hopefulandhungry

I’m filled with both hope and excitement today.  But, also feel extremely nervous for our long-awaited egg retrieval for our first IVF cycle happening tomorrow morning.

To recap, Hubby and I have been trying to conceive for two years, we’ve done the natural thing, I’ve taken my basal body temperature, used an ovulation predictor kit and done several inseminations.  Last month we were suppose to move forward with our first IVF only to have it cancelled due to oversuppression of my ovaries.  Well, here we are exactly one month after we had anticipated egg retrieval for July on the cusp of retrieving my eggs.

On July 25th I started my stimulation medications-300 IU of Follistim and 75 IU of Menopur.  On my sixth day of stimulation meds I added Ganirelix (an antagonist to prevent ovulation).  I started with 16 follicles (good for me, but pretty low on average) and yesterday had approximately 11 follicles but only 6 of those being of mature size (15+ mm).  Again, these are much lower than average numbers (hence, the nervousness), but it only takes one good embryo.  Right?!

After my blood draw and ultrasound yesterday, we got the call that we would be doing our hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) shot and be ready for egg retrieval on Saturday morning, August 4th.  The hCG shot signals the follicles/eggs to do their final maturation and signals the chromosomes to line up.

Hubby did an excellent job giving me my hCG shot last night, I was worried because unlike my stimulation medications (which are given subcutaneous), the hCG shot is an intramuscular injection.  The needle was VERY long and I was worried it was going to be uncomfortable, but surprisingly, it was better than my last couple of days of stimulation injections.

Today I’m relaxing-trying to get caught up on a few things around the house since I’ll be laid up much of tomorrow.  Hubby will be taking care of me tomorrow and we’ll be making a trip to the video store later today to pick out some movies to watch.  Hubby has already said that I can’t pick a bunch of Indie films (which I usually do) since I might be out of it anyway.

Again….I’m excited, hopeful and pray that this will work for us.  But, I do want to approach with caution since there are so many factors and everything needs to align perfectly.  My type A personality needs to let go and realize that there is nothing I can do but be positive, be good to my body, and hope for the absolute best outcome.