Hi ladies
Been catching up with all your updates and giggling a lot as you do have a fantastic way with words!
Sorry not to reply to you all individually and to read and run, but wanted to pop in and reply to your lovely posts
Flatwhite don't be daft, I was completely clueless about it all until I started having to read up on it! Pregnant until proven otherwise (PUPO) is what you're considered after embryo transfer - ie you have embryo(s) on board and until you take a test 2 weeks later you won't know if you are pregnant or not, but you're supposed to treat yourself as if you were, just in case they do implant.
vap Honestly, the injections were a doddle. The idea of doing them is way worse than actually doing them. The needles are teeny and you can barely feel them; the first time is weird as unless you're diabetic the idea of sticking a needle in yourself is somewhat counter intuitive! But after that it's a breeze. The Cetrotide injection site itched like a bastard for about 5-10 mins afterward, but I knew to expect that. I got DH to do the mixing up, Walter White style (science - he loved it as it was like O level chemistry!) and I did the injecting. We had a giggle about how we felt like something out of Trainspotting when we'd be flicking the syringe to get rid of air bubbles though!
The hormones didn't send me loopy at all. Clomid was way worse emotionally! I did however bloat up so much that I put on 5 extra pounds in water weight within a few days and genuinely looked 4 months pregnant. It was a bit uncomfortable, and I had a raging thirst so was either chugging water or running to the loo, but it was all fluid - literally within 24h I had a waist again and had regained abs!! The body is nuts.
So egg collection was on Monday, and the consultant was absolutely astonished that he retrieved 7 eggs, of which 6 were mature. Given there was a very real possibility I wouldn't respond at all, and we were expecting 4 good ones, it was an amazing result. Apparently he said to DH (I was still coming round from sedation so don't remember) that my follies had had a productive weekend since the last scan!
The down side was twofold. Firstly, my poor DH was not only feeling dreadful on Monday, but he wasn't called to do his bit till after I was out of theatre and coming round from the sedation. Unfortunately as I have epilepsy, the sight of me drifting in and out and only vaguely lucid is pretty much indistinguishable from when I'm coming round from a seizure - where he's had to watch me turning blue and check how long I'm seizing for to work out if he needs to call an ambulance, and then slowly coming to with no memory of what's happened. So even though I was totally fine, seeing me like that basically triggered memories of what he describes as the worst moments of his life. And not exactly the kind of thing that gets you really geared up to go and knock one out in a grotty w*nk booth down the corridor. Poor DH was absolutely inconsolable that he wasn't able to provide a sample on the day, and so we had to freeze all the eggs unfertilised 
. DH was utterly devastated and felt that he'd 'let us down' - but obv just as it's not my fault and he doesn't blame me for the fact my reproductive system doesn't work very well, equally I don't blame him and it's not his fault that his body didn't work so well that particular day. Obv absolutely gutted we didn't get to find out fertilisation rate, and even more gutted no one suggested freezing a sample beforehand as an insurance policy! Needless to say he will be freezing several samples for next time...!
However the second issue was that my lining had actually thinned since the last scan, and even if I had started taking supplementary oestrogen immediately, it's unlikely it would have thickened up enough to go ahead with transfer, so would almost certainly have been a freeze all cycle anyway (although if he'd been able to produce a sample we would have been freezing embryos not eggs)
So no transfer this cycle, we have to have one resting cycle before we can do a medicated FET (frozen transfer) - where we try and build up my lining with oestrogen to get it to a sufficient thickness, and then thaw the eggs, fertilise them, and hopefully transfer embryo(s) so that I can indeed be PUPO - and hope that something implants!
Rollercoaster ain't even the half of it. I think we've felt every emotion possible this week. We keep trying to remember the positives - we got more eggs than we ever expected! 6 mature eggs would be pretty crap for anyone else my age but for someone with my peri menopausal bloods it's a blimmin miracle. And my consultant says he has had success with frozen eggs, as the freezing technology is so much better than it was.
So we can't start our FET cycle for at least another 6 weeks or so. And in fact we're minded to ask the consultant if it's worth doing another stims cycle and batching both lots of eggs together so we have more embryos to work with - and if we're really lucky, get something for the freezer. That would probably mean waiting another month on top to let by ovaries recover - so would likely mean waiting till the new year. But will see what he says.
To answer your question about costs - the bill is way more painful than any of the injections or procedures! I was on a whopping dose of stimulation drugs so my meds bill alone was £2k - however that is unusually high. The actual cycle was £4200 for IVF, and will be another £1k on top of that for ICSI (fertilising by injecting a single sperm directly into the egg - which we'll need for frozen eggs. It's usually used in cases of male factor). Then there were all our blood tests, so about £500 or so. Then freezing the eggs is another grand, and we'll need to pay £450 to freeze sperm. Then as we have to have a separate frozen transfer cycle, that's another £2k. This is both London prices and v much at the upper end due to the meds, additional costs etc. If we do another fresh cycle before we do the FET we don't need any more blood tests and so that'll 'just' be the £6.5k for IVF + meds. If there's anything left over for freezing then that'll be another grand or so for 2 years freezing.
We're not eligible for NHS funding - even if we had been trying the requisite 2 years, my FSH is too high and AMH too low to meet the criteria for funding. Several private clinics wouldn't have accepted me either as they don't want to take patients who might bugger their stats. So we had no choice but to self fund. We would have considered going abroad as there are brilliant clinics for a fraction of the cost. Given my other medical issues it's essential my treatment us joined up with my other doctors, and joined up care would be impossible if we were cycling overseas.
The physical side is pretty easy tbh. It's the emotional and financial side that's so hard. If we are lucky enough to have a baby, we know all the heartache and crippling expense will be worth it, and they will one day understand just how much their Mummy and Daddy wanted them. Xx