Downregulation scan day

Today H and I went to the clinic to get my downregulation scan, blood test, and the training for the Menopur injections.

Back to the scan etc later. I want to talk about the injection lesson first. This lesson was to show us how to mix the Menopur drugs which will do the job of stimulating lots of egg follicles to ripen. It's much more involved than the simple Buserelin injections. Basically, H has to put a big mixing needle on the syringe and draw up some water from a ampoule. He then has to squirt this water into a vial containing the Menopur powder, and draw it back up into the syringe. This process has to be repeated so that all four vials of Menopur powder are dissolved and in the syringe. He then has to pop on a smaller needle so that I can inject it into my tummy. As well as this Menopur injection, I have to continue to have the Buserelin injection, so I have to have one needle in each side of my tummy, each evening. Never mind, it's not the injections that have been bothering me - it's the side effects from the Buserelin. Yesterday I felt absolutely awful. It felt like my head was in a vice all day, and the hot flushes have also started. Hopefully, the addition of the Menopur will make me feel better as my oestrogen levels rise.

Back to the scan . . . .
I have been worrying a bit about this scan as the pain I'm getting in my left ovary has not gone away and I convinced myself that it was a cyst that would scuper the treatment cycle.

So when I had the ultrasound, I was not surprised when they told me that they could see something on my left ovary. It seems I have a 'collapsed follicle', which is basically what last month's ovulated egg sprang from and which has now filled with blood. The sonographer said that it would be like a deflating balloon, all shrivelled, and that it measured 21 mm!! But the good news was that my womb lining was 3mm (they like it to be 4mm and under). So I was told everything should be ok, but they had to wait until this afternoon when they would ring me with the results of my blood test to see if I have indeed 'downregged'.

Cue an anxious few hours, and frustration when I missed the call and then couldn't get hold of the nurses when I rang back. But we got the go ahead!! We start the stimming tonight! I did ask the nurse for reassurance on the cyst-thing, as I was worried it may prevent so many eggs from developing or maybe be in the way when it came to collection time. But she reassured me quite firmly that it would not make a difference.

We're back in a week today for the first stimming scan, which will be day 8 of the Menopur. I'm going to do everything possible from now until then to get these eggs to grow. I've asked my mum to get me a tub of Whey Protein shake as I've read that my eggs needs lots of protein to grow. I'm going to try to visualise them all growing in there, like peas in a pod.

Please let this work. I want to be a mum so much.