The lonesome trip to Grand Rapids last night was uneventful and I managed to stay away from Dr. Google. The scan was this morning was excellent. I still have a total of 8 follicles on the right and 3 on the left. There are a few smaller ones that might come along too. My estradiol level was 2710.
Deciding when to trigger is an art. My ovaries are kind of like an oven right now. If we wait too long the eggs may get burned (over-mature). If we trigger too early the eggs may be undercooked (immature). Neither an immature or over cooked egg would result in an embryo.
Follicle size and estradiol level help the doctor determine the best time possible to start the 38 to 42 hour time clock that ticks down to ovulation. We will schedule retrieval exactly 35 hours after trigger in order to get at the eggs when they are nice and loose and about to come out on their own.
After all this time I still find it hard to believe we have such a very short window to collect the goods before they would eject on their own and disappear into my body unfertilized and wasted. Pretty wild, huh?
Ultimately, we decided to “let it ride” and go one more day to make sure we get as many mature eggs as possible. While my estrogen level is in a great range for trigger, it is low enough that it gives us a little room to see if we can get some of those smaller follicles into the game.
So we will trigger tomorrow tonight for a retrieval on Thursday. Friday we will inject HCG into my uterus to prepare it to receive our embryos.
Saturday will be the big day!
This makes three cycles in a row that we stimulated for 11 days. Ironically, last time with Home Clinic we had 11 mature eggs. At Celebrity Miracle Clinic we had 11 embryos.
Eleven seems to be our number. Let’s hope its lucky this time. Maybe I should go play craps or roulette or something.
Image by Ben Harrison via Flickr
On the balance, I feel really good physically even though I already look pregnant from all the bloating. I felt like absolute crap far sooner in all my previous cycles. With the exception of the cytotec induced night from hell, this has been my smoothest cycle ever. My body seems to be handling the stress much better than in the past which I pray means higher odds of a fresh transfer sticking for us.
Gosh let’s hope so.
Mama needs a new pair of (baby) shoes!
Laughter Through Tears 
I’m so excited for you! And yes, it is pretty wild, the timing of all this, amazing really! Good luck!
Thank you!
Best of luck on a smooth and successful retrieval!
Good luck!