IVF 1 - Day 15 last scan

Had my last scan this morning to confirm the egg retrieval schedule.  I take my Ovitrelle injection at 9pm tonight and my retrieval is scheduled for 9am Wednesday morning (of course I need to be at the clinic sooner).  I think I'm the first one of the day so that they can defrost the frozen eggs and then let me know if they defrosted okay or if they suggest defrosting anymore.  It looks like there were around 9 or 10 follicles of varrying sizes so I'm hoping for 5 fresh eggs.  If I get 5, that would be a good result all things considered.  On the day of the procedure I will take an antibiotic at 7:30am and I start the progesterone (Cyclogest) the day after the procedure.  I need to make sure I have everything prepared because I'll be away at this workshop Thursday and Friday.  But really, all it is I need is the Cyclogest I think.  I might pee on a stick tomorrow just to see what a positive test looks like from the trigger.  That is perhaps wasteful, but part of me wants to just make sure my ebay tests work.

So close now!  It's going to be hurdle after hurdle to get from here to a successful transfer.  There's a lot of possible failure points.  Fingers crossed.

Drug Delivery

The box itself didn't look like much....

However, inside the box was a shitload of drugs!!

We've got 4 x 900 Gonal F pens, 7 Orgalutran pre-loaded syringes, an Ovitrelle pen, 3 boxes of Cyclogest pessaries, an amoxicillin pill, and of course the sharps box.  My cheese drawer is looking very full at the moment....

No period yet.  If it comes tomorrow that's risky because I think my clinic only does egg collections on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  That would mean they may try to collect on day 15 (Friday) which would be earlier than all of my egg freezing cycles, but otherwise would have to wait until day 18 (Monday) which could be too late.  If my period comes the day after tomorrow, or the day after that, then they might be going for the Monday collection (day 17 or 16 depending).  I'm pretty sure the clinic does embryo transfers on Saturdays, so if I had a Monday collection, I could have the transfer on the Saturday, avoiding the two days (Thursday/Friday) which will be a horrible work conflict.  If I have the collection on a Friday, the transfer would be on the Wednesday which would not be ideal because I still have some conflicts, but would also be okay, or at least, way better than the Thursday/Friday conflict.  So actually... I might end up alright with the work conflict either way- the only difference would be if they collect on the Monday and if I don't have more than 2 embryos that don't look so great, they could recommend a day 3 transfer which would be on the Thursday.  Complicated!!  I don't care though.  This month is a go, and I'm sort of excited about it.  Even though there's no guarantees in all this, I prefer to be taking action than waiting, that's for sure.

IVF package and drugs - budget update

I've just spent a large sum on the drugs for my first IVF procedure as well as the procedure itself. My clinic has a package deal for IVF which includes:

• Ultrasound scans for monitoring
• Monitoring blood tests
• Blastocyst culture (if needed)
• IVF/ICSI process (if needed)
• Embryo transfer
• Pregnancy scan or review consultation as needed

The cost for this package is £3130 if you are not using ICSI and £4030 if you are.  Because my frozen eggs will need to have ICSI, then I am paying the higher cost.  There is no additional fee for the processing of both types of eggs, or the defrosting, or if they end up doing two different fertilization procedures on the fresh and frozen, or anything else apparently.  So that was good.  At the moment I feel this cost is very reasonable for an IVF cycle with drugs included.  But I don't have a huge amount to base that on.

The drug cost for 12 days of treatment came out to £1858 which includes: 4x900iu Gonal F pens, 7 Orgalutran injections, 1 Ovitrelle injection, and 45 Cyclogest pessaries.  I will probably need to buy some more medication as my cycles tend to run longer (from both the IUI and egg freezing experiences).  But these drug costs seem reasonable.  I should go back and compare them to my old egg freezing costs as they are again from Healthcare at Home.

I'm still trying to pay for the courier to get the frozen eggs from London to Cambridge.  I have left a phone message with the Cambridge clinic today and replied to an email over the weekend, but so far nothing.  I don't think that will be a problem but I will feel better when it is paid for and underway. The courier quote I got was £175 + VAT.  So I'll have to add that to the budget later when I find out how much the tax is.

Apparently I need to fill in yet more paperwork to permit the thawing of the frozen eggs.  Of course I do.

So the budget update:

Previous total	£6490
IVF Inclusive Fee with ICSI	£4030
12 Days of IVF drugs (see above)	£1858
New total	£12378

I've now spent approximately... a little over 1/3 of my savings for this endeavor.  It would be amazing if this would work so I could keep the rest for caring for a child, childcare, etc.  But it also means if I need to do this again, I certainly can.  Of course fingers crossed I won't have to.

IUI 1 - Day 11 Scan, Trigger (I think)

I'm waiting for the clinic to call me with the timings for what should be my trigger shot this evening, and the time for my IUI procedure tomorrow morning/early afternoon.  It's almost 3pm and I'm still waiting.... frustrating.

The scan this morning was fine.  I've been feeling some crampy 'fullness' in my right side which is the side my ovary is on.  I don't usually get pre-period feelings of any kind, so it's been a bit weird to feel my right side, particularly as this isn't really a stimulation cycle like it was for egg freezing.  Here there's only one good follicle. So why all the pressure??  Maybe it's just the drugs working.

At any rate, the scan showed my uterine lining continuing to grow as desired and a straight line growth of the one good follicle which was at 14mm on Friday and is now 18/19mm this morning.  The nurse said this means my trigger should be tonight and the IUI tomorrow.  We went through how to mix up the Pregnyl which is a bit fussy.  You have to snap tiny glass vials and do the whole powder/water mixing thing.  I asked why they use Pregnyl instead of Ovitrelle and the nurse said that based on their very limited numbers, they had better results with Pregnyl.  So that was good enough for me!  Even if it does come in an easier to use syringe.  I'm sure it will be fine.  If I think about it, I might take pictures of these teeny tiny vials.

The main thing I'm waiting to hear other than the timings for things is whether I need to do one injection of the Pregnyl or two.  This is based on my blood test results.  This time it took her two tries to get the blood out.  The first time she went for the same vein that the nurse went for on Friday so in order to hit a different spot on it she went higher, but no luck. So she ended up going for the same spot on the second try and it gave up the goods.  Hopefully I don't have to give any more blood tomorrow.

I had my second acupuncture appointment on Saturday which went well.  It was very similar to the first one with needles in my abdomen, right ear, arms, hands, calves, and feet.  She again did the warming trick with the needles and put a heat light on my feet.  I managed to doze off during the treatment so that's probably a good thing!

I have very low expectations for this procedure, as in, I do not expect it to work at all.  Of course I will be very disappointed when it doesn't, but right now I feel that it won't.  Which will also mean I'll be scared shitless if it does!  It's really impossible not to think about it and have hopes and worries as you go along.  Minute by minute or second by second even.  I'm trying to just stay sane and go with the flow.  I'm going to have to wait two weeks to know anything at all which I'm sure will be headache inducing with how much my brain will mull it over.

I suspect the procedure tomorrow will be relatively straightforward and quick-ish.  I will write it up after the fact.  They told me that when you're scheduled to come in they defrost the sperm in advance so there's no waiting around.  They also said that there is absolutely no benefit to laying down or what have you for however long.  Either you're going to get pregnant or you're not and that is not going to make a difference in the slightest.  I'm sure I'll take it easy, and may in fact take a taxi from work to the appointment and back (instead of cycling).  But it's pretty much out of my hands at this point.  Not that it particularly ever was in my hands to begin with if you think about it.

Anyway.  It's all very exciting, terrifying, and disappointing all at once at the moment.  Which seems to me to be just about normal.