Candid and Cringe

Ep. 004
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[00:00:00] Thuy Doan: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Candid and Cringe, a podcast about growth and the roller coaster of life. In this episode, we are finally going to talk about. Um, some health complications I had earlier this year. Well, actually last month, really. Pretty recent. To put it a little bit crass, a little bit crass,

[00:00:40] we are going to be talking, you know, not explicitly, but talking about some hoo ha stuff. Put a little bit more academically, we're going to be talking about fertility issues / productivity. [00:01:00] Today, the episode is titled, it'll probably stay the same, but it's titled IVF as someone who gets clammy about needles and has avoided and even fainted from bloodwork for over a decade.

[00:01:14] So, first of all, what is IVF? Let's start there. This is a definition uh, well, I paraphrased it off of Mayo clinic.org. IVF is an assisted, uh, assisted what assistive reproductive process that involves retrieving eggs from the ovaries for a variety of reasons, including freezing them, for preservation and potential use later, or immediately fertilizing them with sperm in a lab,

[00:01:46] and then that embryo the combination of the egg and the sperm, either gets implanted in you or somewhere else, somewhere, someone else, not somewhere else. Uh, as a heads up throughout this [00:02:00] episode, I will probably refer to just the egg freezing portion of IVF as IVF. It's just easier for me. Um, instead of just being like egg freezing egg freezing egg freezing IVF, I guess they're the same amount of syb- syllable but

[00:02:14] iVF is just easier for me cognitively and plus my fertility clinic, and doctor also just calls the whole thing IVF. So IVF. If you are here listening, you may or may not know what IVF is now, you know, since I just gave you the definition, but from there you might be wondering, well, that kind of sounds invasive, potentially uncomfortable.

[00:02:41] And why would you do it if it is that way and probably expensive, which if you thought that you're right, it is expensive. So why IVF? I guess I'll start with how it came across my radar. I would say I've heard of things like egg [00:03:00] freezing. I've heard of things like surrogacy, but I've always thought of those things as something you do, if you are having difficulty conceiving

[00:03:12] um, or carrying a child yourself. But I know someone from business school who, I guess she started her own fertility company. They call themselves a Lilia L I L I A uh, their website is hello lillia.com I believe, but they tout themselves as a fertility concierge. And they help you. Like, I guess like a hotel concierge handle all the inquiries you have about fertility, um, on your journey towards whatever you want.

[00:03:48] You pay a membership and they do all that legwork for you. Find the clinics, go through your insurance, get you fees waived off, et cetera, et cetera. So I [00:04:00] heard about IVF again, after a long while through seeing uh, someone I know post about IVF and her company on social media. And this person, she, I mean, I guess I, I don't mind naming her.

[00:04:15] I think she doesn't mind either her name's Alyssa Atkins. She's a boss. Um, she on her Instagram story has a very, very long highlight of what her IVF journey was. I watched that and basically from watching her and learning more about it, I was like, huh, I feel like that might be a good idea for me to do proactively with my fertility. Now to give you context on where I'm at with that journey.

[00:04:43] I am not somebody who has ever or currently wants to be a parent or a mother. That badly, I would say that I'm open to it. But if I was told today that I could not conceive, [00:05:00] the only reason it would accept me uh upset me is because someone is telling me that I can't do something that I would otherwise have had the ability to do if I wanted.

[00:05:10] So I am pursuing IVF mainly for, uh, empowerment, fertility, autonomy reasons. Because as you may very well know, society likes to pressure women to have children just because they're a woman or like once they get to a certain age, you know, there's a whole like biological clock, which we can go through, go into later.

[00:05:37] There's some truth to it. Scientifically that we can go into later. But the whole biological clock thing, the whole societal pressure, like lady must get married, be in a long term committed relationship, have offspring. Okay. I didn't want to get [00:06:00] to age 33, or whatever age it was that people really start feeling that pressure, either themselves or because of other people to have children,

[00:06:11] when I, and if I don't want. Okay. So I want to be able to, to decide when that is. If I do it, uh, it could be that I don't have children. It could be that I have children and bear a child, but that's, you know, later. I, I really don't expect that that's going to be within the next five years. If I were to have a child myself, it would be with, or without a partner, it would be later in life, realistically, probably 35 or later.

