So, my Scan Day was Cycle Day 9 – I’ll be honest it felt like forever.
Starting my stimulation medication on CD1 and not knowing whether they were actually working or not until CD9 was a bit of a nightmare.
Obviously, I trust the doctor’s to know what they’re doing but it was hard work although I tried not to stress about it. I was on at the maximum dose of Meriofert that could give me, so it wasn’t like they could up the medication if it wasn’t working, but seeing people having 3 scans before Day 9 was like really frustrating.
I thought, I’ll have a scan on CD9, probably another on CD11, and then CD13/14 would be egg collection…
Originally my scan was booked in for 7:50 a.m. I knew the drive through to the clinic wasn’t going to be busy. However, I had a call the day before to see if they could rearrange me for 8:30 a.m. instead which was fine, woohoo to an extra 15 minutes in bed haha!
in the morning I got dressed in my lucky duck socks, a pineapple vest top and my positive vibes t-shirt and headed to the clinic. I started updating my diary blog post via voice notes whilst in the car. I’m finding thats the time I’m able to “write” most of my posts. As I drove down the road before I got to the roundabout before the motorway, a big massive rainbow was there and it just made me feel that everything was going to be alright.
As I continued heading to the clinic, little rainbows just kept appearing when the clouds broke and I just thought “what will be will be” no point in stressing about it, I’ve done all that I can I just have to trust in my body to do the rest. I think it also helped that on this particular day I was feeling really nauseous and really bad backache.
When I got to the clinic it was quite quiet, I don’t think I’ve seen more than 2 people in the waiting room since they reopened since Coronavirus. I was the only person in when I arrived, and then I was called in quite quickly.
It was really strange then when I walked into the room as as my consultant was there and he was a person scanning me. Every scan I’ve had has been done by one of the fertility nurses I was just expecting it to be the same.
I was worried that the bed was quite close to the wall and I know I’ve had problems of people finding my left ovary if I can’t open my legs wide enough (I know it sounds so glamorous) but as all fertility scans are transvaginal scans talking about it just becomes the norm. Luckily I was fine!
So he found my right over a straight away and it came up on the screen and I could see all these little black things which from my previous scans I knew that were follicles. I knew just by looking that I had more than two! I grew two naturally so of course you would think been on the maximum doses stims I was definitely going to grow more than 2, but there was definitely some part of your brain that goes maybe didn’t work.
I didn’t ask for exact numbers, but it looks like overall I had 10 over both ovaries, maybe a little more. This was based on a quick count on the sheet without making it obvious what I was doing. I should have just asked.
My right ovary was more active than my left ovary (expected, my AFC was lower on my left to start with) but I still had follicles on both and and he said that generally anything 14 mm plus can contain an egg and out of those 10ish they were all between 12 to 18 mm.
Normally follicles grow 1mm a day, I’m not sure what the case is when you’re on stims, however, I’ve another 2 days of stims since the scan so CD9 and CD10 evening, and then egg collection will actually be on CD 13. So all being well those at 12 mm will be at least 15 but some of those that were only 10 may have had a little growth spurt too!
Realistically I’m happy with my numbers tbh, I would have been happy with a lower number too!
So what happens next is the following…
The eggs will be retrieved. There is a chance that not all follicles will have an egg and also, not all eggs will be mature.
Then they’ll be fertilised in the lab with the donor sperm, but potentially not all eggs will fertilize.
And then they start to grow, but they may not all grow…
It really really is a numbers game and a waiting game because really there is nothing else we can do…
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