{"id":34,"date":"2020-02-11T17:40:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T17:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.theduff.co.uk\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2020-04-01T15:00:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T15:00:21","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/theduff.co.uk\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whenever I\u2019m nostalgic for the time I ended up in hospital with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, my husband looks at me like I\u2019m bonkers <\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cBut it was just so lovely being able to relax and go with the flow,\u201d I\u2019ll always explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYOU FELT LIKE YOUR ORGANS WERE BURSTING OUT OF YOUR SKIN. You were in so much pain you thought you were in labour. You put on 10lbs of water weight in five days. You couldn\u2019t eat. You couldn\u2019t sleep. Remember?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, but the hospital part was so relaxing<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou mean the part where you were lying on the ward bed like a beached whale, unable to breathe properly? Or do you mean the part where they catheterised you, which led to a UTI, which in turn led to a kidney infection, which in turn <\/em>led to suspected sepsis and an ambulance ride back to hospital a few weeks later? Remember how you lost your hearing as a result of all that \u2013 and you were on steroids to bring it back?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, but it was just so nice to lie back and stop thinking about injections and babies and stuff for a while. And remember how the doctors came and chatted to me for aaages about my treatment \u2013 and answered all the questions I\u2019d been trying to get answered for weeks<\/em>? Wasn\u2019t that great?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Husband shakes his head like he can\u2019t believe he married such a weirdo.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his incredulity, I genuinely look back fondly on that particular time in the IVF process. I\u2019d spent so much of my IVF treatment feeling like I didn\u2019t know what was going on, panic-Googling for information, lurking on IVF message boards, worried that my doctors weren\u2019t paying enough attention to my ovaries, and terrified it would all end in disaster and I\u2019d end up embryo-less or ovary-less or something<\/em>-less\u2026 it was actually quite a relief to just stop and chill out for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully for you, OHSS, sepsis and hearing loss aren\u2019t the only ways in which you can reach a state of positivity and confidence about your IVF treatment. And they\u2019re not the only tactics for getting the doctors\u2019 undivided attention. Yay!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introducing The Duff: your sensible, non-woo-woo, plain-English guide to everything IVF<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I created The Duff because I couldn\u2019t find what I was looking for online: plain-English explanations of everything to do with fertility and the IVF process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to know why <\/em>a particular hormone level was a bad thing \u2013 and what the options were to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to fully understand the IVF process from start to finish: why certain drugs were being prescribed for me, what I should expect next, and whether I was having all the tests and examinations I should <\/em>be having.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to be able to read an IVF message board or blog post and know whether the advice was a load of bollocks or an evidence-based fertility tip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I wanted to be armed with enough knowledge and understanding to confidently state my preferences and concerns to my busy doctors \u2013 who, understandably, weren\u2019t always totally up-to-date with the ins and outs of my treatment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But nothing like that existed online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Book:<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

IVF clinics have the odd blog post, but they\u2019re usually overly simplistic and feel incomplete \u2013 like they\u2019ve been written purely for the SEO benefit. Then there are medical studies and research papers, but those are aimed at the scientific community and they\u2019re dense as hell. Then there are the \u201chow to improve your fertility naturally\u201d-esque blog posts, but almost none of the tips are supported by science. Aaaand finally, there are the numerous message boards and Facebook groups. I don\u2019t think I even need to explain why they\u2019re not the best sources of accurate information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Duff is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve scoured medical journals, cobbled together incomplete information from various websites, spoken to doctors and specialists (to make sure I had my facts straight) and published my findings here, on The Duff. It\u2019s slowly turning into what I\u2019d always wanted for myself: a definitive source of scientific facts and information about IVF (and the issues surrounding it), written in a way that\u2019s clear and easy to understand. And there\u2019s the odd joke and silly cartoon because I couldn\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a list of all the articles I\u2019ve written so far<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for my own IVF treatment\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It worked! Baby Fred is a hilarious, cuddly, exhausting and exceptionally farty bundle of fun \u2013 and there\u2019s no doubt he was worth all the years of pain, panic and anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so\u2026 if there\u2019s a way to avoid some of the stress, feel more in control and be FAR more confident and knowledgeable about the process, surely that can only be a good thing? That\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping you\u2019ll get out of this website \u2013 and I\u2019d love know if you think it\u2019s done a good job. Email me and let me know<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take care and good luck,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mish<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS A quick note about references to male partners\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My website, emails and downloads tend to assume that heterosexual couples \u2013 rather than single people or homosexual couples \u2013 are doing IVF. The reason is purely to do with demographics rather than discrimination: 95.3% of women doing IVF are registered with a male partner, 2.5% are registered with a female partner, and 1.9% are registered with no partner. (The remaining 0.3% are registered as surrogates.) These stats came from the HFEA: https:\/\/www.hfea.gov.uk\/media\/2563\/hfea-fertility-trends-and-figures-2017-v2.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My writing gets really clunky and annoying and hard to grasp whenever I try to write for every potential reader (something I think many writers struggle with), so I had to make the decision to write for the majority of readers and hope that other readers would understand and not hate me too much!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you're single or gay, the vast, vast, vast majority of the information on this site will still be relevant to you: you just get to ignore references to wank-off rooms and jizz fests \u2013 which is probably no bad thing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mish<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n