I had another egg collection today, 15 eggs, which is decent, and I have my fingers crossed that most of them are good quality. I feel like I have been hit by a small truck (which is not to diminsh the pain suffered by peoples who have actually been hit by a small truck, but I have no other way to describe it!) My abdomen is inflamed and tender, and I am having trouble getting up or getting comfortable. I managed to get my favourite anaesthetist today, so that was a weight off my mind… though having said that, it is a sorry state of affairs when you have a favourite anaesthetist wouldn’t you say? The guy I had in June ‘exploded’ (his word not mine) a vein in my hand, which swelled and bruised, and was painful for about two weeks, and I think he used a sandpaper coated intubation tube! Not fun. That is the fourth time this year that I have been under a general, and I think that makes about 9 or 10 so far (can’t remember). Dr IVF is upbeat and confident as usual, I dont know how he keeps it up. He has put me on Crinone again, which I hate. After the strict medication regime for the two weeks leading up to the egg pick up, you feel like you need a bit of down time, and having to take Crinone (two a day this cycle! Urgh!) is a continuation of the invasiveness of IVF, psychologically mostly I think. And lets not mention the effect of Crinone on the sex life!

While I was in the post op ward this afternoon, there was a woman coming through who obviously had just had an embryo transfer. She looked happy and excited, and I could tell she hadn’t been doing this very long. It reminded me of my very first IUI cycle back in about Feb 2000. I was pretty excited, I had two little folicles up, and I was being sent up to the 5th floor of the Wesley to the Gyno ward to get a Profasi shot to make me ovulate, and another one of Dr IVF’s patients was showing me where to go. In the elevator, she asked me how many cycles I had done. I smiled and turned to her and said, ‘this is my first cycle’. And she laughed at me. She stood there and laughed at me. And it was a bitter kind of laugh, like she thought I was just too niaive for words. I have never forgotten that moment, and have always made an effort not to talk too much to the other women. If they are lucky, they will never know how devasting becoming a Frequent Flyer at the IVF Clinic can be. They dont need me bringing them down prematurely.