Ho hum

Well, I went in for my scan and blood test yesterday. The doctor who did the scan wasn't very hopeful. There was one obvious follicle (or potential follicle?) on my left ovary. He then took ages to find my right ovary, with me saying, "The left one was pretty quiet on my last attempt - the right one produced a few more." When he did eventually find the right one, there was only one follicle there too.

I've already mentioned that XXXX clinic doesn't use computers. When you're queuing for a scan, they give you your file to take upstairs and you sit with it outside the door of the scan room. This gives a perfect opportunity to have a nose through your file while you wait, and I was able to compare the notes for last month - "Not suitable for treatment" - and this month - "May not be suitable for treatment". An improvement - but was it enough?

When I left the scan room, I read the note the doctor had added - again, it said, "May not be suitable", so everything was riding on the results of the blood test.

I had my 'Teach' session with the nurse, just in case the results came in OK. There was another person there for the session - she was on the long protocol and this was her first IVF. Our concerns and questions were a little different, shall we say.

Anyway, having had Gonal-F and Cetrotide last time, with Ovitrelle to trigger, this time I'll be on Merional and Fostimon, with Cetrotide to prevent early ovulation and Pregnyl to trigger. The fact that I'll be on a completely different regime gives me hope. I am a little nervous about having to break the glass vials, though.

Another thing that gives me hope is that I picked up a piece of paper in the waiting room with the latest results from the HFEA, and XXXX clinic's success rate in my age group is 40% - twice the rate of any of the other London clinics, and almost four times the rate of our old clinic. Given that 75% of patients at XXXX clinic have had previous IVF failures elsewhere, this success rate is phenomenal.

Despite this hope, I was prepared to be told that this month would not be suitable. I then had to wait for the rest of the day to get the call to confirm one way or the other. This afternoon I had to take my MIL to visit my FIL in hospital - he has just had a second operation, having been diagnosed with cancer. The call didn't come until almost 6 pm, just as I was turning into her road to drop her back home. As I picked the phone up, I accidentally pressed a button and cut the damn thing off - you can imagine my frustration.

Anyway, the nurse who called was the same one I'd had the teaching session with in the morning. She said that having reviewed my results, Mr Miracle Worker had decided that this was not a suitable month to start cycling. So that's it for another month, as far as the clinic is concerned.

It's funny - I thought back to how devastated I was when my first ever cycle was delayed last year. But this time I felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. Of course, I now know that a delayed cycle is so much less traumatic than a failed cycle. I only want to go ahead if there's a good chance of success. But I so want to get a shot at that 40% success rate.

So if you're the praying type, please pray that both my FSH AND my oestradiol will be within the acceptable range next month - because apparently I've been thinking too much about my FSH and not appreciating the importance of the oestradiol level. And hopefully the downward trend will continue as I relax more and wind down towards finishing work in August.