Day Before Retrieval

Went in for bloodwork this morning.

My HCG is 157 - they want to see it over 50, so I definitely did the butt-shot correctly and absorbed it well.

E2 came back at 3568. That's a small jump from 3230 yesterday, but not the day-over-day jumps I was having prior. That's good, since I didn't take any stims yesterday, so it makes sense that it only rose a little. They want to see it either hold steady or rise slightly, but not drop. (A drop is bad - it suggests that eggs have started ovulating and once they ovulate, it's too late to go in and retrieve them. That's why timing is so critical). Remembering that each mature follicle registers about 150-200 of E2, and seeing as I have almost/about 20 follicles(?) this is a nice number. It would suggests that nearly all of them are mature.

Overall, the E2 number is really good. You want it to be high to show mature follicles, but levels over 4000 puts one at risk for Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome (OHSS) and causes doctors to cancel some cycles. So I think a mid 3000 level is good in this situation.

I check in for surgery tomorrow at 10am. Surgery is at 11am under Deep Sedation. I should be done with retrieval by 11:30 and recovered by 12:30. By the time I'm awake I should know how many they retrieved, and probably not too long after that they can tell me how many were good enough to freeze and what sort of quality they were.