[00:06:43] Doing IVF, not only lets me control the timing, but it also lets me control how I were to do it. If I wanted to expand my family. So that takes me to surrogacy. So while I was talking to [00:07:00] Alyssa and some other people who also went through IVF, I found out that people were opting into using, or collaborating, with a surrogate, which is somebody who carries uh, your child for you.

[00:07:19] Of course, you know, there's an agreement and an understanding and also payment. We can go into that later. I thought surrogacy was for, you know, for example, same-sex couples where they have, um, you know, complications with doing it inside of their pairing. Or if somebody has, you know, infertility issues, uh, on either part, um, they would offer surrogacy.

[00:07:47] But I found out that people, especially like people who really want to work and focus on their career in their twenties opting for surrogacy, [00:08:00] um, because they suspect that they will want to expand their family later when it's less convenient for their biological clock. Put a different way, they suspected they will want to expand their family when they have less

[00:08:19] eggs in their ovaries to rely on. Um, another reason people pursue surrogacy is simply because they do not want to carry said child. Obviously, if you carry a child yourself, it's the most cost effective way. But at what cost trauma to the body. That's right. Trauma, T R A U M A, trauma, the body is changed.

[00:08:44] Does it heal? Yeah, but is it going to be the same as before? So there's a lot of factors that go into this. To summarize, I'm doing it for freedom of choice. From there, I had to decide, well, I had to [00:09:00] learn... Okay, so if this is something that I w I'm thinking of doing, w- does it involve? Because I feel like it involves needles and have a problem with that.

[00:09:10] Okay. And I feel like it involves blood and I have even more of a problem with that. So I looked into it. Um, I picked a clinic, a fertility clinic through Lilia. They, you know, as I said before, they help you narrow down to three clinics based on your preferences and your insurance. I picked a clinic and from there went in for a consultation of sorts. Uh, that consultation does include blood work, which I was not pleased about.

[00:09:41] I, as someone who is very, very, very, anxious is probably the right word, uh, anxious about needles and even more so about blood, I wanted to know specifically how much blood you are going to take from me because I need to mentally prepare. [00:10:00] So one of the staff from Lilia told me, don't quote me on this because I don't exactly remember.

[00:10:07] I just know it was low. They were suggesting to me that it was something along the lines of one to two, one to two vials for what they needed to measure in order to determine if I was ready physically to do IVF. When I got in there, you have to do a, you have to do a vaginal ultrasound. There's this like wand thing.

[00:10:29] It looks like a curling iron without the clip. Um, lube it up, get it on in there and see what's going on with the ovaries. But aside from that, I went in there for blood work, thinking that I was going to get like two tubes of blood out of my body. And you know what they said? They said, it's going to be eight tubes!

[00:10:52] Not even like four, not even double what I was thinking. They said eight and I was [00:11:00] visibly distressed. So the nurse was like, obviously I'm paraphrasing here. She's like, is that cool? Do. Are you, do you still want to go through with it? And I was just like, man, this sucks, but I'm here, I've committed. So I might as well do it.

[00:11:17] So she proceeds to, you know, stick me up, suck out my life force. And I, I guess I have an automatic self soothing system. Where possible I would rock back and forth or fidget, but in that situation I'm like half lying because I'm telling the lady I'll probably faint. So you should let me lie down. Um, in that situation my self- soothing mechanism was singing, uh, children's songs.

[00:11:44] Um, I usually start with, uh, I think ABCs is a, is a, is my default or like the, the easiest one that my brain thinks of. But there are other ones, like after ABC, I jump to, um, The [00:12:00] Rainbow Song from Barney, like, oh, I like red. It's the color of an apple. Orange. It's the color of an orange. I'm not going to sing the whole thing, but there you go. You do that all the way to purple

[00:12:15] and then you talk about how awesome it is to make a rainbow. Um, and then the last song that I sang, if there's enough time, usually if there's enough, time is a song from Blues Clues. Okay, that song is The Planet Song. Like, well, the sun's a hot star and Mercury's hot too. Venus is a brightest planet and earth is home to me and you. And then you go through all the end.

