IVF Prep

Since returning from Scotland, I feel like all my time and energy has been focused on trying to get pregnant. I'm not going to go into all specifics of what brought us to this point but we were given the green light to start IVF in June but we needed to postpone things due to the impending summer holidays and the clinic closing for a summer break. We could've started in August but the timings weren't right with Gregor and Emma's wedding, so as soon as we got back, the prep began in earnest. 

As I have mentioned in previous entries about the medical system here in France, there is a much greater responsibility on the patient and in this case, it was no different. I had a prescription to pick up my drugs (with a bullet point stating that they must be administered by a district nurse - which I had to arrange), a prescription to arrange an anaesthetist, a heap of forms and information leaflets (all in French) and a scrawl of a basic timeline hastily written out on the back of my prescription. Once I started reading things and working out what i needed to get done before the start of my next period, I was feeling quite overwhelmed. I actually had to spend a morning translating everything and working out a timeline which I could understand. 

Then I collected all my drugs from the pharmacy and it made me realise just how big this thing was. 

The most stressful thing was sorting out a district nurse. I tried calling a few but my poor french meant it was impossible to explain my needs and the only one that was semi-helpful wanted to know exactly what day I would be started my treatment. Obviously, with IVF, that is never a given. I felt lost, so I went to my GP's office to speak with Myléne, the secretary who has great english, and whom I knew would help me out. I got into the office, and GAH! she was off sick. Fortunately, her reliever was a young girl who had lived in London for a couple of years and knew exactly what it meant to be in a foreign country, unable to speak the language and needing to deal with a healthcare situation. She was brilliant. She even called her mum to get recommendations! It is a bit mental, though, that there aren't nurses recommended by the IVF clinicians. This thing could be just so much more joined up. Anyway, I left with a locked-in nurse, and her phone number to text as soon as I got the green light from the Doc. It was a good job I got it sorted as two days later, my stimulation began.