IVF Journey: Embryo transfer plus 7

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for three and a half years now, and have a diagnosis of 'unexplained infertility'. We have finally reached the top of the waiting list for IVF - a form of assisted conception. I'm blogging about what happens as it happens, as a kind of therapy for me and as an awareness raising exercise of what IVF is all about.

Two things of note to tell you about today.

The first is that I went swimming for the first time since my embryo transfer. When I had the transfer I asked the nurse if I could exercise, and she said yes but that I should leave it a few days and it should not be too high impact. We discussed my usual levels of exercise and she recommended that I reduced that. You may recall that I swim at least three times a week, and each time I swim around 1km (40 lengths). Now that sounds a lot to some people and that may be why she suggested I reduce it. But actually, it only takes 20-25 minutes to swim 1km and not because I'm swimming really fast. It is very comfortable for me to do that - I've got an efficient stroke and I do it all the time so it doesn't make me out of breath. To me, a brisk walk to the bus stop is much harder! But I'm keen to do this right so I waited a week to go back to it, and today I swam about 20 lengths, breast stroke only, veeeeery slowly over about 15 minutes. God it was dull, but I felt good to have done a bit of exercise. By the way I've given up the running since egg collection, which is fine by me because I don't like it anyway!

The second thing is that I think I had some 'spotting' yesterday. Avert your eyes if you are squeamish. Spotting is little drops of blood that you notice when you wipe after going to the toilet. Something like half of pregnant women will experience spotting. Now spotting is a good sign - it happens because the embryo is burrowing its way into the lining of the uterus and growing at the same time, and when it does this it sometimes kicks out wee bits of blood and gore from the womb lining. So spotting is a sign that the embryo has indeed implanted and is settling in. The problem is, we women are used to blood signifying our period, and we infertile women are used to blood / our period signifying failure to get pregnant. So seeing a bit of blood, no matter how small (and it was small, just a drop once or twice) and different (and it was different, kind of pinkish) makes me paranoid. Like it could be the start of a deluge... And to add to the paranoia, the pessaries that I am using are covered in a waxy stuff which melts inside me and drips out (leaving the progesterone within). So I have had a regular 'dripping' sensation for the last week, but now every time I feel it I think it is my period starting. Ick.