[00:12:43] This song does include Pluto. I re I realize that Pluto is no longer an official planet, but the song includes Pluto, RIP Pluto. So anyways. I get through my songs and by the end I noticed that my voice gets, has gotten [00:13:00] shaky. Like I started out pretty strong. I'm like, okay, cool. We're just beginning. Goosfraba, goosfraba. But by the end, I'm just like, well, the sun's a hot star. I'm just like, I'm trying to hang in there because like, after, you know, after like the fifth two, I'm just like, oh my god, please

[00:13:19] please help me. But anyways, I was finished and the lady was a gem and she gave me apple juice. Thank you. Thank you. I've seen, I've never been able to give blood. I, I admire and respect the whole system of giving blood to save a life. I just can't actually do that. Um, but I've seen those sorts of things happening.

[00:13:45] Yeah. Schools like in high school, you know, people were in the cafeteria, spread out giving their blood. I think after that, usually what happens is they get a cookie. I've never been in that position, but, uh, this is probably the closest I'll ever get. [00:14:00] I got apple juice at the fertility clinic for getting my blood work done.

[00:14:04] So I got that done. Um, after that, The fertility doctor basically told me, uh, you know, some of your numbers are low for this, this and that, but I think we can go ahead with stim. Stim being a short hand or abbreviation for stimulation, I believe of the ovaries in particular. So let's get into stim. I would say, so I got my consultation with a fertility clinic, I think back in May,

[00:14:37] so it actually took me several months to actually start stim. Uh, the reason why it took me such a long time is because the stimulation process has to occur starting on the second day of your menstruation cycle, which the the word menstruation, my fertility doctor, and maybe more doctors, they like to [00:15:00] shorthand it to menses.

[00:15:02] So menstruation and menses is the same thing. I might use it to be hip in this podcast, but yeah, you have to start stimulation on the second day of your menses. For me, menses occurs every like 28 days. Like the first day of my period. I don't know where it officially starts, but the first day of my period is always like clockwork on the pill.

[00:15:23] Every 28 days. So, because there's this specific requirement of you having to do IVF on a certain day of your menses, I found it really difficult to, I guess, pick or to coincide my natural menses with this process, because I just always had something to do that I was like, you know, daily injection sounds awful during this time period.

[00:15:49] Like for example, um, Oh, yeah. So in October, my friend, Joe, who [00:16:00] is a sweetheart and listens to this podcast, he got married. Okay. And I was like, I am not going to do IVF during his wedding. So no, we had to, I just kept postponing it. And eventually I was just like, okay, it's gotta be now. Or at least we can only make it now if

[00:16:19] I can manufacture things a little bit. There's a little bit of uh birth control manipulation because I didn't want to do uh, during my October menses and I didn't want to do it during my natural November menses. So I manufactured a menses to occur in between those two times. So that's when I started stim. Stim, stim, stim.

[00:16:45] And if there are men listening to this. Please stick around. I realize that some of this may not relate to some of you, but I will be divulging a lot of, uh, of my anxiety with the [00:17:00] medical procedure and what happened to my body after, in a way that is relatable to anyone, regardless if they have a uterus.

[00:17:08] So please stick around. Stick around. What they had you do was on the first day of your menses, you were to email the clinic and tell them, Hey, I'm on my first day of menses. I need to book an appointment. I need to come in tomorrow. And then they book you to come in tomorrow on your day two of your menses. During stim, which is at least a 10 day affair, 12 days

[00:17:35] for me. During those 10 to 12 days, you have to inject yourself with hormones. Okay. And then starting at some day in the cycle, you have to start injecting yourself with two hormones. What those hormones are, one of them is meant to [00:18:00] stimulate the growth of your eggs. Okay. Get them to a place of maturity so that when they come out of your body, they're in good enough condition to freeze.

[00:18:12] The second injection that you have to take at some point is to tell your ovaries not to ovulate, not to eject your growing eggs out of the ovaries. Just keep them in there. And then towards the end of that, 10 to 12 day process, you have to take an additional injection, a third. To say, release the eggs now.

