The day after Egg Collection I had my feet up and was awaiting the phonecall from the clinic to see how many had fertilised.
23!
They had to do ICSI instead of IVF because it turns out the expensive sperm I bought online weren’t very good swimmers! Typical! So that’s another £1100 spent, but worth it to ensure something happened and we didn’t get a phone call this morning to say that none fertilised and all the eggs are now wasted!
Then I had to wait to see how many made it to day 5 and blastocyst stage.
16!
I now have 16 embryos in the freezer awaiting my Frozen Embryo Transfer.

So today I went in for Egg Collection. Due to the sedation I wasn’t allowed to drive as I have to all my other appointments, and with mum not being confident driving that distance, dad was forced into being my driver for the day!
I wasn’t allowed to eat from the night before, and only water to drink in the morning til a few hours before.
We arrived half an hour early and as instructed took my diazepam and paracetamol with a sip of water. Then we waited.
I was eventually taken down and changed into a blue robe. It was SEETHROUGH! My poor dad!
He wasn’t allowed to accompany me in for the actual procedure, so I was taken down the corridor and into the same room I had been in for my IUIs.
I was given some kind of sedation in my cannula and my eyes started flicking uncontrollably, but that was the only effect I noticed and that soon settled.The procedure itself took quite a while because there were SO MANY follicles to go into, but she managed to get both sides and just kept going because I wasn’t complaining! Honestly, it hurt, but nothing unbearable, like a sharp scratch each time she went into another follicle.
Once she was happy she had cleared me out we waited to find out how many we had got. 37. Everyones mouths dropped open and I’m now one of the producers of the highest number of eggs at that clinic!
With such a high number there’s no choice in it, it is a freeze all cycle. She seemed to suggest that I don’t need to wait so long before Frozen Embryo Transfer though so maybe November/December instead of the January one I expected.

I had my second tracking scan today and the nurse measured 37 follicles that had started growing… she reckons about 15-20 are over 15mm, which is PLENTY, so I’m triggering tonight for egg collection 10.30 Wednesday morning, whereas it was initially scheduled for Friday!!
I got given a different trigger (buserelin instead of Ovitrelle) to reduce the chance of developing OHSS. It’s all feeling real now!

Started Northisterone on 17th August, finished on 27th and my period arrived this morning about 2 hours before my baseline scan! She better get the puppy pads out so I don’t make a mess of her chair! The lining was still quite thick as my period had only just started, but again, as with cycle 1, there were about 20-30 follicles each side. The nurse needs to double check Gonal-F starting dose before I start tomorrow.

I never in my life dreamed when I started this journey that I would be having IVF, let alone a second cycle.
My consultation today suggested that shes basically going to go for maximum eggs probably causing OHSS with a view to freezing them all, recovering for a few months and then having a Frozen Embryo Transfer, however, she has only upped my Gonal-F starting dose by 50iu to 150iu, when I ended last cycle on 200iu and still got nothing!
She also she didn’t know when I could start, but wasn’t hopeful for the August date that I had been promised – she said I could ask the nurses but she thinks it’s full.

When I got home the clinic got back to me and I was told wrong last time, I won’t be looking at egg collection in August it will be September… seriously this is getting pushed further and further back, I was so naieve when I first started this journey and I thought it would work first time, one month and I’d be pregnant. Here I am almost a year later still not even close to being pregnant!

And just like that this IVF cycle is over. With only a 21mm an 18mm and a 15mm and a lot of smaller ones they called me in to another room and discussed it, but they basically decided it wasn’t worth continuing and going through Egg Collection for 2 or 3 eggs that might not even be mature, when I have the reserves to do a lot better.

Next egg collection booked for August. Atleast it’s not too long to wait!

Todays scan showed that I have a few follicles coming on, an almost 18mm, a 17mm, 4 around the 13mm and 2 around 10mm… so they’ve decided to give me 2 more days of a higher dose and hopefully Egg Collection on Friday 22nd!

What are the chances that the previously unstimulated follicles answered to the higher dose over the weekend and have started to grow? What if no more follicles have grown and they call off the cycle? How long will I have to wait before I can try again? How will that affect my Access Fertility finance? So much stress!