Check-Ins

Check In No. 1

After 5 days on the hormones I went back to the clinic to check on how they were growing. My lower abdomen felt sore which definitely meant (based on my extensive medical experience) there was a lot of growth happening so I was confident that there would be good news.  I was pretty sure that I would be some sort of miracle patient, the Dr would call in his colleagues and say "look how many follicles this Wonder Woman has generated through sheer force of will!"

When the Dr started calling numbers to the nurse, I thought I had been validated.  

Dr: "11"

Me (thinking): "Ooh, nice job, bumped it up to 11 on one ovary."

Dr: "15"

Me (thinking): "Man, you are nailing this follicle growing thing."

Dr: "13"

Me (thinking): "Wait a second, that's not how counting works..." 

It turns out he was calling out measurements. A follicle at 18mm is "mature" and viable so we needed to see how many were approaching that level (somewhere between 10mm and 18mm given the early stage in the process). When he finished calling out measurements they counted up how many I had...

Seven. 

SEVEN!

Seven? 

Of the 12 I started with only 7 lousy follicles had mustered up the energy to grow to more than 10mm (anything less than 10mm is unlikely to grow big enough to be extracted this cycle). How was this possible? My poor left ovary was doing the heavy lifting with 5. My useless right ovary had managed to grow two (Seriously?! At this point that one was almost more trouble than it was worth). 

When we relocated to the nurse's office to discuss the results, I pulled off my mask and started to cry. How could there only be 7? There was no higher dose of hormones to put me on so no way to stimulate my follicles more than they were. I was reassured by Dr Davis and Nurse Dawn that this was good - it showed it was working. I guess I just thought it would work better. Seven? What on earth happens to that number when you put it in the sad calculator?

Check In No. 2

Two days later I came back for another count to see how I was going. By this stage I was so nervous about what they'd see and emotional from the hormones that when I laid down on the ultrasound bed, I just started to cry. To their enormous credit Dr Davis and Dawn took it all in their stride (as indeed they had every time I'd been angry or crying), perking me up enough so I stopped sobbing into my mask and risking waterboarding myself. 

This time the count was much the same. I had an extra follicle or two coming along on each ovary over 10mm but was warned that based on their current size, by the time of the retrieval, realistically I was looking at 5-8 being in the mature zone. 

By this stage I was so emotionally exhausted I just wanted it to be over. However, these numbers confirmed that we definitely needed to do a second cycle if I wanted to reach the 12-15 oocyte target, so we discussed when we would do this and whether it would be worth trying PRP injections into the ovaries. 

**Sidebar: PRP injections are injections into the ovaries of platelet rich plasma. They take your blood, whizz it around in a centrifuge, then reinject the plasma into the ovaries so the proteins which promote growth. However, it is apparently more effective for people who have 0-2 eggs and might give you 1 or 2 more so would be less statistically significant for someone like me. It also needs about 3 months to kick in and show a material improvement in follicle count ** 

Looking ahead.....

We ultimately agreed that I would proceed to a second cycle straight away (as there was enough time between the two for my body to recover) and that we would not do the PRP on this occasion as it was unlikely to make a material difference to my numbers and more importantly, would have required postponement of my second cycle to be effective. 

I count myself lucky that my only considerations when deciding how to proceed were around health and fertility and that I was in a position financially to commit to a second cycle (and another $10,000+), having put money aside for a number of years "just in case". Many are not so fortunate. Thought that's not to say I wouldn't have much preferred to spend that money on a holiday, or handbag, or shoes, or some combination thereof.....