Restless

Well, it's 2 am the day of egg retrieval, and I am waiting for the Valium that the clinic gives each patient to take the night before to kick in. I know I need to get to sleep, but I feel like there are butterflies having a raging party in my stomach, and my ovaries have me feeling uncomfortable and bloated. I just did my relaxation mp3 for the day before retrieval, and even that failed to completely relax me.

Right now I'm probably about 70% excited, and about 30% scared. I feel strongly that tomorrow will go well, but there's also that nagging voice in the back of my head that is shouting all kinds of worst case scenarios at me. That voice is kind of an annoying bitch actually. She's telling me that it will hurt, even though the last retrieval didn't. That we will have less than 5 eggs... or worse, no eggs at all. That after they do retrieve eggs I will develop OHSS and they will cancel my transfer. Or that none of the retrieved eggs will fertilize. Stupid irrational scenarios that I have no control over. Like I said, that voice is a pain in the ass. So I have told her to shut up, and I am writing about all of this instead. It beats tossing and turning.

I've found this blog to be very therapeutic throughout the whole process. Even if no one ever reads it (which I know some family and friends are doing) it doesn't matter. This is strictly for me. During an IVF cycle, your body goes through some crazy hormonal changes (mood swings anyone?) and in your head you experience an insane amount of conflicting emotions. I strongly feel that you need to deal with all of that instead of internalizing it, and for me this time around I have found great amounts of comfort in writing about it.

Friday night I had a fantastic dinner out with some of my Calgary girlfriends (aka my own personal infertility support group, the BI Girls) at the Cactus Club, and I am so lucky to have the support and knowledge these women provide (that goes out to the entire group btw). Afterwards, I walked home and did the trigger shot, which I am happy to report did not sting at all this time.The injections sites kind of hurt afterwards though.

Today (okay technically yesterday) I had an acupuncture treatment with Gina at the Holistic Institue of Health & Fertility. Last time we were in Calgary, I did not have a great experience with acupuncture (a totally different clinic), so I was hesitant to try it again. However, after my wonderful experiences at HIHF, I just knew I had to try it there, and I am so glad I did. Gina was amazing. She is extremely gentle, she talks you through everything, and she even worked on me with tuning forks which I really love. You can feel the energy literally radiating throughout your entire body. Also, at one point during the session, I started to have a hormonal hot flash thanks to the fertility meds, and so she inserted needles into a couple of points on each of my feet. Almost instantly I had relief from the waves of heat. It was amazing! I've always believed in the positive effects of acupuncture, but it was incredible to get such an instant result.

I think getting that all out of my system has helped, so now I'm off to bed to try and think positive happy thoughts. We need to be at the clinic for 9:30 am. We will be there for a couple hours after the procedure but I will definitely update sometime later today.