Just when you’ve got your head around one hurdle, you realise you’re about to embark on a new rollercoaster.
After feeling hopeless, things progressed pretty quickly and my egg collection was scheduled. It looked as though I had about seven follicles ready and there was hope some of the others would grow over the final 48 hours before the collection.
On egg collection day it was an early start as we had to be at the hospital for 7am. We got the girls sorted for the babysitter to drop them both at nursery and we made our way to the hospital feeling excited and a little bit nervous too.
You could see other hopeful couples in the reception area clearly here for collection with their little bag of IVF drugs. Now I felt really nervous.
After filling out all of the paperwork and going through the details I was taken down to theatre and, under general anaesthetic, they took the eggs out of my ovaries from the follicles I had grown. I was weirdly enjoying being knocked out and was hoping for a good sleep!! When I came round I felt pretty uncomfortable. I was in pain and I've learnt not to wait for it to settle. If there were drugs on offer, I was taking them!
The main thing on my mind was how many eggs they collected and what the quality were like. Thankfully I didn't have to wait long as the doctor saw me in recovery, he knew I was anxious and told me they got seven good quality eggs. I wanted eight so it was an equal split. Now I had to decide if I was happy to offer three of the eggs to the recipient, which of course I was, and there was a tense wait to hear if the recipient would take the three eggs or if they would rather wait for another opportunity from another donor who may be able to offer more eggs.
In the meantime, it was a case of recovery for me and, "I must eat and pee before being discharged". I was elated. It was the first time I've had breakfast in bed for ages. It was like heaven. I even milked it a bit as I'd ordered the food before theatre and didn't fancy what I'd ordered so I pulled the "I'm the patient" card and L gladly handed over her sausage sandwich and brought me several hot chocolates.
Thankfully the recipient wanted to go ahead with the three eggs. I was really pleased. I felt like I had accomplished something important. That's my work done for them; they take the eggs and add their own sperm and hopefully they fertilise.
Before we left the hospital the embryologist came to tell us about the quality of the sperm from when they defrosted it this morning. I think they actually said "thawed" as I don't think they shoved it in the microwave on low!
So just when you've got your head around one hurdle and feel happy and start to relax, you realise you're about to embark on a new rollercoaster. Now it was time to wait overnight and hope my eggs fertilised with our donor sperm.
Next day I was feeling pretty lousy. Supposedly L has read up on it and I shouldn't be feeling that bad. Seriously?! Just what I needed to hear after having a needle inserted through the wall of my uterus into both of my ovaries several times. Yes! I'm feeling champion. This abdominal and back pain must be in my head or I'm a complete wimp! Perhaps L should give it a go to check??
Early that day the phone rang to update me. I sat on the floor to brace myself for the news. Four out of four had fertilised. I was crying with joy. Then when I found out all three of the recipients eggs had fertilised as well I was on cloud nine. The discomfort I was feeling was more than worth it. We both had a great chance of success.
The next call was the following day to update me and advise if they would transfer the embryo then or give it a few more days to select the best one. I was expecting their call but typically with two kids the timing wasn't great. I was sitting on the toilet with our chaotic youngest sitting on my knee as she wouldn't be put down whilst I was watching G try to pee on the potty. Multi tasking at it's finest. But I figured if we are successful our whole life will be even more of a juggling act so I may as well go with it. Anyway from what I could make out my embryos were still doing good. Two were doing the best and they would wait and do a five day blastocyst transfer. That's a good thing I'm told.
So now the next step is the agonising wait (three sleeps) until we hope a little embryo can be put back into me and then can try and implant.
IUI was a doddle compared to IVF.
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