6 out of 8 ain’t bad

I feel like I’m now into the heart and soul of this IVF process. This is definitely the part that requires the most reserves of energy and strength.

On Wednesday afternoon, the clinic nurse called to let me know my egg collection was definitely set for Friday and that we needed to be at the hospital for 11am. As there’s roughly 36 hours between trigger and collection, I was instructed to do the trigger shot at 12.30am that night – or technically the following morning...

The injection itself was fine, it didn’t hurt any more than any of the others, but somehow it just felt different. To me, that needle was loaded with emotion and significance. After all, this was the final push to get my 10 follies to release their eggs, which could soon become embryos, which could one day become our baby or babies.

I didn’t get much sleep that night.

Thursday was injection-free but I was very nervous about what the next day would bring. On Friday we got to the hospital half an hour early but annoyingly they were running really late so we weren’t seen until 2pm. Those were a looong few hours during which DH was asked to produce his ‘sample’ and I was asked to verify my name and date of birth by about 50 different people. I started to doubt it myself after a while.

The collection team were lovely – the doctor, the embryologist, the handsome young anaesthetist and his assistant all instantly put me at ease. Having been nervous that I might be too ‘aware’ during the procedure, I actually had a lovely little sleep and woke up as they were finishing.

I felt fine after the sedation. As the local anaesthetic and painkillers wore off during the day, I felt a bit tender but didn’t have any pain and 48 hours later it’s almost back to normal. And the best bit – they collected eight eggs from my 10 follies! The wait for the embryologist’s call the next day to tell us how many had fertilised was nerve-wracking. We were incredibly relieved and happy to find out six of the eight fertilised. Yay!

And now we wait again for the embryologist to call tomorrow morning to tell us how the six are doing. If at least two are still going strong, we’ll have a 5-day transfer at blastocyst stage. If the quality isn’t so great they’ll ask us to go in for the transfer tomorrow. Once we know how many embies have survived and their quality, we’ll make the decision about whether we transfer one or two (but we’re leaning towards two if we can).

It’s weird to think a part of us is in a lab in west London, while we’re getting on with life as normally as possible in Hertfordshire. I can’t imagine how it’s going to feel to have those little embies put back inside of me, and I’m afraid to imagine either outcome when we test a couple of weeks down the road.

So, I’m taking this one step at a time and for now I’m praying hard those six little embies are getting stronger by the hour and that we’ll get some good news with tomorrow’s call.

Until next time

Juno ☺