G'day Trendsetters,

First of all I wanted to thank all of you for your interest and concern in our progress. It's so lovely and makes both of us really happy.

Well it's all done and it wasn't the most joyous experience that's for sure. DW had 26 eggs collected and the procedure took a fair while because there was so many. She had a far bit of pain to start with because of the fact that her ovaries are super huge at the moment; FS reckons anything over 15 eggs is cause for concern as far as OHSS goes so obviously there's a risk there plus her levels are quite high. She has to drink 3 litres of water per day now. They started off with a low dose of the sedation because of her size, but had to upgrade it because of the pain. She was crying a fair bit and it wasn't nice. Then there was a communication error between the FS and the new nurse and they gave her too much. They didn't announce that it had happened, but it was pretty clear from the conversation that there was a **** up, and then they put her on oxygen as some kind of precaution I think. That said, the staff were all fantastic and we couldn't speak more highly of any of them.

So she was pretty zonked out for a while and I spent a lot of time just sitting and talking to her and holding her hand during the procedure to keep her distracted. I talked utter crap but it seemed to work and the nurses and scientists were all saying how great I was which made me feel like I'd been useful. I was doing various things to help DW and the nurses like helping with the oxygen and stuff like that so it was good to be involved. They also had trouble finding a vein for the sedation so she got a double whammy of needles. It just seemed to take a long time, but again, that's because of the volume of eggs.

As for the eggs, they said that as per the norm with high volume collections, some were over mature and some immature, but there would still be more than enough of the good stuff to get the job done. Plus there is a chance that transfer wont go ahead on Friday because DW's levels may be too high. We're not worried, if the eggs fertilise they can freeze them and then we go from there next month. We probably wont know until tomorrow afternoon whether there has been fert. because they have 6 more couples to sort out tomorrow morning before they can take calls.

Because of where we live, everything is pretty slow paced and laid back, so it was cool to be able to hang around in the scientist's lab while she showed us all about what she does and how it works. Everyone was pretty chatty and nothing was rushed. The scientist is very casual and nice and we ended up talking about a heap of other things besides IVF.

I was a bit uncomfortable about my sample. I had to go upstairs next to where they have their workplace functions (obviously no-one was there), into the little room and do my business. I thought the porn in the room thing was a myth, and I spent the first 2 minutes PMSL as for some reason I thought it was hysterical. Then I had to walk right back through the reception area past all and sundry with my jar, so I felt a bit stupid. Plus the receptionist had had her husband and young kid in there a few minutes previous just having a casual chat so things like that can make you a bit self conscious under the circumstances. Didn't bother us, but I imagine it might bother others.

Anyway, that's about it. I'll check back in later to do a few personals as I can't be stuffed at the moment.