Until yesterday I was not sure that the down regulation drug was working. 

I mean none of the “promises”/”threatened” sweats/hot flushes and mood swings had occurred. 

I was beginning to think perhaps this was not working and I would need to be on the Synarel for a long time. 

So I started reading about delayed cycles due to down regulation on IVF treatment. 

I learnt that once on down regulation, a bleed during the down regulation is very essential. The down regulation is the shut down of the ovaries to a baseline level so that the ovaries can be managed in a more controlled way. I also learnt that though the bleed is important, the drug can delay it. Depending on a person’s cycle length and regularity, the delay could be weeks if not months. Mine ended up being four days later than it would have been without the drug. 

While waiting for my cycle to start, I experienced lower abdominal pain – the kind of pain that is dull and lies just under the level of pain that would make a person bend over and cry out in agony. But God that was very annoying! It was also a little funny,mind you not a lot, just a little funny, trying to go through my standard work week without potentially been embarrassed with a red print on the bottom of my clothes, trying to walk sideways when I get up off a chair, or quickly draping a coat over my shoulders as I got up was a really funny sight 🙂

But that was nothing compared with the pain that came with the first day of my cycle. It was pain that was still dull nut searing at the same time. And worse than that, it was pulsing with varying intermittent intervals.
I who does not do tablets, asked for tablets. MDH, bless him, had to endure the sheen of sweat on my forehead as each pain pulse hit. Good old ibuprofen worked its charm and in less than an hour I was feeling a lot better.

It would have been nice to have been given an indication of what to expect with the down regulation and also how it would impact/change my cycle start time. All is going well now. I have started counting down the days for my down regulation test. Once done, it will be onto the injections.

Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow!
xx