Finally on our way - started stimming today

Well, AF has FINALLY decided to show up. After the last 3 days of feeling very agitated and frustrated waiting for it, we are finally on our way. If the IVF journey is a race, then we just jumped the first hurdle - its not the water jump or anything like that, just a nice easy one at the start :). Not that we weren't going to, AF would have showed up eventually, but it is great to be finally underway.

I rang the nurse at 8.45am this morning and she questioned me as to whether there was full menstrual flow. That is very important apparently, because they don't want to start the stimulation when there is still some of the corpus luteum remaining from the previous cycle. With full flow, it means my progesterone levels have finally fallen back to a low level.

I was expecting to start stimulating with FSH tomorrow but the nurse instructed me to do it right away. Since I am doing my Lucrin injections at 8.30am, I've decided to do the Puregon injections at the same time. I asked her about moving my injection time to a bit earlier to fit in with work and she said moving it by 30 mins is ok but I shouldn't change it by more than that.

Anyway, I've been prescribed 200 IU Purgeon (FSH) to start with and I have a blood test on Thurs (Day 3 of stimulation). So the deal is that hopefully I have some nice small anthral follicles waiting to mature, and the Lucrin is keeping my own FSH and LH low so they don't interfere with the cycle. The 200IU of FSH will cause the follicles to start to mature and unlike a natural cycle where only one follicle dominates over all the others, several should grow large at the same time because of the high FSH dose.

The Puregon pen was easy to use and the needle gauge was the same as for Lucrin, so quite small. The instructions are very detailed so that helps as well. It all worked fine and dialing up the dose and pushing it in was very easy.

I've now also updated my lovely excel spreadsheet and I've assumed 3 stimulation scenarios - 10, 11, 12 and 13 days of FSH and 5 days of embryo growth. That means we have a 3 out of 4 chance of having egg collection on the weekend, since there is conveniently the labour day weekend at that time with a Monday holiday. That would be great since we can avoid the work issues of me needing a day off and lovely husband needing a half day off as well. Still, best laid plans and all that....we'll see what happens. The chances of us getting to the interstate wedding and not so hot though - it will probably be when we need to do the embryo transfer (assuming we have an embryo transfer!! But my mood has sky-rocketed today and I am feeling very positive :).

Its a big week all round. I almost certainly have a new job, so its going to be a busy few weeks.