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.

Nearly there

Egg collection is fast approaching now.  I can't quite believe it's really here.  Well, almost.  Tomorrow I'm at the hospital for another date with dildo-cam.  I'll get to see how much my 26 follies have grown! I hope there are still as many as last week and that they are growing their eggs nicely.  On Wednesday I had another blood test and got told to reduce to 1.5 vials of menopur for today and yesterday.  I'm feeling marginally better than yesterday when I spent the whole day on the sofa and I felt really sick, especially in the morning.  I can still feel my ovaries and I'm thinking that the scan tomorrow may be uncomfortable.

Today I had acupuncture and I spent a while visualising my positive test and the end result (I did also picture briefly the negative result but put it out of my mind quite quickly).  Positive thinking - got to try and keep positive!

Stimming has started!

Today I went to the hospital for a blood test and a transvaginal scan (TVS or dildo-cam!).  The blood tests were all fine and afterwards I went to request my prescriptions and had a hot chocolate and a raspberry and white chocolate chip muffin (important information for scene-setting surely?!).  I desperately craved a cup of tea but I have given up now I'm doing the stimms and although the hot chocolate was nice, it didn't have the simplicity and caffeine kick of my usual tea.

Collecting the prescriptions was a task in itself as there was a very large carrier bag full of medication! I did try to sneak in Mr Waiting's prescription for antibiotics with mine since I've got a pre-payment card but they sussed me out...! Since some of the medication needs to be kept in the fridge, I decided to go back later.

Onto dildo-cam! Just one of the many indignities that this process entails.  I still can't get the whole 'wrapping the sheet round you to hide your dignity' thing right... covering the front but not round the back whilst climbing on a bed and putting your bum on the bum-shaped cushion.  So in goes dildo-cam and has a good rake around.  I can't say it was particularly pleasant, and definitely not in a dildo-esque way that's for sure.  It wasn't painful but more uncomfortable.  At one point she asked me to press on my tummy on the right hand side and I sensed that there was something amiss.

Once didlo-cam was removed I got off the bed and was handed some tissue to clean myself (oh so dignified!).  So I went behind the curtain to at least preserve some dignity.  (Goodness, the amount of people who've seen my fanjo now is ridiculous!).  Then she handed me the sheet with the report.

• Endometrium = 1.3mm
• Left Ovary     = 16 follicles @ 4mm or less
• Right Ovary   = 10 follicles @ 6mm or less plus 8mm paraovarian cyst?

On the way back up to see the nurses to discuss the next steps I panicked over reading about the cyst and I admit that in the waiting area I went onto google to find out what it is.  Apparently it's a cyst on the edge of the ovary or fallopian tube and shouldn't stop IVF treatment.  

When I went into the nurses they explained that it all looked fine and that anything under 4mm for the endometrium is good.  She also said that the cyst is nothing to worry about and they might aspirate it when they do Egg Collection. That was a relief! Next was all the medication.  I came away with:

• Menopur vials and powders
• cyclogest pessaries (progesterone)
• doxycycline antibiotics for me and Mr Waiting
• pregnyl (hcg injection)

and I think I've missed something else? In any case I came away with a trolley full of drugs to the point that they have filled my kitchen table! I also managed to get a parking permit for the hospital, which will save me money in the long run for sure!

So tonight I did my first menopur shot.  Oh my Goodness it's complicated.  I think you need to do a nursing qualification to be able to manage it.  It all seemed so simple when she explained it.   I did my buserelin first (down to 0.2ml per day now) and then started with the menopur.  I laid out all the stuff.  Two different needles, two powder vials, one liquid vial, one syringe and a little rubber thing to supposedly help us snap the vial.  The nurse did it very easily but could I do it? No. Mr Waiting had a go and eventually managed to do it, crushing the top of the vial in the process... I was a little anxious that I'd be injecting glass into my stomach but he assured me that it was fine.  So I mixed it with the powders and I think I might have lost a little liquid in the process but it was my first one... I'm sure I'll get better at it! Apparently there is a knack to opening these vials - something to do with a dot on one side of it.  Hopefully tomorrow's effort will be better.  And, I ended up doing the injection through the skin twice because I didn't know if I'd missed some fluid (I hadn't, but just added another puncture wound to my collection).  

And what a collection that is - lots of little bruises on my tummy.  I'd take a picture but it's not pleasant.  So that's it; we're on to stimming (as they say on fertility sites!).  So please make a wish for my 26 follicles to grow big strong eggs that will turn into big strong embryos and big strong Stanley and Lucy.  My fingers (when not injecting) are firmly crossed.