[00:18:37] And in that process of exiting your ovaries, that's when they go in there and take them out. So you have to do that. I, as a person who is not friends with needles, nor blood work, had to do this for 10 to 12 days straight, and then they had to stick a needle in my [00:19:00] ovaries. Okay. Uh, very stressful affair or so I thought. In some ways, very stressful in some ways not. Let me get into that.

[00:19:10] So during those 10 to 12 days, yes, you have to take at least one injection a day, but in that timeframe, you have to come into the clinic about two to three times so that they can check up on you to see how your body is responding to the hormones. What that procedure looks like is similar to that consultation.

[00:19:33] You come in, you do a vaginal ultrasound and you do blood work. Thank God less than what you had to do initially. So initially I had to get eight tubes of blood. For the checkups, it's half a tube. It's it's one vial, but it's not even a full vial. That made it better. Uh, and I'm somebody who, with enough exposure, I do get desensitized to the things that [00:20:00] I I'm having anxiety for.

[00:20:02] I've noticed that this happening for heights and it happens too for needles. Do I want to go through the process? No, but the fact that I can get more and more desensitized, it makes it better. So you go in and you do- do those two things. And then right after you do those two things, you know with the fertility doctor and they kind of let you know

[00:20:19] how it's looking. Towards the end, depending on where you're at with the stimulation, they might recommend you to go an additional day or two of stim, which is why that range exists like 10 to 12. Like if everything's Gucci, you're only doing it for 10 days. But if, for like, for example, for me, my numbers were low,

[00:20:44] so she tacked on another two days of stim to try and get me my body into a ready enough zone for retrieval, which is what we call that surgery to retrieve the eggs. Retrieval. [00:21:00] So mine lasted 12 days. On the 12th day, that's when you take what they call a trigger shot, which is a two parter. That day, you know, stem as stim but then a specific set, uh set of hours after you have to take part one of a trigger shot, and then a very specific set of hours after that trigger shot, you have to take

[00:21:27] the second trigger shot. The reason why there's a very specific timeframe is because, um, I guess they figured it out that the timeframe that ovulation occurs after a person takes that second trigger shot. So they time it so that whenever you take your second trigger shot, it is at a time that's advantageous for the, uh, proposed retrieval time.

[00:21:55] And if I remember correctly it's something like 35 hours, but don't quote me on that. On the [00:22:00] day of the surgery, let's get into that part. Oh, actually, before we get into the surgery part, I want to talk about the most interesting parts of the stimulation process. One is I believe everybody, or most people get put on this diet just because of what tends to happen with the body.

[00:22:22] Regarding bloating with the hormones. Um, most people, or a lot of people during this process, they get put on a high sodium diet. And I literally got a paper that was like drink Gatorade. Didn't know the Gatorade was, you know, high in salt, but fun fact. Drink Gatorade only. Limit consumption of water.

[00:22:46] Preferably don't drink water and eat junk food, basically eat processed meat and chips. Now fun for the mouth. Not fun for the stomach, but that's what I had to do. I [00:23:00] actually thoroughly enjoyed drinking Gatorade and I'm not a Gatorade drinker, but it was fun to. It was fun to try out some flavors that I've never tried before and kind of find out what my favorite Gatorade flavor was, which is by the way, lime / lemon.

[00:23:17] Next part. The surgery. I did during the stim process, by the way, I did take daily vlogs, which I'm thinking of releasing exclusively for Patreon. I'm trying to decide if it's the first tier or the second tier. First tier is I believe $2 US, $3 Canadian. Second tier is $5 US, $7 Canadian. Um, but if you're on the second tier, if you don't know, you get full uncut

[00:23:45] uh, video episodes for each podcast. So consider joining, um, I'll think about that. But surgery let's move on to the surgery. For surgery. The day. Well, the la- in your last [00:24:00] appointment, prior to the surgery, they give you a packet that tells you a bunch of stuff about the surgery. There's also a bunch of liability waivers, which in essence, say, if you die during the procedure, not saying that you're going to die, but if you die in the procedure, please designate somebody to make decisions regarding your frozen eggs / retrieved eggs

