Half a dozen (organic) eggs

Egg collection happened this morning and I’m pleased to report that we got 6 eggs – from 6 follicles. What a relief!

As with all IVF stuff there is no such thing as a ‘good news day’. So whilst busy punching the air with our 6 egg news, we also received the news that husband’s sperm sample wasn’t good enough for ‘regular’ IVF and we’d have to opt for ICSI instead. Apparently his count had reduced from 5 million in our last cycle to 400k in this one. How did that happen?!

The embryologist asked if he had been unwell 6-8 weeks ago. We didn’t think so…and he’s been taking all his supplements. It’s weird. We need to follow up with the doctor on this one. 6-8 weeks ago he was rather stressed out (I was hit by a motorbike – long story) so perhaps that had a negative impact on things down below. Anyway, c’est la vie. We just need to deal with it – and we are VERY good at dealing with double whammy good/bad news these days.

I’ll get a phonecall tomorrow with news of how many eggs fertilised. ICSI can sometimes cause eggs to break up, so we’re just hoping that amongst our 6 there are a couple strong enough to cope with ICSI and make it to fertilisation. I am egging on my eggs – more news to follow.

Day 5 scan – feeling deflated

Well, I’m feeling a little disappointed this morning. Had a day 5 scan and looks like there are only 4-5 follicles growing. My left ovary is almost totally asleep.

So frustrating, I had 10 follicles in my last cycle (which we didn’t use as it was a frozen cycle) and 7 the time before. I’ve had 4-5 day 5 follicles in the past, back in the days when I knew nothing about IVF and was living in blissful oblivion of DHEA, CoQ10 and all the other ‘magical cures’ I’ve been chugging. My effort with diet, supplements, gallons of water etc don’t seem to have made any difference.

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, my blood work has been almost exactly the same for each cycle. It’s the good old IVF ROLL OF THE DICE again. The doctor said it’s normal to have fluctuation between cycles and ‘it only takes one’, blah blah blah. I know it only takes one but I’m fed-up. I feel like a failure again. Aren’t we due some good luck by now? Why me? Why us? Why is God/Allah/the Universe not cutting us some slack?

We’ve decided to go ahead as planned. I’m worried if I cancel this cycle I’ll have 2 follicles next time, or maybe none at all, and will regret missing this opportunity. I’m also not getting any younger. I asked the doctor what he would do and he pointed out that he doesn’t have a crystal ball, but that we only really need one good embryo. That’s true, but what we really need is one positive pregnancy test. Hopefully my measly follicles will produce THE one this time around.

And so it begins! Again!

In the words of Mr Robert Plant – good times, bad times, you know I’ve had my share*. And I managed to have a pretty good share of both in the space of 12 hours today.

I kicked off my day with an early morning scan (‘dildocam’ ….sorry…..bad I know) to assess my antral follicle count. In my last cycle I had 7-8 follicles on day 2, pretty good for someone with my IVF history. This morning, after a good few minutes of rooting around to find my ovaries (is that good or bad?!), he counted 5 plus one small one. Not so good. I felt gutted. I’ve been taking DHEA for more than 2 months now along with all the new supplements. 5 follicles? Really? Is that all?

Anyway he took a blood sample and said that if my FSH level is 11 or more, we should cancel this month’s cycle and wait until August. He promised to ring between 6-7pm and I wandered off towards work, feeling disappointed and grim. What exactly is an FSH level? Surely mine will be crap, given that I seem to be mildly crap at everything IVF related?

I passed the day by doing my actual job that I am paid to do, and my part-time job which is Googling things about IVF, – ‘what is a good antral follicle count?’, ‘what is a good FSH?’, ‘how can I grow my follicles?’, ‘what is the highest FSH number you can have and IVF might work’, etc etc etc.

The day dragged on.

I walked home at 6pm clutching my phone in my sweaty little hand, staring at it forlornly every few minutes.

He rang at 6.59pm. My FSH is 7!  What  a relief – a piece of good news at last. That is actually a pretty good number.

So, despite my 5-6 follicles I am going ahead as planned. My hormone levels are good. Fingers crossed those follicles will grow nicely over the next week or so, and who knows, maybe a couple of new follicles might even appear. I did my first Menopur injection tonight and will go back for another scan on Saturday. I could do without another day like today – I think I like good news days and bad news days – not all news days.

* …well my woman left home for a brown eyed man, and I still don’t seem to care’ (that bit didn’t happen today)