Day 18 frozen cycle - ovulation at last

According to my blood test this morning, I am ovulating today - hooray! Yesterday my bloods were great. Oestrogen was surging at 855, P4 low at 1.8 and LH starting to come up at 13. It is just great to finally get confirmation that my body does what it's meant to at the right time. And my own charting was about right that I ovulate around Day 18.

And amazingly, today I spotted the elusive egg white cervical mucous. I've been trying and failing to spot this for 16 months and I've never really been sure that I've had it. But today it is unmistakable. Don't know if it was always there and I couldn't recognise it or if my body is getting its arse into gear and doing what it needs to. Perhaps a good omen for this cycle.

The other weird thing is, I can actually feel the ovulation. Its a low ache on the right hand side. I've actually had this feeling before but I didn't know what it was. So fertile signs all over the place!

Anyway, we are scheduled for embryo transfer on Sunday, which will be Day 23. Very happy that yet again I have avoided having an unexplained day off work. There may be plenty of them this year so that's one less to explain.

I am starting progesterone pessaries on Thursday night and then another blood test on Saturday. Not sure what that one is for but I am assuming to check that I did in fact ovulate and there is progesterone in my system.

The nurse checked that we wanted to transfer two embryos (we do) and asked were we happy for them to thaw embryos until they get two good ones. I assumed this was what they did anyway. She also said there was a 10% chance that each embryo would not survive the thaw. That's pretty low and the best statistic I've ever had through this whole TTC business, so I'm not too worried that at least two of the five will make it to transfer.

I also went for a councelling session yesterday. As usual, it did me a lot of good. I explained to the councellor that my main problem at the moment is thinking about TTC constantly so that it is really exhausing. She recommended that I set aside two 10 minute periods a day on the weekends, which is my particular problem, reserved for thinking about TTC and try not to think about it the rest of the time. I think its a good strategy and I am going to work hard to do it.

We also talked about donor eggs and how we might start to go about that. But we agreed its too soon to go to the clinic's information night on donors. That's for 2010 if we need it.

The other news I got today was that my friend who has just done her first IVF cycle got a positive. She already has a child but has been trying for number two. I took it very well and it didn't make me sad. I had prepared myself to think about the tough stuff she has already experienced with two miscarriages and I'm really happy for her. She was pretty philosophical about it and won't be celebrating until she gets to 7 weeks. Perhaps its a sign that 2009 is going to be a good year for us all.