[00:24:25] and let us know. That's what those waivers say, slightly ominous and technically possible, but unlikely. Still scary. In that packet. It told me that my surgery was at 7:30 AM on a Sunday. What they do have you do though, is come in one hour before that surgery. So I had to come in at 6: 30. Since I live in a different city

[00:24:53] it's about an hour away in bad traffic, but 40 minutes in good traffic from my fertility clinic, I [00:25:00] was not going to drive in that morning. Um, and plus the surgery involves conscious sedation. So you cannot drive yourself back anyway. So I actually booked a hotel room and my partner stayed with me, and accompanied me to the surgery, couldn't go in because of COVID, uh, but took me back and all that stuff.

[00:25:19] So I went there at 6: 30. uh, for that surgery. When you go in, uh, they kind of like do some more paperwork, but they get you set up with your IV, which is an awful process, guys. I don't like it. But you go into a little room behind a curtain. It's kind of like a, like a mall changing room that's sort of nice.

[00:25:44] You sit there and the nurse comes in and make small talk with you and sticks, uh, the whole IV thing in you. What I learned that day was an interesting, fun fact about the IV. Because I don't like to put myself in situations where I have to [00:26:00] encounter an IV. But apparently when you get an IV stuck in, the thing that's actually stuck in your vein is a plastic catheter.

[00:26:09] It's not a needle. So I was sitting there just like sweating and singing my self-soothing songs out loud. Don't matter who's around because I thought I had a needle in my arm this entire time. Okay. I'm really curious what my heart rate was at that time and my blood pressure. But at some point the lady comes in and she tells me to get up, very nicely, and move to the surgery room, which is like a couple doors down in that suite.

[00:26:36] And I was just like, moving like a stick man. Like I had a stick up my butt and she was like, inquiring, why are you walking weird? And I'm like, because there's a needle in my arm. And she was like, oh no, no, there's no needle in your arm. It's a plastic catheter. [00:27:00] And she was just like, you can move it now.

[00:27:02] Right? Like it's not a needle. And I suppose it was better because it's not a needle, but there's still something in my arm. So I moved my arm a little bit more because they want you to empty. They want you to go to the washroom before the procedure. So I felt a little bit better in there, but still uncomfortable.

[00:27:25] Uh, after that they take me into the surgery room, they set up my with the, whatever it is they're using for conscious sedation. By the way, conscious sedation is, uh, they're using some anesthesia to make sure that you are not in pain during this minimally invasive procedure where they stick a needle in your ovaries. In your vagina, into your ovaries.

[00:27:52] Um, it's for that purpose. But the conscious part of it, to explain what [00:28:00] that is, is you are sedated, but technically you're conscious and supposedly you are in the right mind to answer, uh, questions that they ask you and you, directions, but here's the catch! You won't remember anything. So it feels a little slightly shady.

[00:28:18] Maybe that's just like medical, medical fields, a loophole for sedation. Um, don't get me wrong. I feel grateful that I wasn't in a lot of pain, more on that after, uh, during the surgery, but I do, as somebody who, as you heard in the previous episode, doesn't like to be out of control, I don't like that. I don't like that

[00:28:44] I don't remember what's happening. Okay. I don't know what I said in there. What did I say? Hmm. So that happened during the surgery. I do. I think I had like breaks in my psyche or something. [00:29:00] I kind of remember, like, I definitely remember the nurse getting the IV set up and like starting to feel stuff. And I was being like, ah, I feel things. Um, after that I don't really remember stuff, but I do feel like,

[00:29:15] you know how, when you remember glimpses of your dream? It's you see it, but it's a little, it's not clear, but you're pretty sure that's what you saw. I felt like I saw my fertility doctor in front of me at some point, and I remember feeling some slight abdominal pains at that time, if that did actually happen.

[00:29:35] And if I did actually remember that, I'm kind of glad that I don't remember any of the pain around that, but that is the only thing I remember during this. After that I woke up, I guess, or came back to my consciousness in that change room. Outside of the surgery room. Uh, I remember thinking like, oh, they reclined [00:30:00] my chair.

