Made With Intention

As soon as I started my next cycle, just five days after the one that was a bust, I told my team I would not be going back on oral contraception.

It meant a scheduling frenzy for the clinic, but my body was not going to handle another course of birth control pills. So we went straight to monitoring and medications.

How it works: Cycle day 1 is the first day of full menstrual flow, and monitoring typically begins on day 2. The goal is to adjust medications based on hormone levels from bloodwork and the size of the follicles seen on ultrasound. Each follicle houses an egg, and its size tells the team how things are progressing. Follicle count, follicle size, and hormone levels all matter, so they’re tracked closely through regular clinic visits.

Here is what my cycle looked like.

Lessons learned from this cycle

Check your medication inventory immediately.

As soon as you pick up or receive your medications, count everything and make sure you have all the supplies, even if you won’t need them for months. I received my Follistim pen with NO CARTRIDGES. I missed my first dose and had to rush to the clinic the next morning for a spare to catch up. Not ideal.

Ice that fat!

Before injecting into your abdomen, ice the area for a good two minutes so you barely feel the tiny needle. I felt maybe a 0.5 to 1 out of 10 on the discomfort scale, and I hate needles.

Stay active.

During my first cycle, when I froze my eggs, I treated my body as if it were fragile. I was afraid to move too much in case I somehow burst an ovary. This time I learned that my body is resilient and nothing is wrong with me! Walking more actually helped me waddle less, and I was less bloated than in my first cycle.

Stay socially engaged.

Being around my loved ones was uplifting. I enjoyed inviting people into the process rather than isolating myself from it.

Don’t fixate on the exact minute.

The injections are roughly 12 hours apart, but there’s some wiggle room. I was often within an hour or two of the scheduled time, and everything went well. I didn’t have to speed home to give myself a shot or carry a medication kit to a restaurant. It was okay to keep living for another hour!

Know your body.

I slept great this cycle and didn’t have the hormonal shifts I’d experienced on oral contraception. I’m so glad I made this choice. I initially didn’t want to deviate from the path that had been prescribed for me, but I realized the pills were largely there for the clinic’s scheduling convenience, and I knew my body didn’t tolerate them well. The scheduling matters, too. But so do I.

Once I was off the pills, I was very happy to get my brain back!

Double-check everything.

Even if you trust your clinic, go through the list yourself. Make sure you’re there for the correct procedure, with the correct plan.

And make sure they have the sperm.

You’d be surprised. And you do NOT want to be surprised.

A note on all of this: this was my protocol, individualized for me as a healthy 37-year-old with a regular cycle. IVF protocols can look very different depending on age, ovarian reserve, medical history, and how you respond to medications. This isn’t a roadmap, but I hope it gives you a sense of what you might expect if you’re considering or going through a stimulation cycle!