Bruises and pin-pricks - that's my body right now.

I hardly even blink at the injections anymore. We're sort of at the tail end of it now, so I'm just going through the motions. Today saw me head back to the clinic in the wee hours of the morning for another blood draw. It was packed! Friday must be a busy day in fertility world.

It was a different lab technician today, but she struggled too. I had drank a whole stack of water to help with the process, but she still found no available veins in my left arm, left hand, or right hand. She had a go around in my right vein a few times, but no luck. She tried a little lower down - nada. Finally, she went in on the side of my arm (apologising all the while, since it was a tiny vein and it hurt) and got enough for the one vial.

Lucky for me, that was all they needed.

I wish I knew why I had such difficult veins. It's awful.

Anyway... if all stays the same, we've got the big reveal-all ultrasound (& more bloods - joy!) on Monday morning. I'm praying they see 10 follicles. If I can get 10 follicles (& eggs, if we're lucky) I will be a happy lady.

So a different nurse rang to speak with me - ended up getting me completely mixed up with someone else, and completely confused me. She was asking whether my husband would still be coming in early to freeze his semen sample before the egg collection; I was like, what? He's definitely coming with me on the day!

Anyway, while I had her on the phone, I asked if she'd mind getting my levels for me.

She said that my Estradiol was 929 and Progesterone staying steady at 2.2

The nurse said those levels are quite good, considering they've put me on such a low dose of Puregon because of my PCOS. They'll do the test again tomorrow, and if my e2 levels rise by a ridiculous amount, I may need to have my monitoring ultrasound Saturday instead of Monday. We'll see how tomorrow goes, I suppose.

Chug, chug, chug.. just going through the motions and hoping things are going as they should be.

I had my first blood test done yesterday. The guy was hopeless & didn't take blood from the easiest spot {the crook of my elbow} and ouch, am I bruised. I'm tempted to make them try the other arm tomorrow, because it's so sore right now. My clinic has a policy where they don't check follicle size until after several blood tests when estrogen levels rise enough to predict growth, so all it's blood tests for now. I asked the nurse yesterday whether he could put a request in that I find out the results, just because I'm curious for my first go around, and he said okay.

Well, the phone didn't ring.

I've just left a message this morning though, and a nurse is going to ring me back so that I can ask her about the blood test results and see how things are looking. I'm assuming that no news is good news, as I don't need to adjust my dose of Puregon, but still... I want to KNOW. I won't have any idea about how many follies I have {or their size} until Monday's ultrasound & bloods. So frustrating. I almost WISH they did more ultrasounds, just so I had a vague idea of whether this cycle was working for me. I'll be crushed if there's a really poor reaction to the stimming drugs.

It's strange, but I actually don't mind the injections. Dare I say, giving them to myself makes me feel like I'm doing something, something that's useful, that's hopefully getting me somewhere. The nasal spray, as evil as it is, can jump off a bridge for all I care. I get that it's important, that it keeps me from ovulating, but omg, I really wish they could've flavoured it or something. Bubblegum, or cherry, anything. Synarel tastes like liquid crap.

As far as symptoms go, I'm so freaking bloated. I couldn't zip jeans up yesterday, and even squeezing into a regular old zip skirt felt uncomfortable. I ended up buying some leggings and an elastic waist skirt yesterday, because it is so uncomfortable to squeeze into my regular clothes. Not only that, my belly is quite tender at the injection sites, so any kind of pressure on it feels terrible.

Honestly, the bloat I was sporting yesterday {even with loads of water and liquids} looked like a preggo belly. How embarrassing to be an infertile who LOOKS like she's with child. Bah humbug.

Update: The nurse just rang me - didn't give me levels, but told me that my hormones were where they should be, that everything is looking good & that there's no change to my dosage. That's a good sign, I guess?

Sometimes I feel like this whole IVF cycle is all trial and error. I'm like a guinea pig; we don't know how I'll respond to the FSH shots, we don't know if I'll hyper-stimulate, we don't know anything really. That's why I'm trying not to get my hopes up for a BFP this cycle.

Day 5 of shots, and everything is going okay. I haven't bruised on my stomach since the first day, but today's was another stinger. I started getting a few twinges in my left hand side today, which I'm imagining is an ovary. Seeing as I've never had any ovarian pains or signs in those areas before {thanks, dodgy O's!} I'm just guessing that's what it is. The twinges are gone now, but I feel positive that it might be that the stimming is doing its job?

My first blood draw is the day after tomorrow. The nurse warned me that it's just a monitoring one, and that I likely wouldn't get a call about levels or readings unless things needed adjusting. But I really want to know, for curiosity's sake, what my levels are.. especially after seven days of injections. I'm going to ask and see what they say.

And, because everyone loves a puppy picture, check out the little guys at 12 days old! I'm loving the little guy on the left hand side. In every picture, he's passed out and piled on top of his brothers. Totally adorable. Six weeks to go!