[00:30:00] There's a pillow, there's a blanket. I'm comfortable. I was just kind of dozing off. Um, and at some point, I don't know if they're timing the amount of time that I'm out for, or they just kind of monitor to see if you're awake. But at some point the nurse came in and was like, you know, your partner's here, your ride.

[00:30:19] Um, he's going to come in now and escort you out. When my partner came in, I was pretty drowsy. Uh, I didn't quite feel like, if you compare it to the way a lot of people are after wisdom teeth surgery, uh, like how high those people are. It wasn't like that. Uh, I'm pretty sure I vomited blood when... I should have trigger warnings here.

[00:30:46] Um, I vomited blood during my wisdom teeth. I just remember, the only thing I remember really is kind of like going in the room and then all of a sudden stumbling across the threshold of my parents' house and vomiting [00:31:00] and the bloody like cotton stuff in my mouth. But for this, like, I remember all of it after. I was drowsy, I was like kinda nauseous.

[00:31:08] Um, definitely taking tiny steps, tiny gingerly steps. Um, after that, thankfully didn't have to walk very far cause the hotel was like right around the corner. Um, but that was that. Uh, after that, you know, went home, as I said, drowsy nausea, I was too like, tired to really be alive. So I just went to bed early. And after that, it was kind of like a, a roller coaster ride of recovering from that that consisted of me looking and feeling,

[00:31:48] as much as I like, again, looking and feeling pregnant again, I've never been pregnant. Um, but I, I can only imagine that's what it feels like when you're carrying something [00:32:00] at that part of your body. But for the first, like two days I looked and felt pregnant because that's just how bloated I was from

[00:32:10] like my ovaries becoming an gorged with all the enlarged eggs and whatever happens during the surgery process. But there is that. Other side effects included that are common, uh, included constipation is a common side effect. I think it's because of the sedation. Uh, I guess it takes a while for the sedation to wear off.

[00:32:35] That was really difficult for me because I am a daily pooper. Okay. I tell my coworkers to stay regular. Okay. I, if I do not go in the morning every day, I will obsess about that for the rest of the day. Many of my conversations with my partner and my siblings include an update on my bowel movements. [00:33:00] Okay.

[00:33:00] That's how serious I am about it. The constipation I would say was the most difficult part of post-surgery for me. Um, like, yes, it was uncomfortable to not be able to walk properly. Like I'm a daily walker, for an hour. And the first two days after that were, were difficult because I couldn't walk properly on my own.

[00:33:20] I had to lean on my partner. Like we would, we would be arm in arm. And I was basically like putting a lot of my weight on him. And I had to, I could not walk briskly at a walk very slowly and with small steps. Um, that went away by like Day 3. But constipation was the hardest part. And I would say constipation and the fact that I got a hemorrhoid after that, probably from all the time I spent on the toilet trying to go and being frustrated about not being able to. Oh, I want to tell you about a medication that I took that [00:34:00] worked wonders for me, for my hemorrhoid.

[00:34:03] If you are somebody who has reoccurring hemorrhoids, or maybe you have them someday. Remember this medication. I do want to give a disclaimer though. I'm not a medical professional and this is not medical advice. This is just me telling you my personal experience with an over-the-counter medication.

[00:34:24] When I got a hemorrhoid and I am someone that gets, uh, hemorrhoids like once a year or so. I don't know what it is. I don't know what's up with my body and the reoccurring hemorrhoids at a, what I think is like usually the same time a year. August. I don't know. That's just my hemorrhoid month. But I have had experience with hemorrhoids.

[00:34:44] So I already had like hemorrhoid ointment, uh, for people who don't know about hemorrhoids, those are, I believe tears on your, a noose. Okay. Your anus, your buth-holey. [00:35:00] Your butt hole. Okay. Well, are they tears? Um, again, not a medical doctor. I wish my partner was here to like verify this. I actually think they're, they're swollen

[00:35:12] arteries or capillaries or something. But anyway, the end result is you have a bowel movement and you see blood, right? The blood is not from the stool. The blood is from the stool passing over that vein or whatever, right? You have a bowel movement, you see blood, it's not fun. And it's not fun when it hurts. It's not fun

[00:35:35] and we get one, it gets itchy and it's not fun when it keeps happening and doesn't go away for prolonged periods. That's the important but. But anyways, unfortunately got a hemorrhoid after my constipation fiasco. And so I started looking up, um, other, other ways to deal with that because like, maybe there [00:36:00] are better ways than the ointment.

