Hi everyone,
Warning...this might be a long one.
I went in to the clinic this morning for a "pre-op" appt as EC will be tomorrow morning. I met the Dr. who will be doing the procedure. He had absolutely no personality but seems like a good Dr. so I guess that is what counts most.
Anyway, I am pretty calm about the EC itself since I was promised I'll be completely knocked out. I'm just terrified about the days/weeks afterwards. I've been kind of uncomfortable (esp. when sitting for some reason or when moving from a standing to a sitting postion) as the largest number and largest sized follies are all on the left side and pressing against my digestive organs; at least that's the Dr.'s explanation for the discomfort. I ate about half the amount I normally do for dinner last night and ended up in pain. Basically, I can only eat a few bites of anything before my stomach feels completely overloaded and I start having increased pain (despite this, I think I have still gained a few lbs.).
So, I told the Dr. I had thought that during the procedure they drain the fluid out of the follicles which seems like it would result in less discomfort and reduced bloating but that I had been reading that people are more bloated and uncomfortable after the ER and I didn't understand why that would happen. I was hoping for reassurance that it was rare but he told me that, yes, the fluid is drained out but then the follicles refill with blood (? I had never heard of this) so the ovaries can remain quite full and heavy and that cysts often form. My DH asked how long before they would go back to normal size and he said 1 to 2 weeks if not pregnant but it could take up to 10 weeks if one is pregnant.
Then, when the nurse was reviewing things with us and mentioned no exercising, my DH told her I had been exercising yesterday (what I had really been doing was pedaling around on the elliptical trainer with no resistance and barely raising my heart rate). So, of course, I got a big lecture from her about how exercising could actually cause the follicles to fill up with additional fluid thus taking longer for the ovaries to get back to normal size and increasing the possibility of ovarian torsion (she said they have had several cases result from people doing light exercise) and possible loss of an ovary. And, of course, my DH got angry with me and made me promise no exercising (at this point, I hardly think I would be anyway).
Then, I got home and started researching things on the internet again and, of course, saw articles about women who got pregnant through IVF and were already wearing maternity clothes in their 5th week due to the extreme abdominal distension, etc., etc. I read about one woman who gained 35 lbs. (not sure how many stone that is) in the course of the 2 ww. Is that possible?!
So, here I sit in a complete panic that I am going to turn into a blimp in a matter of days. I know you guys gave me some reassurance before that you were just quite bloated but do you mean bloated in the sense of the kind of bloating that comes before AF or something much worse that is actually noticeable to others? Are there any cases out there where people got a +tive but were actually not completely bloated and overweight starting out their pregnancy and things just progressed as a normal pregnancy?
I just don't understand why no one at the clinic mentioned this sort of thing in our informational meeting. They made it seem like the medications could cause a bit of bloating and weight gain which is only from fluid and that everything resolves after the EC. Were they just outright lying or is this what does happen in most cases?
Please give me your experiences. Just give it to me straight. Has anyone come out of this feeling back to normal within a few days? Is that the norm or the exception?
I hope you don't think I'm vain having these concerns. I mean I know the ultimate goal here is to have a child and I should be willing to make sacrifices in order to do so. It's just with my past history, I might have taken more time to think about it before going through with this or have gotten counseling first to make sure I could handle it if I had known this sort of thing was a real possibility. As it was, no one at my clinic told me about the exercise restriction until we were already into the process. That is a tough one for me but I can deal with it but not at the same time as turning into a baloon when I'm not even eating!
Staci