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Ok here goes...this is gonna be long! So for me i started on an estrogen patch at the end of the prior cycle and then day 2 start of stims. I did stims for 12 days (shots). The needles are not very big and aren’t too bad but there are a lot of instructions and I was grateful to have my partner give them to me. There are bunch of monitoring appointments throughout where you get instructions from your nurse on how to change your dosages based on your bloodwork. Towards the end you take a trigger shot that is very precisely timed based on when your retrieval will be. Every monitoring appointment was stressful because at the first one they see how many follicles you have, then after that they see if you are responding to the stims and the follicles are growing. I have diminished ovarian reserve so I have less eggs to work with so it was scary. When you go in for your retrieval they see how many eggs they can get from the follicles. Smaller follicles may not have an egg in them. After the retrieval they tell you how many they got. But they might not all be mature. Then you get a phone call maybe a day later and learn how many fertilized, then about 5 days after that you learn how many made it to blast and what grade of embryo they are. If you are doing frozen transfer and pgt testing then they send off the biopsies and maybe about 10 days? Later you get those results and find out if you have normal, mosaic or abnormal embryos. You can start prepping for transfer before you get the results. For my transfer cycle, I started on estrogen pills and the dose increased over time, then at a certain point I added in progesterone suppositories 3x day and progesterone in oil shots every other day. Those are big shots in the butt. You ice beforehand and they don’t hurt too much during but sore after. I don’t know how people do it themselves but they do! Then you have the transfer itself which is very quick and for me was less sensations than an IUI. You go in for a blood test to see if you’re pregnant about 9 days later. You continue you meds until the nurses tell you to stop. The end!
Yeah the full flow thing is weird. I had a similar issue. Yes I felt side effects from the patch. I think mood stuff and minor headaches. I actually had very little side effects from the stim shots - clomid during iui was way worse. I had a couple days of feeling kinda depressed when I started increasing the estrogen pills dosage during the transfer cycle but then I adjusted. I think everyone is different though. Just try to be really kind to yourself and remind yourself it’s just the meds.