Harvest Time!!

The doctors had lowered my dose of hormones, good thing too because as I've been writing, I am not feeling fabulous lately. My breasts hurt, I can hardly drive without wincing at every little bump. And I'm soooooo bloated. I can't quite seem to be able to find a position where I'm semi comfortable. So, last night, I was allowed to eliminate Follistim from my daily regimen and lower the dose of Menopur to 75 units from 150 units. I was relieved as I was running out of potential injection sites (trying to avoid the bruises, which are darker today).

This morning I went in to the clinic for my the regular blood work and sonogram, where the doctor gasped over my ovaries' progress - lots and lots of eggs. So I inquired as to the number of eggs that he was seeing and he said about 25...um...which sounded a lot higher than what I thought they had said they were aiming for in the beginning. When I asked what the average number of eggs that were collected was, he said about 15. WOAH. I sure hope this couple will end up with a pregnancy! That's a lot of eggs!! Then he suggested that unless I was planning to get pregnant, I get on some serious birth control. He said that I would not have trouble having children in the future and that if I did, it would not be caused by me. It's nice to know that I have that ability. He asked how I was feeling and I went on a rant about the discomfort and the bruising, which he assured me was all normal and that it won't go on for long, since tonight I'd stop the usual hormone injections and take the trigger shot. That would make my harvest date 2 days from now!! Woot woot!

HCG - human chorionic gonadotropin - will trigger ovulation, about 48 hours after receiving it. The clinic will retrieve the eggs about 36 hours after injection, just before the eggs will be released from the ovaries. Unlike the others, HCG is given in the gluteal muscle in the upper buttock area. My instruction was to take it at 11:45pm. The needle is larger than the others, but at this point, I'm not really afraid of it. I needed to exert a bit more pressure to get the needle in, which wasn't comfortable but not that bad. It's been about an hour since the injection and my bum is quite sore - the kind of soreness you have after a work out. I also started taking 2 doxycycline pills a day - it's a precautionary measure against infections.

This means no injections tomorrow!! YAY!!! One more visit to the clinic before the harvest and then I'm done! I'm soooooooo excited!!!!