Egg Collection is booked!

It is possible that Stanley and Lucy will be created on Monday! We're going for Egg Collection at 9am and have to be at the hospital at 8:15am.  This means an early start as we will have to do the journey in rush hour and it's already a half-hour drive away. I've been given instructions for my hCG 'trigger' injection and must do it at 9pm tomorrow night.  That will be my last injection for this cycle.  In fact, it could be my last injection ever.  I have just done the last menopur and buserelin and realised that I have become quite good at getting the injections prepared and done. I feel like some kind of IVF expert in some ways.

Today I had my follicle scan (my third date with dildo-cam) and I knew I was going to have lots of follicles based on my baseline scan and how 'full' I've been feeling.  I wasn't prepared for just how many follicles I have though. Here are the details:

The nurse said that the follicles need to be over 16mm for egg collection and I already have 11 over 16mm.  I have read that follicles grow between 1-2mm per day and I still have the weekend and tonight's dose of menopur now flowing through my system so it could be at least 15 eggs if the 15.5/15mm follicles catch up, and maybe even more if all those 14mm ones catch up.  This is really good news! Those eggs could make 15 embryos!

The scan itself was really uncomfortable and I could feel pressure being put on my ovaries which definitely wasn't there last week when I had the baseline scan.  Again, I knew what to do this time.  I managed to cover my dignity by holding the sheet and maneuvering my bum onto the bum-shaped cushion and I didn't even flinch when the probe probed.  I'm now becoming an expert in dildo-cam too.

Now I am nervous for Monday.  I am also a little disappointed because we won't be able to have blastocyst culture. Blastocyst culture is after 5 days' growth in the petri-dish and it can mean a higher success rate because only the top embryos survive until day 5, which is beneficial if you have a lot of embryos to choose from like we might.  I'm hoping though that our two-day embryos will be good and strong though.  That they will be Stanley and Lucy.  Potentially we will have two embryos put back since we are not going for blastocyst so Stanley and Lucy may yet arrive at the same time.

I still can't imagine what getting a positive result would be like.  Do people like us get positive results? It's all I dream about. We are so ready to move on to the next stage in our lives.  At the moment it feels like everything is whizzing by and just leaving us to it.  I don't want life to whiz by too fast but I do want to be on the road rather than at the service station of doom.

With the hard bit yet to come it is difficult to say how I've found this first ICSI cycle.  I would say though, despite the side effects, it has been easier than I thought.  I have put ICSI and myself first and I have lounged around most of the time resting up.  I have tried to eat healthily but have not gone overboard (hence why Mr Waiting is on his way back from collecting our dinner of an Indian takeaway!).  I have even tried to take it easy at work, not that this is very doable in a secondary school.  That's got me thinking.  Most likely, the next time I go back to work I'm likely to be PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise) as they say in infertility circles.

At work the students noticed my bruises from the blood tests.  They are pretty spectacular - even the phlebotonist was surprised! So it was a case of "Miss! What've you done to your arm?!".  I simply replied that I'd had a blood test though I did feel like inventing some curious story (and even drug addiction at one point....!) but decided that the truth was better.  Thankfully they left it at that without any further questions and instead compared their bruises from cricket and drunken antics no-doubt to my bruise.  Surprisingly I didn't have the biggest one.

And Mr Waiting is back with the curry so of course I'm going to leave you.