15 Follicles, an egg collection date and possible OHSS!

Our new follicle count this morning was 15! Yes since Friday's scan another 5 follicles have caught up and we now have 15! As me and gardener guy listened to the count go up and up we kind of just looked at each other like ' huh? we have more?'.

Now let me begin by telling you the doctor that did the scan this morning is not my cup of tea! I just don't like him, he is a bit brash and has a really weird sense of humour and is not very sensitive, I am so pleased he isn't my specialist, anyhow he did the scan and I asked if it was good that we now have more follicles and he answered yes and no, its great to see more, as more follicles means more eggs which obviously means more eggs for Gardener guys sperm to fertilize which means more embryos to work with, but on the other hand we don't want too many eggs all of poor quality, but only time will tell, we just have to wait till egg retrieval and see what we get. Now let me get back to what I was saying about this weirdo doctor, I feel like he keeps trying to make me feel like a fool, he asked me what level my estrogen was, i said to him "I don't know", then he said "well of course you don't know, the nurse hasn't processed it yet", now to me that just seemed like a completely pointless exchange of words, He also makes other really weird comments and I'm just not in the mood for his poor attempts at humour, but oh well he knows his job so that's the main thing.

He was a little concerned about my estrogen levels, he said they were getting to the dangerously high stage, if they go over a certain level it becomes dangerous for me, and we got the blood results back this afternoon and they were on the very high stage, the doctor who has been at the clinic for the longest made the call to go ahead with retrieval but the problem is I am now at risk of developing OHSS, for those of you who are unaware of what this is, well basically the fertility drugs over stimulate the ovaries and the ovaries can become swollen and fluid can leak into the belly and chest area, OHSS occurs after the eggs are released from the ovaries, so the doctors will keep a close eye on me after the egg retrieval and hopefully I don't develop OHSS. If I do get it severely I wont be able to have an embryo transfer as my body will not be up to that and all the embryos will have to be frozen and used later when the OHSS has cleared up. Symptoms of OHSS include weight gain very quickly, bloating, pain in abdomen, shortness of breath, vomiting. So lets hope I don't get it, as from reading Krista's blog - 'diary of taking small steps towards baby steps' when she had OHSS it sounded like a nightmare and being off work and feeling like I'm dying is not something I need right now.


We have our egg retrieval scheduled for Tuesday at 10am,I have been told to expect it to be a bit more painful this time as they have more follicles to get out, but hopefully they give me some extra anesthetic if this becomes to much of an issue, as I said to the doctor, I don't care about the pain, I can take it and it doesn't really matter to me, I'm so focused on getting my baby I don't care how much pain I have to go through.

So quite alot of drama today, I now have another issue to worry about, I didn't expect to need to be concerned with OHSS, its just another damn thing, as if I haven't had enough shit, now it could possibly get far worse, but it hasn't happened yet and lets just wait and see once they get the eggs out what my body does.

Yesterday I was lucky to get a break from blood tests and scans so we decided to do something nice as the weather was so good, winter but a lovely sunny day, so we went to Stagland's, which is a wildlife reserve not too far from where we live. We had a really nice time feeding all the animals and even though we seemed to be the only couple there without children I wasn't too fazed. Animals are really therapeutic, as silly as that sounds I just didn't think about infertility and being unhappy the whole time I was there, I had so much fun. I just wanted to pack all the animals up and take them home. If we cant have children, having a horse, a goat, some pigs, a deer and a few peacocks lurking round the house will be sure to keep us busy.


As egg retrieval looms I am feeling scared and worried about all the possible things that can go wrong but all in all I feel in my heart that this will all work out, In just over 2 weeks we will find out if our life is going to change forever, we will find out if we get what we have been waiting and struggling so long for, Fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed (well not legs, legs open), that this all works out and all this misery comes to an end.