This is an anonymous post series following one of our blogger’s ivf journey in real time. You can read parts 1, 2, 3, 4 here.

On Monday, I went again for a follicle check and bloodwork. I was really hoping it would be my last monitoring appointment since my clinic is 2 hours away and I have to leave super early in the morning (5:15am) to get there for my appointments. This time the clinic’s other doctor did my scan. I had never met her before and I was glad to meet her in case she ends up being the doctor who does my retrieval and/or transfer. She was so kind and quietly counted and measured my follicles during the visit. I was reminded how glad I am we chose this clinic. Even though the location isn’t very convenient, the doctors there have been knowledgeable, and very caring and compassionate. When we saw different RE’s in years past we were never impressed and always just seemed like a number to them. Feeling cared about is so important, especially with such an intimate and often disappointing process like fertility treatment!

I was shocked and pleased when she told me that one ovary had about 12-15 measurable follicles! The other ovary still just had three, interestingly enough, but this total number seemed great after being nervous that I only had 6 eggs growing. 9 out of these follicles were over 15mm, so she told me that that would probably be the last day I would stim and that I would probably do the trigger shot (to force my body to ovulate) on Tuesday evening, but that they would call me to confirm after receiving my estrogen results later in the day.

I got the call that afternoon that my estrogen level was at 3000, confirming the plan the doctor told me that morning. I was so excited that Monday was my last night to have to do a Menopur injection! Those have really burned all 11 days of stimming and my belly has several impressive bruises to show for it. But knowing that in just a few days I would be preparing what is basically a minor surgery started to get real and a little nerve wracking. Since I have been focusing on one day at a time (as best I can), the reality makes me both excited and nervous. I hadn’t yet thought of how I would have to avoid all food, drink and body products for almost 12 hours, and it made me realize that this was really happening!

Like anything new that we’ve never done before, I am kind of worried about the pain and recovery time as some women say it took them almost a week to feel more like themselves again. I hope this isn’t the case for me and plan to go to a partial day of work on Friday.

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Last night (Tuesday) I did the trigger shot and my final dose of Gonal-F at 10pm and will have my retrieval on Thursday morning at 9am! I am very grateful that I’m done with shots for the rest of the cycle. In the past women have had to do huge Progesterone in Oil injections in their backsides from a day or two before transfer until a negative pregnancy test or the second trimester. But, my doctor told me that clinical studies show that there is no statistical difference in the rate of successful cycles between doing the PIO injections and vaginal progesterone suppositories when a fresh transfer of an embryo is done, which is what we are planning to do at this point. So, we will only have to return to injections if this cycles doesn’t work and we have leftover embryos to try a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET). That is quite exciting after 12 straight days of shots in my belly.

I was excited to read that another bee in the hive is on almost the exact same schedule that I am in her IVF cycle and asked about working out and activity during the process. I will admit that I am not an avid exerciser usually, and with the long drives to the clinic at the same time I would work out if I were home, I haven’t done any exercising since I started stims a week and a half ago. But, I don’t plan to do anything heavier than walking or yoga for at least a few more weeks. My doctor hasn’t indicated a preference on this, but I got this idea from reading Dr. Alice Domar’s book, Conquering Infertility. She has worked with a lot of women undergoing fertility treatment and saw more success when they were more gentle in their exercising, so I figured I would stick with that for now.

Next time I write my husband and I will hopefully have some fertilized embryos for the first time ever! Even if this cycle isn’t successful and I don’t get pregnant, that idea is so exciting to think about! We will have officially conceived, which is a bit crazy to think about after all these years. We are very excited and hopeful right now since we don’t have any reason not to be, and I hope we get to continue our optimism after retrieval tomorrow. I can’t believe the time has come!

If you did IVF before, how did retrieval and recovery go for you?