Day 6

Introducing... another daily injection. Woohoo!

A quick trip into the clinic today to start me on daily Cetrotide injection which will stop me from ovulating. They want the Gonal F to do its thing and grow lots of follicles nice and big but they need them to get to a certain size before harvest, hence the Cetrotide. 

Its a little different to my nice easy pen-like injection of Gonal F; for this one I have to mix a solution with a vial of powder, suck it back into the syringe, change needles (from a horse-sized needle to a teeny small one) and then inject it into my belly. 

This particular one can also have some minor irritation around the site which is exactly what happened with me. 

I haven't really minded the Gonal F ones, but I am a little antsy about this new one. 

Next appt is sunday for some blood work and a scan to check what my follicles are looking like. I'm hoping the big dose of Gonal F is doing the trick and they are getting big and healthy fast!

xJ

Day 3

Second day of injections. Starting to get the hang of it all though I still need hubby's encouragement to get all the steps right (its not hard, but that's just how I learn best)

Feeling very tired and a bit grumpy. Not sure if that's a legitimate side effect or just the effect of dealing with a hard week (hubby had strep throat)

Please excuse the horribly chewed nails. One of my many faults ;)

xJ

Day 1

Day 1 of my cycle today. Went to the clinic to collect all my goodies:

Mini sharps bin- is it strange I think it's cute?

Insulator bag, teeny wee sharps bin, 2 of the drug pens (6 days worth of drug) and a dvd/info sheet on how to administer it (reiterating the 'drug talk' I had with the nurse a couple of weeks ago)

I start injections tomorrow night (day 2) and have booked appointments for Friday (day 6- the start of the next injections) and Sunday (day 8- bloods and scan). 

It's all on! Exciting! 

xJ

The drug talk

Had an appt with the doctor and nurse today. Saw the doctor for a vaginal ultrasound and some swabs (apparently my uterus is beautiful!) and the nurse for the drug talk. 

Sounds ominous... it wasn't. Unless of course, you are scared of injections then yes, very ominous! 

We pretty much went through the daily injections that I will need to give myself once my cycle has started. Its a very very thin needle on a very cool looking pen contraption and you inject it into the fat around your middle. Thankfully I have plenty of that! Knew it would come in handy one day! 

I'm a little overwhelmed by how intensive it all seems at the moment and am still fussing over how its all going to work with the kids/hubby/family. One really good thing that came out of today is that I got some things clarified. 

• They will collect anywhere between 1 and 30 follicles from me. Typically its about 9. They will then get fertilized, 1 will be inserted into the recipient and any others which have developed will be frozen
• Vaginal scans (to check the progress of the growth of my follicles) are all of 5 mins. So taking the kids and someone else with me is a viable option. 
• For the egg collection, I will be at the clinic for 1-2 hours. The actual egg collection part is 10 mins max. 
• Timing is all important. So when they say that the egg collection will occur 36 hours after the trigger injection, they mean it. 

So now we wait for my period... which is likely to be in about 10-12 days. Then it all starts!

xJ

Weaned

Well, that was faster than I expected. Mr1 stopped asking for breastmilk and now has a bottle. All in the past week. 
A quick call to the clinic and now it looks like I'll be donating later this month (my next cycle). 
Hubby and & have had a set of bloods done (forgotten exactly what his were, but they tested for HIV and other potential things he could have passed on to me) and I have an appointment next week for a vaginal ultrasound and swabs. 
Hoping all is well and we can proceed from there. 

I'm excited about it all although a trifle nervous. The daily injections dont worry me, but I am worrying most about logistics in terms of the kids and hubby etc. Silly huh? 

Will post again soon

xJ