Wow! 7 scans and 23 Gonal-F injections later, we finally have the go-ahead for egg collection.
Today, we bumped into the consultant gynaecologist who did our initial consultation last May while we were in the waiting room. She stopped to ask us how things were going (slowly but surely) and wished us luck. That was nice.
Before we left the clinic today, we were told that there would be a meeting this afternoon to agree what I need to do next to prepare for egg collection. The nurse called at 5.15pm which was late enough to make me think that she had forgotten about me.
I took my last dose of the Nafarelin nasal spray earlier this evening and will relace my usual Gonal-F injection with the hCG (Ovitrelle) injection at 11pm tonight (38 hours before my planned egg collection). This final injection causes the final stages of egg ripening to take place.
Up to today, I really thought we would end up being the one in ten statistic that they quote in the brochure for having our cycle cancelled. I have approached this whole process as a series of hurdles to negotiate – what a high one the first one has been but we’ve made it! The nurse today made a comment about how we now stand as good a chance as any other couple of a successful IVF cycle. I, on the other hand am still erring on the side of caution. We only have 3 follicles to play with and we don’t yet know whether they will all contain eggs or what the quality of my eggs are like.
IVF couple 