performance anxiety

I have total performance anxiety over this cycle. Anxiety may be a strong word because I really haven't been feeling all that anxious, except when I meet up with Dr. Talks Too Much at the place where I am monitoring. I tend to be a perfectionist and I like to do well at the things I attempt. I was an overachiever all throughout high school and sometimes that still comes out. Like when I am doing an IVF cycle. Because of my age I put all this pressure on myself to have a bunch of eggs for a bunch of embryos. And those eggs better be of top notch quality, too. I had an antral count of 27 for this cycle and right now it looks like I have 11-13 nice looking eggs all developing at the same rate. I wish there were more, but the clinic I am going to only wants 10-12 eggs so that I don't overstimulate and so that they are of decent quality. This is a hard concept for me. I want to be the best egg maker around. And while it appears that I'm not the best, the clinic assured me that I'm not the worst either. The nurse who called with my instructions told me that everything is developing as it should and that I have a decent number of follicles. I may not be number one, but at least I'm doing okay!

Speaking of IVF cycles, I have given myself 46 shots so far. I will definitely get past the 100 mark once we do the retrieval and start the progesterone shots. Anyways, our current clinic does things a lot differently than our old one and I like that. They seem to really analyze my file and call me with a specific plan. They aren't just putting me on a set dose and leaving me there for days on end. When it seemed like my follicles may need a little boost they bumped me up to 450, but then brought me down to 375 the next evening. My last clinic freaked out that I didn't have enough follicles and ending up putting me on 450 for 8 days and I ended up with follicles that were uneven in size. So even though they were able to retrieve 17 eggs, only 7 were mature, which was maddening!! Hopefully I'll have a different story for this cycle. My e2 today was 765. My clinic is hoping for a Sunday retrieval but told me we have to wait until Friday to see how things look. If not, we'll have it Monday. It's so close I cannot even believe it!!

This IVF cycle has just flown by and I think that's largely due to my laid back attitude. I've done this before and I survived, so that fact is letting me relax. Let's hope that this optimistic, laid back attitude has a *positive* impact on our outcome!