[00:36:02] And in my research, I found a pill, a pill, like not something that you have to stick up, your butthole, a pill. Called Venixxa. It is spelled V E N I X X A. It is an oral treatment for, well, I actually can't see it because my camera's screen is in the way, but it's an oral treatment for hemorrhoids. Uh, whether they're a one-time thing or

[00:36:34] they're reoccurring. And there are instructions on this box that tell you, some- something like, you know, in the first four days, take four pills a day. And then in the next three days, take two pills a day. And then after that, take one pill a day for some timeframe. And then for a different situation, you would take one pill a day.

[00:36:53] And I tell you, I do not know what the science of this pill is, but what I can [00:37:00] tell you is, as a consumer, I am very pleased with the results. When I took this pill the next day. Like, if you thought, if you knew how much blood there was from the previous day, it would be so surprising to you that you were not bleeding

[00:37:22] the next day from having a bowel movement. Okay. It's it worked that well, I did not bleed. Um, the next day, what I do need to say is that, although I did not bleed, apparently this pill works and some patented way to fortify your veins, the strength of your veins, such that when you're having a bowel movement, you will not.

[00:37:50] Um, thus the benefit I saw was giving it time to heal, right. Instead of just like continually opening and bleeding. Even though I was [00:38:00] not bleeding, what was still true was, uh, the sensation of, um, you know, something being injured down there and outside of having a bowel movement still feeling like, cause hemorrhoids are itchy apparently, um, feeling like

[00:38:18] itchy there. So that was still a thing. There was a time period where I actually stopped taking it because I was like, oh, I'm better. Uh, but no, no, no. It came back. Life lesson here. Follow the instructions on your meds guys. I sometimes don't read / I get impatient and I don't do things all the way. Venixxa taught me a lesson. Follow directions to the T, to the end.

[00:38:51] So that's my magic pill that worked for my hemorrhoids. Um, this leads me to the end of [00:39:00] the, I guess, highlight a summary of my experience with IVF. And it does end on a slightly sour note because things are not always rainbows and bunnies. Some of you might've already caught on like, okay, you went all through all this.

[00:39:19] Like how did it go the day after retrieval? Uh, your fertility doctor will call you to let you know how many eggs they retrieved and also how many eggs they froze. Why is that? Why are those two things, uh, distinct? That is because even though you retrieve a certain amount of eggs, it doesn't mean that those eggs were the right level of maturity to be frozen.

[00:39:47] So you can really have retrieved 15 eggs, but only fre- freeze nine. Right. And the benchmark that I was going into this conversation with my doctor was 10 to [00:40:00] 20, because that's what they told me. The average woman retrieves through surgery, 10 to 20 eggs. Now when my doctor, uh, called me, she told me that instead of the 10 to 20 eggs retrieved, I actually was only able to retrieve nine, which if you compare that with a lower end 10, like how different is that?

[00:40:25] It's one egg, but I guess, because I went into that thinking, you know, 10 to 20 eggs to hear a number that was outside of that range was disappointing. But I was like, like I said, it's only one. So it wasn't that bad. Then my doctor told me how many eggs were frozen of the nine eggs retrieved. Only three of those eggs were frozen for me.

[00:40:53] She told me of the nine eggs retrieved, three of them were immature, three of them were mature, that's where you want them [00:41:00] to be, and three of them were over mature, so they can only retrieve three eggs. And uh, candidly. I was disappointed. And she, when I said I was disappointed, she said she was disappointed too, but not in a way that made me feel bad, just that it was like, obviously, um, not to her expectations either. But what's consistent with the numbers is remember earlier in the podcast, I told you that I had low numbers?

[00:41:28] Well, to explain that, my doctor told me that I have a low ovarian reserve, which means that I have a lower total amount of eggs left in my body for a 28 now 29 year old woman. Um, for those who may not know, I feel like I sorta knew this as a woman, but it really got implanted into my mind because of this process.

