds since the beginning of the IVF cycle. Huh. And standing up was making me pant and yawn again, so I went back to bed.

By evening I felt awful. Satsuma, weird bloody gonad, was fine, merely twingeing dully every now and then. But the rest of me? I had pains in my back, stomach, chest and ribs, could only breathe (relatively) normally lying on my right side, felt sick, had heartburn, and could not force myself to drink without gagging and retching. All the drinks just… sat in my stomach, sloshing about and adding to the unpleasant sensations of pressure.

H (poor H. What was the one thing that freaked him out about IVF? Me getting OHSS) eventually called Riverside’s emergency number and spoke to a nurse who agreed it did sound very like OHSS and gave him a list of serious danger signs (vomiting, dizziness, severe pain, stopping peeing, very dark pee) at which point to take me to a hospital. If I still felt that uncomfortable in the morning, call the clinic and get seen then.

The night was not good. I got very little sleep and could not get comfortable. Eventually, I managed to start taking sips at five-to-ten minute intervals from the Gatorade bottle without retching, and by 7am managed half a cup of tea. After a bit, my bladder announced she was functioning just dandy-oh, thank you, and then I drank some more, ate a little yoghurt so I could force down the Metformin and Prednisolone, and then a couple of paracetamol to deal with the persistent back and rib pain. I even had pain in my shoulder, like the referred pain after abdominal surgery. Gah. Gah, I say, also bah and pah. I had however deflated noticeably – I weighed myself again and had lost five pounds overnight.

I’m not feeling too bad at the moment. Apart from the psychological trauma of having to explain OHSS to my boss, with reference as to why I wasn’t coming into work (‘It’s not an ‘implant’, it’s a transfer. And now I am going to say “leaking ovaries”. Leaking ovaries! So there!’).

Oh, And Dr Google insisting cheerfully that developing OHSS post-transfer can be a sign that… you know… because OHSS is brought on by HCG, and now the HCG trigger is out of a lass’s system, where else would she get more from? Bugger Dr Google anyway.