Kerry's OHSS Experience

I experienced OHSS during my first cycle of IVF in 2006. As I said in my story, my first cycle was text book until a few days after transfer of embryos. It went so smoothly and I was a little young and naive. I never really thought about what was happening to me and my body, I just went with the flow.

I had my egg retrieval on 26th April 2006 and they collected 15 eggs. On the 28th April, I had 2 embryos transferred with no problems. We went to our caravan to relax for a few days but on Sunday morning I had the urge to go the toilet but, regardless of how much I wanted to pee, it just wasn't happening. Within half an hour of this I was on the floor in agonising pain in my tummy. My husband rang the IVF unit out of hours service who told me I had to get to the hospital as soon as possible. The ride to the hospital seemed like forever, I was in the back of the car screaming in pain. My tummy had swollen so much that when we arrived at the hospital they wanted to take me up to the labour ward as they thought I was in labour. I was taken to the gynae ward, and lots of tests were done including, and most importantly, input and output of fluids. Yes, I had to pee in a jug and measure it!

It turns out that I was suffering from OHSS. The reason my tummy had swollen so much was due to fluid leaking from the follicles in my ovaries after the egg collection. The fluid was collecting in my abdomen and pressing on my organs and my bladder which is why I couldn't for the life of me pee. I was kept in hospital for about 4 days to continue monitoring my urine input and output and also some pretty strong pain relief. I was finally allowed home when my output matched my input, as this showed the condition was improving.

Over the next 2 weeks we waited for our pregnancy test day to come and we were overjoyed when it showed positive. I still had to rest a lot because I was still in a lot of pain from the OHSS, and still had another 3 weeks to our first scan. On the first scan all was well with the baby, a healthy heartbeat was visible but it also showed 2 very swollen ovaries and 4 lutheal cysts each measuring 10cm in size so it was no wonder I was in so much pain! As the pregnancy progressed, the pain eased and the swelling became a baby bump, but even at my 12 week scan my ovaries was 4 times the size they should have been.

This is me at 5 weeks pregnant with my second pregnancy,

as you can see I suffered from OHSS again, But this time only mildly mainly been swollen and in a bit of pain no hospital treatment needed. PS I hate this photo but had to share it so you get an idea of the swelling.