Yesterday was a day I'd been looking forward to - it was when I was to had my first scan and first blood test since I began self-injecting. I have been excited to see how many eggs I would have and hopefully be able to get a date to have them collected. It didn't go quite how I'd planned. I always knew that "egg production" was a subjective thing depending on how each person responds to treatment. The rough figure they give is 7 to 14 days for eggs to be ready. The number of eggs is equally subjective - you may get 11, you may get 7, you may get 0. They may stop treatment if you are getting to many. Each egg represents a chance at an embryo, or a chance at a baby. Of course not every egg fertilises, not every embryo makes it to implantation and not every implanted embryo results in a baby. Actually more don't than do. But hope keeps you going. I was hoping to be one of the people who had 8 eggs ready for collection in 7 days. But it looks like I'm at least a 14 day person.
All in itself, being a 14 day person isn't so bad. Except that every three injections cost us $800. Every injection rings chi ching. Every drop of Gonal F is precious. I'm not too bothered by the injections themselves. For some bizarre reason I faint at the sight of blood and wounds and mystery body fluids. I faint at the thought of them. In fact my mother describes me as the only person she has ever met who can faint while lying down. She's a nurse. It's amazing this doesn't extend to needles. Most people are the opposite. I also don't have a major objection to pain. I live in pain. My threshold is pretty high. Far from being wimps and pansies, endo and adeno girls are tough. Far tougher than most people will ever know. These diseases suck. I have both of them. Badly.
Quite aside from the fact I am a slow responder to the Gonal F, it appears I am developing 6 eggs. I know it is better than many people going through IVF. For some people one is amazing. I can't help but feel disappointed. And a little anxious. Because we are obtaining our sperm via a syringe we aren't going to get too many. And one little sperm needs to be injected into each egg. And during the course of this, some eggs will be lost. I need to focus on how it only takes one little embryo to make one little baby but yesterday I got that little more anxious. But I think it'll be ok.
That wasn't the worst part of yesterday though. The worst part was the scan. A simple ultra sound that shouldn't have been a problem. But it hurt so much I almost vomited. And I've been sore ever since. Ultra sounds in IVF clinics are internal ultra sounds. They stick a phallus shaped wand in your lady place to get a clearer picture of your uterus and ovaries. I have poly cystic ovaries, endometriosis and adenomyosis. I'm no stranger to these kind of scans. They are always invasive and they can be uncomfortable. This one was a nightmare. Maybe because the Gonal F has flared up my oestrogen levels and therefore my endo and adeno are flaring, I'm not sure. All I know was I was left feeling like I'd been brutalised with a baseball bat and I'm still pretty uncomfortable more than 24 hours later.
It may be too much information. But Women's Problems are always TMI. And for every bit of information given, there is so often way, way more that we women hide. Even from each other. From our partners. From our gynaecologists. Even from ourselves. I'm one of the lucky ones. I haven't suffered horrendous pain for years on end. I was almost symptom free despite an abdomen quite extensively riddled with disease. When the pain starts, however, it doesn't tend to stop. It isn't monthly but daily. 24 hourly. All year long. I spent a year 8 years ago battling extreme pain, undergoing multiple surgeries and a myriad of drugs and got better. And then it came back last year. Worse. Again I am one of the lucky ones. Most of the time I can have a happy sexual relationship with my husband. So many women with endometriosis and adenomyosis cannot. It can hurt like hell. I can get a lot of 'after' pain. I don't know why as I rarely get any 'during'. Often, as my husband is snoring away happily, I need to take pain killers and heat the wheat bag. TMI I know, but like I said, many, many women get it far worse than me. I get to enjoy sex, just not always the fact that I've had it. And that's just one of the secrets endo and adeno women keep.
But back to IVF. It looks like I have 6 eggs developing, 4 on one ovary, two on the other. I need hundreds of dollars worth more of injections to get them ready and the money side of things is making me queasy. I'm feeling bruised and battered and emotional but I'm also doing ok. I'm going to book an appointment with an acupuncturist for tomorrow to see if my inflamation levels settle and I'm still pretty excited that I still might get a baby. And I actually feel even better about my decision to have IVF instead of going for the Vasectomy Reversal and coming off the Zolodex. Believe it or not, the sex free option in the long run sounds way more fun.
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