[00:41:56] Apparently. You know, when women are born, we have [00:42:00] some finite number of eggs. As we progress through life, especially through puberty, you lose eggs like every month or whatever, right. By the time you're in your thirties, you have significantly less eggs, like to put arbitrary numbers to it. Let's say you were born with like a couple of million or something like that.

[00:42:22] By the time you're in your thirties, you're going to have like 80,000 or less. To give you an idea of the difference, which is what the whole biological clock is. The time is ticking. AKA, you do not have enough eggs. You are losing eggs. You may not have enough eggs for when you want to use your eggs. So if a woman loses eggs every year of her life, every month of her life, up until

[00:42:50] menopause. Um, I, at my age have a lower amount of eggs left than other women, [00:43:00] my age, which immediately translated to me as am I going to go through early menopause? Um, and I asked my doctor that candidly and she said, you know, I hesitate to say anything about infertility or early menopause because, um, you honestly don't really know until you try to conceive.

[00:43:21] Okay. Um, you know, maybe there was something about the IVF process or the retrieval process that, you know, wasn't good for you. Um, Because of the low frozen number. My doctor suggested that I go through another round of IVF and I was, I was leaning towards the same thing because that's a lot of money and time and stress on the body just to get three eggs frozen.

[00:43:54] I was hoping for at least 10, like that lower end of, um, the benchmark that they had. [00:44:00] But I do not want to go through that process so soon, mainly because I don't want to go through the surgery, constipation, possible, probable hemorrhoids again. Honestly, just for that. Like as much as I hate needles and blood work, that part was honestly the best part of the whole thing.

[00:44:23] Yeah. So I think I'm going to redo IVF in the spring. Thankfully, something to relieve the financial burden of this process is the fact that, depending on what's in your insurance. Like I was covered through Manulife through my former employer at the time. Um, in my insurance, they do cover fertility drugs up to $3,000 Canadian.

[00:44:51] Uh, if you're partnered up with somebody that like Lilia, they will find out that information for you. Otherwise, you're going to have to read your insurance thoroughly or call [00:45:00] your insurance. Thankfully of that entire process, which is somewhere around, um, $10,000, 3000 of those dollars were covered by insurance.

[00:45:11] Now. To do that again, that is expensive. More like, even more expensive than the first time. Right. Um, thankfully my doctor is, I think she'd must do this for anyone that has to do it again. Uh, or like for subsequent IVF cycles, she's giving me a discount. I forget the exact number that she told me, but it was something nice.

[00:45:37] Um, she's giving me a discount, so that makes it better. There is a risk with doing IVF again, not right away, because as I said, we're, I'm losing eggs by the month. So by the time that I do IVF again, if I'm doing it in the spring, that's what, like a, that's like a four or five month time span that I'm not [00:46:00] retrieving eggs. I'm losing more eggs.

[00:46:03] So I have less eggs to retrieve from. But for, in part, for logistical reasons like money and like money and a ride for the surgery, um, and for, you know, mental and physical reasons. I decided it was better to wait. Um, what does that mean? I can save up more money to do the procedure again. Thankfully, I just started a new job that pays me almost double the amount of make that, uh, amount of money that I made before.

[00:46:41] I'm fortunate in that sense that it will not be as much of a financial burden for me to save for it. Thankfully, I'm going to get a discount and hopefully, you know, in those four to five months, I will ready myself again to go through that tough time on the body. I [00:47:00] am empowered with knowledge. I'm empowered with experience.

[00:47:03] I'm empowered with a new magic pill for my future hemorrhoids. And I hope that by you listening to this, whether you are someone who is in a vessel that is, that has eggs, or they can conceive or not. Hopefully by listening to this episode, you know, more about IVF. You can think of it as an option for yourself or for your family, um, or for your partner, you can...

[00:47:38] you feel more empowered to decide how to expand your family. If you want to expand your family and you have someone to relate to, if you do not really want to be a mom that much, because I don't. That is it for the longest episode that Candid and Cringe has ever seen. Uh, I hope you like it. [00:48:00] And keep it candid. Have a great holiday and a new year. Toodaloo.