Orientation

Well, we've been sufficiently counselled, oriented, scared shitless and Al wished happy birthday by any number of medical staff who thought that IVF orientation was a rather horrific way to spend your 30th birthday, all things considered. But, aside from crawling home sporting a flaming headache, I'm feeling good, or at least better, and so is Al. I think the headache is purely a build up of tension pre-orientation eeking itself out. It all seems less scarey now, and however we cope or don't when the time comes, we know it's ok and normal and nothing more than what we need to do is expected of us. The clinic isn't imposing, the medical staff were absolutely lovely, and probably most importantly for me, I've seen the tools they use for egg pick up which was the one thing that was really bothering me. That doesn't seem so bad now either, although it is an effing long needle.

The counsellor took in both of our naked wedding ring fingers and queried straight off the bat if we were in fact married. I don't know if our respective stories of why we weren't wearing our rings (I lost mine, Al hung himself off a plane with his) inspired confidence, but at least the telling of the stories took some of the edge off the counselling session. Having to do the counselling thing was the worst because she wanted to know about the early parts of our journey when things were at their worst, and I'd rather not remember. There was also a tense moment where the nurse had to check that my being a rhesus negative blood type and not having had an anti-D (I think that's what she called it) injection after my miscarriage would possibly compromise an IVF pregnancy, but the answer to that was no. All of our tests pre-orientation came back with excellent results, so even though the chance of success through the cycle is a statistical average of 25% - 40%, we're on the higher side of that.

We were given an indicative time frame of March/April when we got our orientation advice, and the cycle month has been confirmed as March today. I have a good idea now exactly when it'll start, but I'll have a better idea by February and I'll let you know then probably.