This morning's jab really hurt. I did everything the normal way, prepared the pen, made sure I saw a liquid bubble to imply it was charged correctly... but man, it stung. Maybe because it was the centre of my tummy? The last two days have been off to either side of my belly button. This one was directly below it.

My stomach has been really sensitive the last few days - not because of the Puregon or because my ovaries are working yet, but just at the actual injection sites. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this, so it's highly likely I'm just being a wimp... or just not used to it. I prefer the quick and easy needle injection than the twice daily Synarel spray, though. That stuff is foul. Totally, utterly foul.

Today we've got a wedding to go to; well, a church blessing and family reception. It's for J's brother, the one we just visited Thailand for. We'll be seeing about half of his family, so half of those people who attended our wedding nearly a year ago. I'm dreading it - not because I don't like his family, but because I guarantee I'll have people staring at my {albeit bloated} stomach, wondering if I'm knocked up.. or worse, outright asking us when we're having kids, or why we haven't had them yet.

In the past, I've laughed it off and changed the subject - or made a joke, saying I'm busy enough teaching 25 of my own kids, and looking after the two cats. But in the middle of this cycle, it just makes me angry. Perhaps I should just come right out & tell them that I'm currently in the middle of an IVF protocol.. but then, why should I have to do that? Our direct families know, but I don't feel the need to announce it to the whole world.

What would you do?

I feel like I've been waiting for this IVF cycle for a lifetime. We made the decision to get a second opinion way back before Christmas, but weren't able to get in and see a new specialist until the beginning of February. Then there were more tests for us both, before we got the go ahead to start in March.

After that, I met with my nurse - she was such a sweetie. As she was preparing everything for me, we talked house stuff and baby stuff, and then she showed me how to put all of the injectible stuff together. I was feeling fine until it came to the actual injection part. She showed me how to put the pen together, how to put the needle points on. Then, I sat there, gripping my belly roll in one hand & the needle pen in the other - and I froze.

The nurse was lovely. She walked me through it. She saw that I was struggling, and she was so patient with me. I asked her if I could just literally JAB it in and be done with it - she told me to relax, I'm not a pincushion! ;) After a few minutes, I finally got the courage to do it - and it was fine. Not bad at all, actually. I self injected this morning at home, and it was nowhere near as scary. I think I'm going to be just fine.

I'm currently still taking Synarel twice a day - this will continue until the egg retrieval in a few weeks, all going well. So, every 7am and 7pm, I snort the nasty spray & try not to gag. I could choose when I wanted to take my injections, but since they must stay in the fridge, I decided to continue doing those at 7am as well, since I'm always home at that time in the morning. In the meantime, here's my wee drug stash for the next few weeks.

After some help & guidance from a few of you, I've decided to start writing here about our struggles with trying to conceive. If you've followed me over from the old blog, welcome! I hope you'll stick around. And if you're one of the few people who still follows this blog {I've been so slack lately} I hope that you won't find all the IVF stuff too much.

To summarise... here's where we've been for the last 17 months:

April 2010: Diagnosed with PCOS after years of dodgy cycles. Started Metformin at 1000mg.
Dec 2010: Began NTNT - cycles continued to be irregular.
Apr 2011: Metformin increased to 1500mg. Began taking prenatal vitamins & Vitex.
Jun 2011: Our wedding day! :)
Sep 2011: Referred to first RE. Metformin increased to 2000mg. Diagnosed with annovulation.
Oct 2011: Clomid 25mg. No O. Progesterone required to induce AF.
Dec 2011: Clomid 50mg. No O. Progesterone required to induce AF.
Jan 2012: Clomid 100mg. O! BFN.
Feb 2012: Met with new RE. Male issues as well as resistance to Clomid - referral to IVF clinic.
Feb 2012: HyCoSy/HSG - tubes clear.
Feb 2012: Clomid 100mg. O! BFN.
Mar 2012: Began IVF #1 down regulation. On BC pill.
Apr 4, 2012: AF arrives - begin sniffing Synarel twice daily
Apr 12, 2012: Begin daily Puregon injections.

And here we are.... right now. Trying to stay optimistic but also trying not to get my hopes up.

So, here goes...

Would you be interested in reading about our IVF adventures here?

For the most part, I've put all of the details on paper over at my TTC blog - but if people are interested, I'm wondering if I should just drag everything over here. It's exhausting writing in two places, and to be perfectly honest? That's pretty much all I'm thinking about right now.

Let me know what you think!

Anyone who knows me at all, will know how long I've wanted a dog. I grew up with dogs, and have always wanted one of my own.The puppy plan went out the window when we moved to the UK. In the meantime, we adopted our two sweet kitties. I adore them and wouldn't change our decision to be a kitty mama for anything.

I'm so sorry I've slacked off lately - bogged down with loads of stuff happening. Things are INSANE right now. But I promise I'll be good and update soon.... after we're back from here:

It's time for our Phuket trip. These pictures are supposedly taken from the room we're staying in. I better get that view... and that swim up pool!

See you in a few days!