This post is in partnership with Alife Health, an IVF manager app built to help patients feel more organized, stress-free and empowered throughout their journey.
How do you stay organized during IVF?
I vividly remember my very first IVF cycle. The doctor sent me home with a stack of papers with protocols and lists of medications I needed to take with dates and times of when I’d needed to take them. Some were oral pills, some vaginal suppositories, some intramuscular injections, and some in the tummy.
Some were once a day, some twice a day, some every three days on the hour. Some with food, some without. The papers also contained reminders of dos and don’ts like…
Eat a well balanced diet, but no soft cheese or eggs
Stay hydrated
Avoid exercise until approved
Don’t drink too much caffeine.
Get enough sleep.
No heavy lifting
Avoid sex until pregnancy test
No baths, hot tubs or swimming.
No heating pads.
No alcohol.
Manage stress.
Okay, sure.
They also included a calendar of all the appointments I would have to attend during my cycle, which at the time seemed impossible with a full time job.
I remember thinking…they actually trust me to execute all of this? Do they know me? Should I tell them that just yesterday I reached back in the trash for the mac n cheese box instructions because even though I’ve made it a million times, I still forget every time? Or that I lose my keys or my phone at least once every single day?
Before I left, the nurse drew some sharpie circles on my butt cheeks to help simplify the shots my husband was going to give me, but where was my cheat sheet? He gets a paint by number and I’m over here trying to manage this new second job I have zero experience or training on that involves sharp objects and little pills that are supposed to make their way up my clam without coming back down? Like is there a corner I need to turn up there or a cubby hole I’m not aware of? And what if I put the wrong pill up there and then swallow the cooter pill?
I had so many worries and unanswered questions. I went from having my standard 37 tabs open in my brain to 137. That was beyond my tab limit for sure.
I was sent off with smiles from the nurses as if I understood the assignment. They must have been high or something.
I went home and got right into planning mode, as all self diagnosed ADHD girls do. I get super excited about being organized and taking charge and then within a few days I get overwhelmed or distracted and it all falls off the rails. This is my process.
This is my life.
I set 3 different timers on my phone, replaced a kitchen junk drawer with rows of color coded needles, laid out notes, drawings and diagrams of where to inject and with what needle on my kitchen countertop and highlighted the important parts. I even got one of those IVF kaboodle thingamabobs to keep my supplements and pills organized.
I was flexing to my husband like I had it all together. He smiled at me with that smile that he does when he thinks I’m cute for trying but really knows how this all shakes out.
I can’t say he was wrong.
The timer would go off and I’d panic, look for my notes and try to figure out which timer it was actually for. I should have labeled the timers! More tabs open. More questioning of the directions, that I never fully read in the first place or understood, but thought I could skim and still pass like I did in college.
But this was different from college. This was different from Mac n cheese. There was an actual life at stake here! AGAIN…WHY DID ANYONE TRUST ME WITH THIS? I AM STRESSED BUT STRESS IS NOT ALLOWED.
I’ll never forget the time I actually took a PIO injection with the starter needle - yes, the big fat pink one! My husband even said “wow this is huge, are you sure?” and the answer was… “ I think so, shit, I don’t know for sure, but just do it, we don’t have time to figure it out, the timer is dinging!!”
I had blood shooting out everywhere like the Bellagio fountain. Big yikes. I never made that mistake again, but I definitely made others.
The IVF app, Alife Health, saves the day
I knew that IVF would be physically, financially and emotionally draining, but I wasn’t prepared for it to be so confusing and overwhelming.
I recently learned about a new IVF app called Alife that manages allllll the things for you. I get a lot of these apps sent my way to review (again, not sure why people think I know what the hell I’m doing) but usually these tech companies miss things. They claim to make it easier, but the app ends up being too complicated, or has ads popping up in the middle of an important alert, costs more money, or doesn’t apply to people like me that use third party reproduction, etc. etc.
I asked them a lot of questions about things I would have needed, and they checked all the boxes.
Keep track of my shit
Make it customized to my journey
Tell me what to do and when
Check.
Check.
Check.
Alife Health launched this app first with IVF clinics to help improve IVF outcomes by looking at protocols from other patients to help produce better results and started to hear patients' voices and knew they needed to take this fancy AI and get it in front of patients.
The app starts off by setting up your journey based on your level of experience with IVF, the procedures that apply to you, if you are using medications or not…
…and which reminders you want to set.
GIVE ME ALL THE REMINDERS!
Had I had a personal IVF manager like this, I definitely think I would have had less stress and confusion. For sure I would have been more organized.
One thing I really love is the ability to look at all the different journeys side by side. You can look at your past cycles, the outcomes and start to make connections as to what works and what doesn’t. When I had two IVF transfer failures in a row I beat my head against a wall trying to figure out what went wrong, and if you’ve learned anything about me by now you know that details are not my thing and my memory sucks.
I can’t even remember what I bought on Amazon last night.
So, yes, this app is definitely something I would have benefited from. It’s a 10 out of 10 for me.
Check it out for yourself!
Get your sanity back and download the app FOR FREE today!
Available in the US and Canada on iOS platforms.
