After the reaping, I had emergency surgery resulting from a complication I developed called ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome. Too many injectable hormones lead to ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome, OHSS. The root cause in my case was the human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) hormone.
According to the medical definition: Ovarian blood vessels react abnormally to HCG and begin to leak fluid. This fluid swells the ovaries, and the large amounts move into the abdomen.
By Wednesday the amount of fluid in my abdomen had become so great that I could not eat or drink anything and struggled to get air to my lungs. I returned to the hospital, the interventional radiology department, to have immediate removal of the fluid build and then was inserted with a drain for the fluid that would continue to build. About four liters of fluid has drained from my abdomen.
According to my research about two percent of women undergoing ovarian stimulation develop a severe form of OHSS that have life-threatening complications, including:
-fluid collection in the abdomen and sometimes the chest (I had this)
-electrolytes disturbances (I had this)
-blood clots in large vessels, usually in the legs
-kidney failure
-twisting of an ovary
-rupture of a cyst in an ovary, which can lead to serious bleeding (I had this)
-breathing problems (I had this)
-pregnancy loss from miscarriage or termination because of complications
-death
Because this happened, all the embryos we created from this IVF cycle were frozen. Meaning that now resuming the IVF process will happen at a later date, when my body is ready.
