Progress Scans during IVF

Note the obligatory disclaimer: The below is from my personal knowledge and experience of IVF.  The exact advice and processes from your IVF clinic may differ.

As an ideal, my clinic aims to collect between 8 and 12 eggs at collection.  They monitor the situation through transvaginal scans, throttling up and throttling down the IVF drugs to try to land each lady safely in that 8-12 egg zone.  

My clinic reassures me that women outside of these eggspectations (sorry) still have successful IVF cycles.  Less comforting is that my clinic insists on at least 3 or more follicles that are 18mm or larger before they will allow for egg collection.

My progress on IVF stimulation drugs

I was promised bloating.  You will look four months pregnant, they said.  Oh the irony, they laughed.  You’d best get some comfy clothes, they said. You won’t be able to do up your trousers, they laughed.

After six days of injections, I feel, well… nothing. Nothing other than trepidation that IVF drugs do not work on me and that my Day 7 progress scan will have me peering into two empty ovaries.  

I stand at home opposite a full length mirror and look at myself from multiple angles, then stick out my belly.  That isn’t swelling, that’s just cheating.  The ease in which my jeans did up this morning is an objective measure of my lack of bloat.  My body is immune to fertility treatment. Nothing is ever going to work.  I’m never going to have a baby.

The first progress scan - Day 7 of my IVF cycle

I slump into the scan room like a deflated balloon.  I hope for lots of follicles, but not too many, whilst simultaneously not knowing how many is too many, or too few.  

My sonographer hands me a pad of sticky notes and a pencil and encourages my participation.  “I’ll call out the follicle size”, she says “and you write it down”.  

My results are 9 follicles in the elite growers group and 10 follicles lagging behind in the peleton (descriptions are my own and are unlikely to correspond to medical terminology) and my womb is padded enough for an embryo to stick, with a 14mm lining.

In the reverse of my natural cycle, my right ovary has set up a mass production line and is churning them out, with 12 good follicles, whilst my normal trooper of a left ovary has set up a folding table outside its house and offering up some tat it found in the back of the garage.   

Out of the scan room I float, now reinflated, rubbing my tummy with pride.  I just knew it was all going to be fine, knew it all along, further proof that IVF drugs work on me without any impact on my body, mood, or memory.  I make a promise to myself to never again panic about IVF drugs and bloating.  Repeat after me - bloating is bullshit.

The second progress scan - Day 9 of my IVF cycle

Day 9 is my second progress scan and I spend the morning in mourning over my lack of bloating, indicating that I retain water about as effectively as I retain my memory.

Joe accompanies me to my second scan.  I forget to tell him, as I am otherwise engaged in my mirror dance of pushing out and sucking in my tummy, that there may be audience involvement through the medium of a post-it note and writing implement, and what the numbers mean. 

He tells me after the scan that he thought the numbers he diligently scribed on the sticky pad were the number of follicles, not the size of each follicle. He had one, simple, post scan question - “what the hell was that?”. 

The scan dialogue from the sonographer was misinterpreted by Joe’s scan thinking in the following way:

“On the right ovary, 18” 

(18!  That’s excellent!). 

“...another 18…” 

(Another 18, so that’s 36.  Is that too many from one ovary?). 

“...16…”. 

(She means she miscounted and it has gone down to 16? Surely not a further 16 follicles?) 

“...17…” 

(Oh, OK.  I have no idea what is happening here).  

The result

More than three 18mm beauties are developing inside my right ovary (with the left being left behind) and we are issued with our ticket to egg collection.  

The clinic hands me my final injection, the ‘trigger’ injection, which I safely store in my tote nestled in between a partially empty packet of tissues and a cling film wrapped marmite sandwich.  In 3 days time, I shall be harvested for eggs.