IVF Journey: Third IVF day 46

This is my IVF diary. My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for four years now, and have a diagnosis of 'unexplained infertility'. We have finally reached the top of the waiting list for IVF - a form of assisted conception. I'm blogging about what happens as it happens, as a kind of therapy for me and as an awareness raising exercise of what IVF is all about.

It must be a busy month at the IVF clinic, because yet again I had to wait 50 minutes in the waiting room today. I would rather have spent that time in bed…

But things got better.

I was taken into the consulting room and asked to prepare myself. Trousers and pants off, up in the stirrups, towel to cover me up.

I was waiting another five minutes or so in this position, so I took advantage of this by taking a POV photo. No, you pervert. *My* point of view, not the doctor’s!

The doctor came in, checked my date of birth, and asked how I was feeling (well) and if I had any side effects (nothing of note).

She then prepped up the scanner with lube and a condom (always amuses me for some reason) and whacked it up there.

Straight away she said that things looked promising, then she explained that they were looking for a womb lining thickness of around 8mm, however that it could be a little lower – from 7mm – with a thaw cycle as you are less full to the brim with artificial hormones. She asked a nurse to check what the measurement was last time and she explained that this could be used as reference. The lining turned out to be 8mm on the nose, so that was ideal. The doctor said we could plan for a transfer next week.

I got dressed and went back to the waiting room for five or ten minutes, then was called back in to see the nurse.

The nurse said that she realised that I’d done all this before, but that just to remind me I’d need to carry on with my HRT and also take a progesterone pessary twice a day. She went to mark up a box of pessaries with my name and I told her that I already had 40 pessaries at home, so she just gave me one box and said she appreciated me doing that. The nurse said that I would need to phone in later today to get my appointment time for the frozen embryo transfer, but that it would probably be next Thursday or Friday. She asked if I had any questions. This time I didn’t.

I must say, today both the doctor and the nurse treated me impeccably – well in my opinion in exactly the way that I would want to be treated. They were kind but professional, they gave me information without being patronising or having to be asked, and they gave me time to ask questions. Very happy with that.

I phoned in at 3pm as I was told to, and was given an appointment for the frozen embryo transfer. So it is going to be Thursday 17th at noon. That’s handy in that I’ll be there for counselling til 11.30am anyway. I will need to rearrange a lunch date that I had on Thursday, but that’s OK.

However (by my calculations) this means the pregnancy test will be due on Saturday 26th but that as it is a weekend they’ll want to do it on Monday 28th. Which means I’ll have to delay the pregnancy test because I’ll be in London on Monday 28th (and Tuesday 29th). But I expected that. I’ll do a home test in advance anyway.

I’ll just be glad to get the thing in there, that’s the main event that this has all been building up to. Until then I shall mostly be giving up alcohol and considering embryo names.

While I was on the phone I made a counselling appointment for after the pregnancy test, on 31st October which was my first choice of day. Yay. Got one plenty in advance this time, not being stung by that again and having to wait a month.

So yeah, it’s all good, I’m pretty satisfied with how this has turned out. So far. Touch wood.