…well two days actually. Today was the day of my final egg collection and, maybe it’s because I’m still feeling the afterglow of a prosecco-fuelled celebratory lunch courtesy of my great friend, J, (N.B. I’m pretty sure medics don’t advise this as the best course of action post a sedated procedure, so do as they advise rather than as I do); or maybe it’s because this final cycle produced seven eggs – as many as my first two cycles put together; or maybe it’s because everyone I saw at the clinic today – from the nurse to the embryologist – made me feel like a person doing a brilliant thing, not an idiot, or a number, or a cash cow, but I feel so much more positive about this whole experience than I did when I last blogged.

Perhaps it’s only natural – it’s all over – I planned for three cycles – I’ve completed them, I have fewer eggs on ice than I had hoped for when I first started out, knowing nothing at all, but more than I had dared to hope for a week ago. And yes, the numbers are of course part of it, and the relief that it’s all over and – as far as I know – it’s all gone well. But, also, as if to underscore the point I was making in my last post about the attitude of people in the clinic affecting the way you feel about things, the very last person that I spoke to at the clinic was an embryologist who was, well, brilliant.

Admittedly there was a slightly awkward moment at the beginning when he was clearly unsure whether J, who had come to pick me up, was my sister, lesbian lover, or just a friend, but once that was resolved, he was, without wishing to sound like a gushing idiot, exactly what everyone who works in that environment should be. Honest, whatever the opposite of patronising is, and as if he had all the time in the world.

He talked me through the technology of freezing, and of defrosting, he spoke to me honestly, without giving me false hope about what could be achieved, about where the evidence for the success of freezing embryos versus eggs comes from, and he had a sense of humour too. High five to the embryologist. And to the lovely nurse who remembered me from last time. And to the doctor who managed to get eight eggs out (one was too immature to freeze) and tells me he didn’t see any worrying-looking cysts in there. And to the anaesthetist who made sure I didn’t feel anything, yet still woke up. And to my ovaries. High fives all round.