Been watching this thread for a few days but had issues creating an account on here trying to use my FB app.... anyway, jumping on the band wagon if that's okay!
My wife and I are a SSC and on day 7 post fresh embryo transfer. Official test date is 21st October, but after reading about people doing early tests, we nearly did one earlier before talking ourselves out of it. My wife is the carrier, she's 29 and bloody beautiful. We've had abit of a turbulent journey so far, we're using ABC IVF in Bham and this is our first ever cycle just for context.
During her initial scan, she had around 23 follicles in one ovary and 11 in the other. We don't feel anywhere near as clued up as some of you guys are in terms of what type of protocol we are on, we literally just do what they tell us (being novices) which I am now somewhat regretting!
Anyway, I don't know the official names of things, but my wife was put on a dose of 112.5 FSH stimulation from day 2 of her AF, she was scanned 3 days later (on day 5) at which point she had one large follicle already and lots of smaller ones developing nicely. She then started the certritide 2 days later (day 7), she then had another scan on day 8, at which point she had over 30 large follicles and they were concerned about OHSS, a blood test confirmed that luckily she hadn't. Another scan on day 10 (the first one with a doctor present and not just a nurse) showed that she had loads of large follicles and he immediately told her to stop taking the FSH, and they would do another blood test, to check again for OHSS and to determine which trigger shot she should take. They gave us two trigger shots and called later that day to tell us which one to take and that egg collection would be on the Friday (day 12). Considering my wife's follicle count (even before stims) we expected a really decent egg retrieval count but were disappointed to hear they only collected 8 😩 they called the next day (the Saturday) to confirm only 5 fertilised, then called again on the Monday to say one is looking superior to the remaining 4 and they wanted to do the transfer that afternoon (it was an 8 cell 3 day embryo at this stage). Transfer all went okay, we saw it all really clearly on the ultrasound monitor and got a clear pic of the embryo sat in the lining, so that was good.
The remaining 4 embryos were left to develop for another 2 days (day 5pt), they called us on the Wednesday to say only one was looking viable, and it was eventually given a grade of 4CB (which according to Google is considered poor). This one is now in the freezer.
So now we are 10 days post transfer and stresssssssssing. If this doesn't work, the clinic want another £2.5k to try the frozen one, which has poor prospects based on the grading. My wife doesn't feel pregnant, she's had the odd twinge and tender boobs, but any symptoms she's felt can be explained away by the progesterone pessaries or could be a sign of AF. This TWW is TORTURE.
We don't mean to be ungrateful but we are disappointed with the low egg and embryo yield, especially with the quality. We kind of feel that they didn't get her meds right and rushed her through some of the stages just based on follicle count, even though bloods showed she was fine. We've read that 'empty follicles' is abit of a myth and it's far more likely that the eggs just weren't mature and so weren't released. Don't know what to think, did they tell her to take trigger shot too soon? Did they have her on too much of a low dose of FSH? Did they give her the wrong trigger shot?
Anyway, sorry for the essay, like I say I've been reading this thread for days and built up all this info in my head to share until now. We're 4 days off our OTD and trying not to cave beforehand. It's been great to read about all your experiences whilst we wait.