You know you were in desperate need of a vacation when, 10 days in, you still haven’t conjured up the energy to do anything besides lie comatose in the sun. When, between sunscreen applications and re-applications, one thing leads to another, and before you know it you find yourself in bed at 9:30pm. And when even then, you need to set your alarm for 9:00am to ensure you don’t miss breakfast.
So yeah, I think I was long overdue for a vacation, and this holiday in Corfu has been amazing — just what I needed. For the first 9 days, we were joined by our favorite British travel companion and partner-in-crime, the lovely Louise, who enjoys making silly jokes as much as I enjoy laughing at them. Highlights included a one-day trip to neighboring Albania via ferry (my 29th country!), and a rainy day car trip to an abandoned village, where we learned the fun and totally unrelated fact that Brits also count seconds in ‘Mississippis’*.
Preparing for a frozen embryo transfer
There’s no real vacation from infertility, of course, which means I’ve also spent this holiday preparing for a frozen embryo transfer (FET) with one of the embryos left over from our recent donor egg IVF cycle. I was trying to time it so it could happen as soon as possible after we get home, meaning I would be nice and relaxed from the long vacation and ready both physically and mentally for embryo transfer attempt #5.
Our first day here, I stopped taking the birth control that’s been necessary to control the timing of my cycles. This was a relief, as I had thought these ~6 weeks on birth control would be a ‘break’ for my body, but I conveniently forgot that the hormones in the heavy-duty birth control my clinic prescribed really do a number on me: nausea, severe mood swings, back pain and cramping — the whole kit and caboodle. If timing isn’t so critical next time, I’m definitely going to skip the pill and risk a natural cycle.
A few days after stopping the birth control, my period arrived as expected, and I started taking the estrogen pills needed to grow my uterine lining. I also cut back my caffeine and replaced beach-side cocktails with beach-side smoothies. My clinic actually said I can have a drink here and there during this stage, but I don’t want to overdo it. One quickly learns that the ‘what-ifs’ afterward are what kill you.
A surprise injection
So where does this injection I mentioned in the title come in? In a surprise twist, it has nothing to do with IVF. Rather, I have a long history of getting very sick on vacations**, and this one has proven no different.
I’ve been feeling like I was coming down with something for over a week, and yesterday I awoke with throat pain so bad that I couldn’t speak, eat, or swallow. My husband managed to find a 24-hour drop-in medical clinic, where I was diagnosed with a low-grade fever and acute laryngitis. The doctor prescribed antibiotics and paracetamol, and he told me to come back in two days.
Unfortunately, the paracetamol did approximately diddly-squat for the pain, nor did any of the five other things I tried in desperation. So this morning, after a brief panic where I felt my airway closing off with mucus because it was literally too painful to swallow, back to the medical clinic we went. This time the doc gave me a pain killer that was injected in my butt.
That’s right: I managed to develop such a bad case of sore throat that I had to have an intramuscular injection. I bet you didn’t know that was even possible!
Will this affect the FET?
I still can’t speak at all, and my breathing still sounds like Darth Vader, but the new meds have taken the edge off and allowed me to eat again. The big question now, of course, is will any of these medications (or infections/viruses/fever) affect the success of a frozen embryo transfer?
I’ve emailed our favorite Belgian egg donation nurse for the clinic’s official advice, but a brief bit of googling implies that it won’t. If the clinic confirms that it’s fine to proceed, then that’s probably what we’ll do. Still, I had hoped this vacation would put me in a very relaxed and healthy state prior to the transfer, and it’s disappointing that that’s not the case. These five frozen donor egg embryos required a massive effort, and we want to feel we’ve given them the best shot.
If there’s any good in all this, it’s that my general state of patheticness has really brought out the natural caretaker in my husband. For instance, this morning I sneezed unexpectedly in the grocery store, and he used his ninja-like reflexes to catch a 4-inch drip of my snot with his bare hands before it fell on my shirt***. So you know, if/when we finally manage to acquire a small human, he’s going to make a really great dad.
xx
*When I expressed surprise to Louise that the British didn’t have their own culturally-appropriate measure of a second, my husband helpfully suggested that they use ‘Yorkshires’, which led to a lot of yelling of ‘ONE YORK-SHIRE! …TWO YORK-SHIRES!’ in our best cockney accents (Louise included).
**On our honeymoon alone, I had the flu so badly that I spent three days straight in our hotel room in Venice, and then, as my grand finale, I broke my tailbone in Sicily and had to go to the ER.
***Sometimes I joke that my husband’s idea of romance is giving me the side of the bed with the outlet, but I have to say: Seeing him holding my snot in the middle of the cereal aisle was pretty darn #romantic.
The Bunless Oven 