Searching for a few good eggs

Yeah for me, I can grow follicles!!

Today was a big day for me, huge actually, because this was the first ultrasound, since beginning the Follistim, and if nothing is going on in there they can scrap the mission and BAM, you are back to the beginning. Luckily for me there was a lot going on in there so I am on for my next round of bloodwork and ultrasound on Friday.

I knew something was going on in there because yesterday I started getting some pain on my right side. Having gone through 6 rounds of clomid the pain is a familiar one, it means that something is tugging on your ovaries, hopefully a maturing follicle. The bigger they get the more pain and yesterday it was enough for me to complain about it to Nat, more like whine about it to Nat.

So back to today; I went in and had the ultrasound done first and right away I was able to see the follicles on the ultrasound. I actually knew what I was looking at!! For follicles to be mature enough to harvest they need to be larger than 18mm, sometimes they will take them as small as 15mm but we want big fat ones here. The ultrasound tech said that today she would be looking for follicles that measure 10mm or above, that's the average size that they should be on day 7, that's today for me. Well she found 9, yeah that's right n-I-n-e!! There were 6 on my right side, hence the pain, and 3 on my left. She said there were a few more that were just under 10mm and that by Friday some will catch up with the others. I'm a machine!!

I then had to get my blood taken and at this point the thing they are looking for is your Estradiol level, or your E2 level. What they are looking for is a level that coincides with the number of developing follicles, if the level is low they aren't developing fast enough and if they are too high than you could be developing ovarian hyperstimulation, which I am at a higher risk of getting because of my polycystic ovaries. Anyhow, my levels were good 697, which the nurse said is a good high number, too high would be over 2,000.

I'm super happy with my results today. After reading all of the books about IVF and getting on the message boards you hear all of these stories about what can go wrong and how sometimes the medicines don't work at all, well I guess I'm relieved that things are going along smoothly. I learned today that out of the 18 scheduled IVF patients this month, three have already been cancelled due to poor response from the medicine. I also learned that I am the youngest patient, which really doesn't mean too much, the lab tech just thought she would let me know.

Ok, keep your fingers and toes crossed for more good news on Friday. I will most likely be posting almost everyday from now until next Friday, there will be so much going on; so if you feel like ignoring me for a few days and just hitting the blog once or twice you can wait until next week to get the full story, I wouldn't recommend it, but I'll allow it. (unless you are related to me, than it's manditory that you check, I'll be giving quizzes!)

More Friday!!!!