Rachel's home page - Egg donation - Donation cycle


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Donation cycle

On day 5 I went into the clinic for an ultrasound scan. This is quite straightforward: you lie on an examination table and an ultrasound probe is wiggled around in your vagina to display your ovaries on a screen which both you and the sonographer can see. The probe is covered in what looks like a long, thin condom (and is made by Durex!) and lubricant so it doesn't hurt, but sometimes the sonographer has to press quite hard against one side or other of the vaginal wall so it can be uncomfortable. I found these images quite fascinating - you can see your eggs quite clearly.

On day 5 I also started taking daily hormone injections to encourage my ovaries to produce lots of eggs (rather than the usual one). These went into the fatty area over my stomach and were very fine needles. The clinic is happy to administer all the necessary injections if you want to travel in, but I am not squeamish and didn't want to make more journeys than necessary so I did them myself. On days 15, 18 and 20 I went in for futher scans to check if the daily hormone dose needed altering (it was adjusted slightly a couple of times).

On day 22 I took an injection of yet another hormone; this had to be precisely timed to 34-36 hours before the planned egg collection. As I had had no difficulty doing the injections so far I suggested I did the final one too. The needle was much bigger than the ones for the daily doses and I had a difficult few minutes sitting at home screwing up the courage to stick it in my leg. But if I didn't do it, we would have wasted all the work so far, so I managed it. I would probably recommend to others to get that one done for you in the clinic.

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Rachel's home page - Egg donation - Donation cycle