Not quite ready...

It seemed to take forever but Friday finally arrived!

We were up at 05:30 so we had time to get ready, administer the Cetrotide at 06:00 and leave the house for Sheffield by 06:15.  It was a really miserable morning weather wise but I was feeling positive because it's payday today AND a refund I was waiting for from eBay finally made its way to me this morning.

We were first seen in the clinic at 08:00 and our usual nurse was back today.  She asked how I'd been doing and invited ALS into the scan room with me (the nurse that called me in last week hadn't mentioned whether he could be there or not so he waited outside).  She checked both my ovaries and the follicles were growing nicely.  When she showed me the screen, even though I'm no expert, I could clearly see the difference from the baseline scan done last week - there were lots of round black patches inside the ovary, which are the follicles.  On the baseline scan the follicles are so small they're hard to spot without being pointed out to you but today everything was really clear and definitely a lot larger.  On a side note, the scan was considerably more uncomfortable than previous because everything is so bloated and achy anyway.  I nearly hit the roof when she put pressure on my left ovary but it was over pretty quickly. 

After a good look, the nurse measured the follicles and unfortunately we're not ready for collection yet as they still have some growing to do.  I thought I'd be disappointed with this scenario but honestly I'm not at all.  I'm just really happy that they're growing well and it's perfectly normal for the cycle to take longer than a week to get them to full size (16-20mm).  

So what now?  Well, we go back to the injections for the next few days and go back to Sheffield for a scan on Tuesday morning, at which time they estimate I'll be ready to go.  We got a nice surprise when we went to pick up some more medication from the pharmacy as we didn't have to pay for it - you only pay for the initial treatment in the cycle and the top ups are included.  We both walked out of the clinic smiling and by the time I got to work around 10:00 the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day - a bit of a change from the miserable start.

All in all I'm feeling pretty good today.  If we'd been ready to retrieve today we would have ended up doing the trigger shot over the weekend and having egg collection in London early next week.  That would then mean I'd have to go to work for the rest of the week.  If I'm ready on Tuesday (which I'm keeping everything crossed for) it will mean doing the trigger shot Tuesday night, heading to London Wednesday night ready for egg collection Thursday morning and then coming home on Friday.  That way I'll end up with the weekend to recover a bit more before I go back to work, which would be preferable to going back 48 hours post surgery. 

Side effects wise I'm getting really bloated (my weight has been steady but between yesterday morning and this morning I've gained 1.5kg) and living in dresses because trousers or any sort of tight waistband is just too uncomfortable.  I've had a lot more pain today, spreading all around my back and down my legs, but I'm hoping that is just because my ovaries were prodded and poked this morning and it will ease off tomorrow.  The nurse did say the pain I've been having until now is perfectly normal because, in a natural menstrual cycle, you grow 1 follicle and I'm currently growing around 14-15 so naturally it's going to be uncomfortable.

The Cetrotide is still causing local irritation for a couple of hours after the injection but it's really not too bad.  I'm going to try and do this one myself tomorrow morning - I've not plucked up the courage yet as the needle is quite a bit longer than the Gonal F but I've been fine with them for the last couple of days so I'm hoping I'll be able to just get it done in the morning.

I'd love to hear any of your stories and experiences with IVF - whether you've used the same process and medications as us or something completely different.  Also, feel free to comment with any questions and I'll try to answer them as honestly as I can.  I've found it quite hard to get information during the process (especially with regard to the PGD side of things) so I'm putting this blog out there to help others in my situation and want to be as forthcoming as possible.