Hospital Adventures

I'm not sure where to start actually - it's a long saga.

The day after my embryo transfer my tummy was still playing up with indigestion and just feeling really bloated. By the evening it was feeling so much worse and I was desperately trying to drink and drink to stave off OHSS and this just put more volume into my tummy which didn't help the bloating. Overnight I woke up so many times feeling queasy and the only thing which seemed to take it away was drinking more which then hurt my stomach. By 4am I was in a lot of pain and Rob had to call the Brabourne - but none of the on-call nurses were answering!!!! By Sunday morning we got some advice and were told that so long as I wasn't being sick then I should just try to come in on Monday for a scan. Things slowly deteriorated and I was feeling really poorly for most of Sunday and by Monday morning, sitting in the Brabourne I was in tears as I was so bloated and uncomfortable.

The scan showed that my ovaries were just massive and swollen and more worryingly there were already pools of liquid in my abdomen. So I was instantly packed off to the William Harvey hospital in Ashford where I had blood taken, all my vitals taken, measurements around my tummy and was eventually put on a drip. It was only on arrival at hospital that I really realised how bad things were as it was a bit of a walk to the ward and I just couldn't breathe - my tummy was so bloated there was no room for my lungs to expand for deep breaths and I felt like an old lady trying to wheeze the air and get the energy to walk.

OHSS is really one of the worst feelings ever. I only really had mild to moderate OHSS and thankfully didn't reach the stage where I was actually being sick and having diarrhoea but it was still really horrible and I can't remember ever feeling that ill before. I was on a drip the whole time I was there. Everything I drank had to be measured and recorded for volume along with everything which came out as fluid so I had to pee into bed pans so the volume could be measured. My tummy measured 92cm when I got there which is something like 36 inches!! It looked like I was already about 6 months pregnant and just felt hard to touch - it was very wrong!!

The scariest thing was that people kept saying that often things get worse before they get better with OHSS and I just kept thinking how crap I felt and how bad it would have to be to be any worse!! It was very worrying.

I've never had to stay in a hospital before so this was a new experience for 4 days and 3 nights but I'm very glad that the NHS were there to let me go there and get better.