Let me preface this picture by saying the following: Yes, that's a pee stick. No, I'm not pregnant.

I do find it a little sad that the first time I get two pink lines on a pregnancy test is thanks to synthetic hormones. I decided to 'test' out the trigger injection that I took last night, and even on an el cheapo stick, it worked. Apparently this hormone tends to stay in your system for a while after it's injected. I think after we get to transfer stage, I'll check it every other day until I know for sure that it's gone.

Anyway... we're good to go for tomorrow morning. I'm nervous as all heck, scared of it hurting, terrified of not having any eggs - terrified of it not working, or something going wrong. But at the same time, I'm ready. I'm done with this part of our first IVF - I want to do something. I want to be in a TWW, even if the chances of it resulting in a BFP the first time are slim to none. (I don't tend to do those kinds of odds very well.)

And what perfect timing to receive a parcel from the lovely Sarah (aka Mrs Green Grass) in the mail. My very own pair of IVF socks, all the way from America. I'm taking these with me, as well as a fertility crystal a colleague gave me a few days ago, and a gorgeous turtle necklace {to symbolise family} from my BFF.

Surely with all of those good omens, we're in good hands?

See you on the flip side, hopefully with some positive news. And make sure you send load of love and eggy vibes to Mrs GG & Hapa Hopes who are having their retrievals soon, too.

Thank the heavens, my E2 levels decided to play nice - we're up over 2500 now and the nurses are really happy with it. Combined with my ultrasound and follicle sizes, we're back on schedule - just a day behind schedule.

I trigger at midnight tonight - and then all set for egg retrieval on Friday morning.

I literally just bawled my eyes out and jumped up & down at the same time. Poor Jase didn't quite know what to do.

So ready to get this show on the road, you have no idea.

I am a nervous wreck right now.

Today's ultrasound went well, I suppose. I had the same nurse as Monday - she was surprised to see me back there, since I was meant to be triggering last night and having the egg collection tomorrow. I still have around the same amount of follicles, but one monster one on the left (over 30mm!) that she's worried has been sucking up all of the FSH that I've been injecting. Greedy little bugger.

I was hoping that they'd pre-book me right in for a Friday transfer, but she said she was going to wait until the bloodwork came back before they decided. If we're lucky and E2 doubles, we might be able to trigger tonight and go for retrieval on Friday. If the E2 stays the same, or falls, they'll make the decision to either stim for longer, or to cancel the cycle. (That's about the point where I started to cry.)

Seriously, now we wait. I am sitting here with my phone, praying for a phone call - but also praying that it's for good news, not for bad. And to top it all off, this morning's shot of Puregon (150) was a right bitch, too. As if I didn't have enough to stress about, I bled after I withdrew the needle and my stomach is so tender right now. I have a feeling I'm going to get a whopper of a bruise from this one.

I feel like the people around me right now are so sick of me worrying out loud all of the time, but I feel like I've invested so much time, sanity, heartache into this process, and if it's cancelled? I honestly don't know what I'll do. I'm just praying that things will turn out okay, that we'll get the news we're hoping for this afternoon.

To be continued...

I've been so preoccupied with this IVF cycle that I've found it hard to tune out and keep my brain occupied. What better way to try and pass the time than by getting back into reading mode? A few weeks ago, I was sent an advance copy of the book 'Putting Alice Back Together' by Carol Marinelli from the folks at Morey Media.

If you're interested in finding out more, and even potentially winning some goodies for yourself, I've got some hints and tips for you. If you visit the Harlequin Australia website, you can read the first chapter for yourself & enter to win a $500 preloaded debit card. And it gets better! You can hit up the competition page here at Yahoo to win a copy for yourself & an iPod - I know I'll be entering!

I've gone from happiness to worry in the last half an hour, which is not how I expected to start today's blog post. In fact, I was originally going to gush all over the lab technician who took my blood this morning in about thirty seconds flat, proving that a) my veins aren't dead and b) those other two suckers who were stabbing me like a pin cushion SUCK. Seriously, I was in love with the guy. He was awesome.

Then, I was going to tell you how I had my ultrasound & that they found 13 follicles, around 9-10 of a decent size, and how they booked in my egg collection for Thursday morning. Squee!

The nurse this morning was great, going through the procedure, giving me all of the juicy details on how to use Crinone and giving me details on how the egg collection was going to go down. I felt really happy, organised the time off work today and got mentally prepared to trigger tomorrow evening.

(Looks like we know which ovary is doing all the work, eh?)

That was what I was going to tell you.

I got a phone call at about 5pm from a different nurse. She said that the blood test results from this morning showed that my E2 levels had plateaued. For reference, this is how they've looked so far this cycle:

Stims Day 7: 929
Stims Day 9: 1898
Stims Day 11 (today): 1872

So instead of rising, they've come to a standstill. The nurse on the phone explained that if this happens, the follicles can sometimes stop increasing in size. She told me to ignore the trigger/egg pickup advice. I'm to increase my Puregon slightly for two more days (from 125 to 150) and come in on Wednesday morning for another ultrasound and blood test to see how things have improved. If all goes well, she thinks they'll schedule me in for a Friday egg collection instead. She didn't seem particularly worried, but now I am.

What happens if this cycle stalls, after all this time and effort and money? What happens if my follies shrivel up or don't contain mature eggs, and we get nothing? If this cycle gets cancelled, I will be literally crushed. I know I asked for good thoughts today for the ultrasound, but oy, if you can spare a few more for me over the next few days, I'd really appreciate it. I'm off to google & hopefully make myself feel better.

I was reading on a few forums recently how the stimming portion of IVF is different for every woman. I was always told it would be 12 days, which could either be adjusted higher or lower depending on my response to the medication. As of Friday's blood draw, I heard nothing - so we're full steam ahead. Tomorrow is day 12, the day of the final scan/big ultrasound, and I am wondering if it might well be the very last day of Puregon?

Starting Friday night, I began feeling pretty awful. Same thing happened last night. My stomach gets swollen, my arm was throbbing from the crazy blood draws, I felt so much pressure and.. just off. I notice my ovaries a lot, which is something I'm not used to - they're usually pretty useless during my cycles, let's face it. The time when I really notice that I'm 'full' is when I sit down to pee. It's like gravity pushes everything down and I can almost feel them just hanging out in all their glory. It's not pain, so much as it's discomfort.

I take my Puregon shots in the morning, so I've decided that's why I feel so rubbish by late afternoon/evening - the shot has been doing its stuff all day, and I really feel the effects a good few hours later. I'm so lucky we've been in school holidays for the majority of these injections. I really hope I can get through the first few weeks of school going back, starting tomorrow.

I'm still completely in the dark about how many follicles I've managed to grow for this IVF cycle. The only information I've managed to get were those initial E2 and progesterone levels, and I don't even have Friday's results to compare them too and see a difference. I'm so scared that I'll have a really low number of follicles/eggs - I just really, really want to get 10+. If I can hit that magic number, I think I'll be okay. Less than that and I can guarantee you there'll be tears.

Anyone want to place bets on how many follies they'll see at tomorrow's scan? Leave them in the comments!

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!