Still Not Ready!

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty fed up today.

I went for my scan and bloods this morning and our normal nurse wasn't working today so we saw another lady.  She was quite impersonal and didn't speak to me the whole time she had a camera stuck up my lady parts.  Unfortunately my follicles were all around 14-16mm (they need to be 16-20mm) so they're still not quite ready.  It took 2 attempts to get my blood due to the nurse insisting on using butterfly needles, despite me saying a normal needle was more than fine.  We were told that I could not trigger today and would possibly need to go back for another scan tomorrow morning.  They were going to email Guy's Hospital in London and ask whether they wanted another scan doing or if they would just be happy for me to trigger tomorrow night.  So we were sent home with another prescription for a few more days of injections (just in case) and told to ring at 14:30 to find out if I needed a further scan.

ALS rang them and by 15:00 he'd still had no answer.  When he finally got through they said they had not heard back from Guy's so would let us know when they did.  Come 16:00 we'd still heard nothing and I rang them again at this point as I needed to let my manager know if I'd be in late tomorrow.  No answer again.  Finally around 16:20 they rang ALS back to say I'd need another scan tomorrow.

I had planned to have Thursday and Friday off on annual leave for London but as that's now not happening until at least 24 hours later I can still work Thursday.  So I've put tomorrow in to save rushing back from Sheffield AGAIN and Friday for hopefully egg collection to be done.

The IVF process itself is not stressing me out at all.  I know that it's a long process, I know that it's unpredictable and I know that it will all be worth it in the end.  However, trying to fit it around work is horrendous.  I hate letting people down or leaving them short staffed, especially at such short notice and it just feels like I'm messing them around.  Fortunately my manager has been really good about the whole situation, otherwise I really don't think I'd have coped at all - certainly in my last job I wouldn't have been able to go to so many appointments in such a short space of time.

I really can't reiterate enough that if you have the ability to take a week or two off whilst you're coming up to egg collection (and transfer, I imagine) then do so.  The medications make you feel pretty naff and really tired as it is, let alone when you're getting up at 05:30 to do a 100 mile round trip for a scan and blood tests, followed by a full day at work (finishing late because you started late) and then getting home and ready to do it all again the next day.  I haven't lifted a finger in terms of housework in the last fortnight.  I'm pretty much coming home from work, having dinner and a bath and going straight to bed.  Due to my EDS, I imagine I'm being hit harder with fatigue than a healthy person would but it's been pretty debilitating.

Anyway, I don't want to moan too much but I also want people to understand the reality of it.  The injections themselves are insignificant compared to the enormity of the whole process and honestly they've been no trouble at all in the grand scheme of things.  We have had some friends visit from New Zealand this evening, whilst visiting their family in the UK so that was lovely - they appreciated our situation and were happy to just come over and chill rather than going out (I even greeted them in my PJs).

Hopefully I'll have better news tomorrow - or at least I won't be so tired as I can go back to bed when we get home from Sheffield!