more good news...not...

I'm not even cycling and i've had a really up and down sort of a week.

My NHS cycle monitoring reached day 21 (whoo hoo) and off I trotted to the blood letting dept to offer them my vein - not before i'd had a quick lie down on the scanning couch so they could have a good look inside at my post-ovulation uterus. The blood letting was particularly good - the lady who did it cause me absolutely NO PAIN at all - and it would have been an uneventful experience but for one thing.

As I rose clumsily from the scanning couch, holding a white sheet around my dignity and feeling proud to have such perfectly formed and well functioning ovaries, the very lovely and extremely tall lady Dr threw rain on my parade when she asked me to repeat my day 2 FSH test. When I asked why, and she told me that the first test had come in at 11.8 (ELEVEN POINT FRI**ING EIGHT!!!) and at the upper end of normal. It was only 7.6 not so long ago! I left the room in a state of shock and immediately called Mr G. He, sensing looming hysteria, told me to come home - where he was working that morning - and we'd talk.

I spent the rest of the day and much of the next in an "I'm too old to have a baby" funk. All the information shouts "Low Ovarian Reserve" for an FSH at that level. Where have all my eggies gone?!! I sort of knew this was coming, but I really didn't want to hear it in such a black and white way. I'm starting to feel like this:



...except I don't have a frog to wear on my shoulder

I had Mr G speak to our private specialist - Big Hair - to tell him the new scores and to ask what he thought. (For the record, it's best to have these conversations directly for yourself as men and women always hear different things when having a fertility chat with their specialist. I hear "your eggs will all be off in minutes" whilst Mr G finds the words that say "you're still in with a chance there guys")

So Big Hair's chat made Mr G more keen that he and I start our next cycle asap. Like next week. That sent me into an even worse panic of "i'm not ready and I can't cycle in this stressed out state or it'll never work!". After some discussions and another call to Big Hair (by me) I decided to hold for a month. I'll be cycling in the 3rd week of June (flare protocol) as planned. In between, i'll do lots of FSH lowering things like keeping calm, drinking water, sticking to my coffee free regime, and other gems from Zita West's babymaking bible.

Today, we saw the very tall Dr again. She assured me that i'm in good working order and not to be too influenced by the 11.8 FSH score. It's when it gets to 15 that we really need to worry....

Otherwise, not much to report. Lots of juicy catering jobs coming in - canapes for 24 and a Moroccan dinner party for 20. Looking forward to those and to the lovely long Bank Holiday weekend. Going to get some cooking in - need to come up with a nice vegetable tagine recipe for the Moroccan job and to practice my sushi (maki rolls) for the canape job. Mr G should eat well. I'm also getting a picnic hamper delivered that I need to review - it's a tough job....

Thanks for all the advie from my last post on the protocols. Thanks Thalia for your kind offer - i'd love to take you up on it and i'll e mail you to sort out collection.

Good luck to Becks at One Miracle Needed in her 2WW and to Larissa at The Waiting Womb in her early BFP days. I really tried to set up a link to them but ran out of time to mess around any more....

xx