Tag Archives: egg collection

The numbers…

Posted on by

This strange feeling of detachment persisted. We knew what day the donor would be donating because B had to go to the clinic to wank into a cup (it is what it is, so let’s not dress it up as anything else) so her eggs could be fertilised. And while I wanted to know how many eggs they’d got from her, how many had been fertilised, how many had got to day 2, day 5, how many blastocysts, I didn’t have that same desperate-for-the-phone-to-ring anxiety.

Maybe it was that I still felt quite detached from it, but I think a lot of it was also because I feel more sanguine about the whole process. More aware that there’s nothing I can do that will change the outcome so whether I know at 10am that day how many embryos looked healthy, or whether I don’t find that information out until seven hours later makes no odds.

Continue reading →

Happening, but not happening…

Posted on by

But once bitten, twice shy and all that. We said yes to the agency, we signed paperwork, we paid sums of money for treatment, but I felt very detached from it all. I just didn’t really engage with it. It was all taking ages, there were tests for her, tests for me, tests for B – the tests went on and on, the weeks and months went by. The process of getting our donor to the point where she could actually donate, that we’d been told would take three months, dragged on and on — if this were a film or TV programme, this is the point at which you’d see the leaves on the trees changing colour from autumn to winter to spring to denote the passing of time.

Continue reading →

Finally, another cycle…

Posted on by

So — obviously — I got my period eventually, rather sweetly timed to ensure that if I did a cycle, I’d be finding out just before Christmas how successful it had been. Which of course is exactly the additional frisson of stress/excitement that this time of year needs. (I mean there may be people out there for whom Continue reading →

The reckoning

Posted on by

Ok, so now I’ve finished my egg freezing cycles, I’ve done what I planned to and totted everything up. Out of interest, out of geekery, out of wondering whether there was any pattern that I could see in terms of the drugs I took and the results I got and the length of the cycle.

I have no idea whether the below will be of any interest to anyone but me, but if you are thinking about egg-freezing, it might give you a realistic idea of what you’ll spend, because when they quote a cycle fee, although it includes all scans, consultations and the procedure, it doesn’t include blood tests, sedation, storage, drugs and, as I discovered, they can mount up… Continue reading →

What a difference a day makes…

Posted on by

…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 Continue reading →

The gory details

Posted on by

Sorry, sorry, I’ve been rubbish – it’s nearly a week since my last post. My excuse? Umm, well, I can’t lie; as soon as I was able to drink alcohol again, I was going out and drinking and seeing people. Which obviously meant less time sitting at home on my own and thus fewer – ok, no – posts.

But I’m back, feeling guilty. And also realising that I’ve rather shied away from some of the less sanitised aspects of egg freezing. Which is crap of me, because this blog was meant to be “everything you wanted to know but never dared ask…” so that’s this post. The gory details. Readers of a sensitive disposition might want to skip it. It includes words like “discharge” and “bleeding”. Continue reading →

Adding it up

Posted on by

In my last two posts, I talked about the egg collection and what they actually do. What I didn’t talk about was how many eggs they got. Before you go into the procedure, they have a pretty good idea of how many follicles are going to be big enough to drain the fluid from. And the expectation is that in that fluid is going to be an egg. But, of course, there’s no guarantee that every follicle will contain an egg, or that every egg will be of good enough quality to freeze.

I know that my clinic focuses on minimal stimulation – they say it’s safer for the patient, and cheaper as you use fewer drugs, and that the end result is Continue reading →

But HOW do they do it?

Posted on by

On my twitter feed today – I’m there as @EggedOnBlog, so do come and say hello – I saw a post from @RedMagDaily flagging an interview with author Samantha Shannon that said ‘Write the story you want to write.’ Me being me, I read it too quickly and thought it said ‘Write the story you want to read’ which I thought sounded like a good maxim (and, actually is possibly the same as writing the story you want to write.)

Because that’s what this blog was meant to be about. I wanted to write the story that I wish had been out there when I was thinking about freezing my eggs. And I’m not always sure I’ve done that terribly well. Continue reading →

Harvest festival

Posted on by

Today was the day that I had my eggs collected – or harvested – I feel slightly like a battery chicken – although I didn’t have to lay them, that would have been weird(er). Because this was my second time around, I knew what to expect – no food – just water – for six hours before sedation and then nothing at all for two hours before. I was booked in for 9.30am and so woke up at about 7am to guzzle a load of water because a nurse told me last time that you tend to recover better from the sedation if you’re well hydrated.

I blow dried my hair and put make-up on before I went – and I refused to dress in tracksuit bottoms, I wore my regular skinny jeans. I think it’s all Continue reading →