Friday, 3 March, 2023

So, the end of my IVF cycle is here, concluded by the collection of my oocytes.

The ten days of stimming that I endured was definitely unlike what I experienced with my last cycle. There was definitely a lot of discomfort this time around, I was skulking around like a thief in the night trying not to disturb my full and heavy ovaries. It got to the point where my ovaries were kissing! Omg! They got so big that they were touching! And it fucking hurt too. I was so over it.

I triggered on Wednesday evening. The trigger was the worst injection I’d ever administered in my life. Omg it burnt going in. And then left me in excruciating pain for at least two minutes. I hated it. I was worried that I’d done something wrong and my eggs wouldn’t mature. However, this morning I felt ovulation pain. And then I was freaking out that I’d ovulate before collection and lose all my eggs!

Obviously, that didn’t happen, although I probably lost one or two.

My first scan allowed us to breathe a temporary sigh of relief. We saw growth with multiple follicles recruited and they were all growing at an even rate, no random dominant follicle stealing all of the meds. My doctor was definitely very blasé about counting and measuring the follicles but I got a rough idea of how many I had. I asked if next time I could get an actual follicle count and he said they’d create a report for me. So next scan, he saved some pics of my ovaries but I also had Telis on standby to tally up all the follicles that were counted and their sizes.

The doctor also increased my dosage of stims, which was pretty shocking as I felt I was responding quite well on my initial dose. But whatever, he knows best.

Last scan, again, was pretty much a quick glance around with quick measurements of follicles but he also said I was ready to trigger as I had three follicles at 18mm. Based on the follicles that were counted, I was expecting maybe 13 follicles with nine mature. The doctor said to expect between 15 and 20, with 85% mature. I was just thinking where he would find those extra follicles from. Anyway, I knew he probably missed some but he knows what he saw.

Collection day was today! I really like being put under! It took them three attempts to find a vein for my IV line and ended up putting it in my hand, which sucked. But being put under is so fun! I felt the drowsiness from anaesthesia, smiling and thinking, time to sleep, then I was waking up! So wild!

Telis produced his sample behind the scenes. He said he struggled a bit but got there in the end. We were told the sample was good, so we can only hope the coming together of our genetic material is a successful one.

In the end, I got 17 eggs. Where they found those extra two eggs is beyond me. I still expect just nine to be mature, but what do I know. Tomorrow we’ll get an update on the numbers fertilised and then next week we’ll know how many blastocysts we have. They’ll then freeze the embryos in pairs and we’ll probably do the transfer next month. I could do it with my first period but I have work commitments at the end of the month that I don’t want to miss, so April it is.

I’m a bit sore, but not as bad as with full, kissing ovaries. No sign of OHSS either, which is great. I don’t know where my E2 levels ended up because they weren’t measured at the last two scans! But with 17 eggs, I can only imagine that they were a tad bit high. I’m just disappointed that my ovaries didn’t fulfil their full potential, there was definitely capacity for 30 follicles to grow but if I can get at least two kids out of this, then it doesn’t even matter!

Here is the summary of this cycle!