Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 

Doxycycline to reduce chance of infection after the egg retrieval.

Acetaminophen/Codeine #3 300/30mg 1 every 4-6hrs as needed for pain – although I took one this morning, I’m afraid this is not helping with my constipation and I don’t think it is helping with the pain, so I’m not taking anymore.

Colace, to help counter my constipation.

Vivelle Dot Patches x2 (Estrogen usually administered to menopausal women).  These are super easy – they stick to my abdomen…now that is something I can do myself!!! I love the fact that they say on the box “Do not use if you are pregnant”. HA!!!

Progesterone in oil – 1mg.  Oh my goodness, this is an intra-muscular injection with a 1.5″ needle. I lay down on the bed on my front.  Using a cool pack I iced my buttock cheek in the top right hand quadrant where Chris injected it.  I hardly felt the needle going in as a result of the ice numbness, but I felt like Chris was pushing really hard so I said he doesn’t need to put pressure on it when it’s in me!  He told me that there was hardly an imprint of the needle on my skin, he wasn’t pushing! I guess that is just how a needle feels going into the muscle!  Afterwards we massaged the area and then I applied a heat pad to the injection area.  Owwww I feel like someone has kicked me in the butt cheek!! It’s really isn’t so bad, but I am not the one adminstering it, so I can look away!!

Medical procedures undertaken. No procedures on me per se, but my mature eggs were “ICSI’d” yesterday afternoon and our fertilised eggs are being looked after by the embryologists so they develop into embryos.

What are my symptoms? I am massively bloated – my waist increased by 4cm and I put on 3lbs despite the fact that I hardly ate anything yesterday.  I am constipated, I poo usually 3 times a day and so far nothing.  I’ve taken some Colace which takes 12-36 hours to work – not soon enough.  My bowels and stomach also hurt whenever I pee and fart.  Farting releases a little bit of the pressure, but does not relieve me!  It hurts when I walk, the pain is not getting any better.  The nurse said I should call tomorrow if the pain continues to worsen or I put on anymore weight because I could be at risk from Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome.  They would need to do an ultrasound to check how my ovaries are doing.  I really really hope this starts to go away so I can go to work tomorrow plus I want to be better before my transfer.  In the meantime the nurse advised drinking liquids, not just water but juice, gator aid and soup.  Eat small portions….I am soooo hungry, but I can’t physically eat a whole meal right now!!

Any results? This morning I received a phone call from the IVF nurse co-ordinator who gave me an update on egg/embryo status.  When I answered the phone she sounded so somber I thought she was going to tell me it had been a complete failure.  But here is what she told me.  Yesterday they retrieved 9 eggs, 6 were mature, this morning 4 had successfully fertilised, 2 had not, but they may be late developers and so they will call me if they do make it.  If they don’t call, they haven’t made it, and 4 will be the number.  (They didn’t call in the end 😦 ). I won’t get any more updates until I arrive on Thursday for my transfer procedure (3 days). I’m not sure I like the fact that we won’t receive any more updates, but at the same time, what can I do about it if I was told if they are progressing well?  Nothing, so I guess this way it stops us thinking too much about it.

How do I feel today? I am trying to stay positive, I won’t lie that I cried for a very brief while after I got off the phone from the nurse.    I was initially upset that less than 1 in 2 eggs made it through to fertilisation.  I couldn’t help but think how somehow this is my failure.  But I realise this is ridiculous, so I cried for only a minute.

How does Chris feel today? Poor Chris found the intra-muscular injection quite traumatic, I feel really bad.  But he did it!!!  I will let him tell you all about it in a separate post.  He is quite pragmatic about the number of fertilised eggs – 4 today seems like a good number to come away with.  However he feels confused, like me, about whether we should wait for a 5 day transfer.

What’s next?   I am not sure about the 3 versus 5 day transfer.  We do get to discuss things with the doctor on Thursday, but we haven’t talked about it since we started our IVF cycle.  I’ve read a lot about the fact that if an embryo doesn’t make it to blastocyst stage at 5 days then it is unlikely to have ever been a viable pregnancy anyway (I am not sure how they can really know that for sure).  So wouldn’t it be better to let them get to 5 days to see if they survive to blastocyst stage rather than having false hope with a day 3 transfer and waiting two weeks to see it fail;?  This seems like the worst kind of gambling!!!

Weight. I’ve gained 3lbs of whatever over night, it’s not food that’s for sure!!! I’ll keep an eye on it.

Waist.  My waist has bloated 4cm in the last 24hrs, which might not sound like much, but it sure is a significant gain for me over this time period!

Boobs. NSTR.

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 I’m not really allowed in the sun because I am taking doxycycline 😦 but I did sneak in a bit (wearing sun cream of course) this morning and had a slow waddle down to the beach.

*Notes.  I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily.  NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.