There are two versions of IVF; long protocol and short protocol. By default the majority of patients will have long protocol treatment, as I had expected to.
With long protocol you start with the down reg nasal spray on day 21 of your cycle, this effectively puts your body into menopause and stops your natural cycle. This takes around two weeks, you then combine this with daily stim injections to artificially encourage your body to grow multiple eggs at once. Once the eggs are mature they are surgically collected under sedation and taken to the lab to get jiggy with the sperm sample. (Unless you are having ICSI like us, whereby the sperm is injected into the egg). After 2,3 or 5 days the eggs will be transferred back and you begin the TWW to test. The treatment takes approximately 6 weeks once you start the nasal spray.
Short protocol is just as the name sounds..... shorter. There is no full down regging on day 21, instead you take two different types of daily injections from day 2 of a natural cycle and egg collection is around 2 weeks later - very quick!
The reason they have decided short protocol would be more suitable is that I am at a higher risk of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OHSS) with long protocol. I was told this is because of my polycystic ovaries (which was news to me as this has never been formally confirmed). At my consent scan they found 28 follicles on one ovary and fifteen on the other, if all matured with long protocol it would be a lot of eggs and with that comes the risk of OHSS. Short protocol doesn't put your body under as much pressure so it is safer.
From what I have read online (was too shocked to ask questions during the call) there would be less eggs generated with short protocol but the quality would be higher. We would still have ICSI with this version.
The downside is that because they have only just made the decision it is too late for this cycle (already day 4). But they are going to send me the drugs and have me in for "training" in the next couple of weeks ready for the next cycle. If my cycle arrives at a reasonable time (let's face it Mother Nature loves to be unpredictable with me) then I might even finish the treatment a week before I would have done with long protocol - silver lining and all that jazz :-)
So a little bit of a waiting game now, but quite used to it after all this time (will be three years in Sept!).
On the plus side I now have over a month to get my weight down and start eating well.
Love to all xxx
