The last few days - including egg collection.

What a busy few days! I'll try and sum it up as briefly as possible, without leaving out any of the important bits.

Sunday 4th September

We headed off to London about 18:30 on Sunday after our friend had arrived - she'd kindly kept herself on standby to come and take care of the cats at short notice once we got our date.  She's house sat for us a couple of times and she's fabulous, it's usually tidier when we get back than it was when we left which removes any stress of having to come back to a load of housework.

Our train departed at around 20:00 and we got into St Pancras just before 22:30.  My cousins had advised me to get an Uber and I can't explain how convenient this was.  They'd sent me a voucher to get £10 off the first trip as a new customer so I downloaded the app, requested a pick up and within less than 2 minutes our car was there.  30 minutes later he dropped us off at my cousin's flat and the app charges it from your bank account so there's no cash to worry about - with the discount it came to £4.50 which, at £14.50 for the actual trip, is incredibly cheap for London.  Even in Derby a 30 minute trip would cost well over £20.

We had a bit of a catch up with my cousins, whom we'd not seen since our wedding in February.  They sorted us out with directions to the hospital for the morning and then we headed off to bed.

Monday 5th September

Egg retrieval day had finally arrived!  I was surprisingly not too nervous when we left the flat at 07:00, but I was pretty damn hungry and thirsty (you have to fast from midnight the night before but I'd not actually eaten since around 9pm).  I was quite uncomfortable at this point as my eggs were reaching their maximum but mostly just bloating rather than pain.  Once again the transport in London exceeded expectations and after a short train journey we were at London Bridge Station, just around the corner from Guy's Hospital.  As we'd been worried about being late we left really early and actually ended up in the waiting room at around 07:30.  We had to wait until 08:00 for the reception to open, we let them know who we were and what our appointment was for and then headed back to the waiting room.

A nurse came and collected us at 08:20, took us to the large recovery room and sectioned us off behind a curtain.  She checked all our details, gave me a wristband and provided me with a gown, hairnet and slippers to get into (a fetching outfit if I ever saw one).  I was asked to empty my bladder and get changed whilst she went off to get everything ready.  Shortly after I was changed the anaesthetist came in to have a chat with me about the sedation and again, checked my details.  I have to say the anaesthetist didn't have the greatest bedside manner and I was probably more nervous after having spoken to her.  Another 10 minutes passed, making it about 08:50 and the embryologists came in to check my details (again) and took me through to theatre.

Once I was there I was asked to lie down and shuffle my bum right to the bottom of the bed, whilst my legs were fastened in stirrups and the embryologist sat himself between my legs - to be honest there was no embarrassment; everyone was very professional and I was too nervous to care by this point.  When I was all set up the anaesthetist's assistant came in, hooked me up to the blood pressure and heart monitors and busied herself looking for a vein to put the IV in.  I have to say she was a lifesaver.  She was very professional but friendly with it and put me a lot more at ease - or so I thought.  The anaesthetist got the IV in my hand and said that they'd start cleaning me up for the procedure whilst I was gently sedated and then once they were ready to start she finish the sedation and I'd be asleep.  She then stopped and told me that she couldn't do anything until I'd calmed down because my heart rate was over 140bpm!!  Fortunately a few deep breaths later and I was fine to continue, I remember asking if it was normal for my whole arm to really hurt as the sedation went in which she said was perfectly fine and then I told them the ceiling tiles were moving...

The next thing I knew I was waking up, tucked up in bed just as I was being wheeled back into the recovery room.  I got there just before ALS who'd been providing his specimen.  I remember telling the nurse I was surprised how awake I felt so she left me lying down for a few minutes and went to get me some water and a biscuit.  ALS told me it was about 09:20 at this point and he nipped out to Sainsbury's to fetch me some Lucozade and get himself a sandwich.  The nurse returned with water and biscuits which went down pretty nicely and she gave me a heat pad to prevent/alleviate any abdominal discomfort.  A few minutes later the embryologist came to let us know that from my 14 follicles we'd had 13 eggs - a really good number!

After that ALS returned and I shared the good news.  Things went pretty quickly from there, my observations were checked a couple of times and my IV fluids were taken away as I was drinking anyway.  They asked me to empty my bladder which I did with no problems and once I was dressed they removed the cannula and off we went.  They'd said I'd be in recovery for about 2 hours but I bounced back pretty quickly and we headed off the hospital premises at about 10:20, just an hour after I'd woken up.  In hindsight I'm glad we did because I started to experience quite a lot more pain after the painkillers had worn off.

I slept on and off for most of the afternoon but did manage to make it out in the evening, dosed up on paracetamol, for a meal with ALS and my cousins.  By the time we got back to the flat I was in quite a lot of pain; a mixture of period type cramps and feeling like I'd been repeatedly punched in the ovaries.  Urinating was horribly painful and I seemed to be going every 20 minutes or so (they tell you to drink 3 litres of water every day for the first few days after collection).  I do drink a lot normally anyway so getting the water down was fine but with my ovaries still being swollen there wasn't much room for liquid to sit in my bladder.

Tuesday 6th September

This brings us to today!  I felt really rough this morning and urinating was again horribly painful but we had to get up and get our train home.  Having only had about 3 hours sleep I nodded on and off during the train journey and when we got home I headed straight to bed for a good solid 3 hour nap.  When I woke up I did feel considerably better and the pain was only there if I stretched or bent up and down.  I had some food and then we went for a little walk around our local park - which surprisingly took it out of me quite a lot and after about 45 minutes I was ready to head home.  I've just had a nice bath and I've got a hot water bottle on my abdomen at the moment.

We had a phone call this morning to confirm that 10 of our 13 eggs had fertilised, which I'm happy with.  They'll do the biopsies on Saturday and on Sunday we'll know how many have been frozen.  2-3 weeks from then we'll find out which ones have ALS' mum's chromosome and can't be used.  In the meantime I just have to wait for my period to start and go back on my contraceptive pills when it does.

I'm a little frustrated to have just been informed that the risk of a twisted ovary can continue for up to 4 weeks post egg collection as by the end of this week I was hoping to get back into training ready for a big competition in October.  I've mostly resigned myself to the fact that this won't be possible and I'll just have to go in and do whatever I can but it would have been better if I'd been told before we started the process that I'd have to keep the exercise to a gentle level after egg collection.

The best advice I've had is to just listen to my body so that's what I intend to do!

I'm sure I've left various things out so please don't hesitate to leave a comment if you have any questions that I might be able to answer!