Quality not Quantity

On Friday I was kinda bumming.  Drove down to the Drs office (an hour away) for the 4th time in a week, got blood drawn, then went into ultrasound.  Only 5 follicles!!!  I was hoping/expecting/praying for many more.  All these shots and injections and meds and only 5.  Of course I hopped online and started comparing to a lot of other IVF'ers.  I wasn't devastated but all of a sudden the bad "what if's" starting popping into my mind.  What if all 5 aren't mature, maybe 4 are, then maybe only 2 fertilize, then maybe they don't make the transfer.  What if.... 

The Drs office called and said that they were at least a good five. They're growing evenly, all were about the same size. They're growing in clusters, close together instead of spread out. Tim kept telling me that its quality not quantity. But I was just focused on the 5.  I came home from work.  My new job started on Monday and has been the craziest week.  I was brain fried from work, plus down from the ultrasound.  But Tim is the best.  He really is.  He knew I was brain fried so he didn't bother me about all the details of what happened.  It was a great work week, just fried.  He knew I was down because of the ultrasound, so he got my mind off it.  He made me laugh, took me out to dinner and a movie.  I felt lots better.

The Drs office wanted to see me on Saturday to confirm the growth.  Went in for more bloodwork and another ultrasound.  The good thing was that the line for the ultrasound seemed to be the women all in my stage.  Going through IVF, about ready for the egg retrieval.  So that was comforting.  The bad thing is that the nurse had walked a husband through the hall to meet his wife after their egg retrieval and said that they had collected 6 follicles.  I only have 5.  Again, all the bad thoughts starting to creep in again.  I started wondering what's the minimum number of follicles they'll allow to continue through the process.  They had 6, still more than me.  That stung a little bit.  I've just always reacted very well to stim's.  Our IF is unexplained, I produce eggs, so why isn't this the perfect textbook reaction to stim's???  Oh well, that's the journey of IF.  I just keep repeating Tim, its quality not quantity.

Saturday night was the last night of stim injections.  No more lupron, no more follistim, no more menopur.  Tonight we do our injection of HCG.  And I say we because Tim is going to have to help with this one.  I'm not that flexible or talented.  So far my shots have been sub-cu, in my stomach, and I've been able to give them to myself.  This shot, plus the progesterone when we get to that stage, needs to be given intramuscular (aka - drop your drawers).  And twisting around to get to the upper right quadrant of your a$$ with a big long needle isn't the best angle to give to yourself a shot.  Tim's done this shot before, so I know he's a good shot-giver.  He's been great during this whole shot process.  He helped with an HCG shot back last September.  Then with all these IVF meds, he's helped mix all my menopur and prep my shots.  That way I just inject, inject, inject.  It helps so much and doesn't make me feel like I'm going through this alone.  We were great before IF, but all this has brought us even closer and stronger.  Anywho, Monday will be a shot free day and then Tuesday we go in to see what these follicles look like.

Since Tuesday they'll put me under anesthesia, I'm not supposed to go back to work that day.  Instead I will be a couch potato.  I'm thinking I'll run to the library ahead of time and see if they have any of the Twilight books.  I was anti-Twilight, but after so much media brainwashing, I think I'm ready to read them.  Unless anyone else has ideas on how to best waste the day away from the couch :)

Oh my.....after 2+ years, it's all leading up to Tuesday.  Here we go!