I apologize I haven't been posting daily like I had wanted. My husband and I have been busy exploring Boston for the first time. I'll just summarize days 7 & 8 in the same post.

Coming to Boston IVF yesterday, I continued getting blood work done every morning and started ultrasound testing. The ultrasound is a vaginal probe that looks at your ovaries from the inside. If you've ever been pregnant, you already know what this kind of ultrasound is. To me, it's just like having a pap smear test. I asked the nurse how they were developing since I've been running so high in my hormones. She said I had a lot of follicles already on each of my ovaries. Later that day, the nurse called me to say they were going to lower my Gonal-F pen back down to 75cc from the 112cc to slow me down.

This morning, they counted my follicles at my ultrasound. The nurse reported that I had 6 on my right ovary, and 7 on my left. Average is 10-20 total so I fell pretty even. I was hoping it would be more, but then you want quality and not quantity, right? Or maybe they want both. I requested if I could take a picture of my own ultrasound, so below you can see one of my ovaries with the black bubbles being the follicles.

Since I was hoping to have more than 13, I asked my case manager what happens after the egg retrieval to see what kind of chances they would have with my number. She explained that the eggs will be fertilized with the recipient husband's sperm - becoming embryos (the # produced depends on the quality of the eggs as well as the sperm's). They will then keep close watch of those developed embryos over several days to see which ones are of best quality. That's when they transfer 2 to the Intended Mother. The rest of the good embryos will then be frozen and kept stored for a 2nd chance if the 1st attempt fails, or to try for a sibling later on - frozen embryos can be kept indefinitely and work years later. So, even though I might only yield 13 this time, I really hope they are all of very good quality to give the couple plenty to work with in the future.

Today's Symptoms: No real issues. I've been able to explore Boston (no running or brisk walking) without any problem. I only feel slightly bloated where my ovaries are and have somewhat tender breasts.