When preparing for egg retrieval, the most important thing is to follow your doctor’s instructions because the most important thing is that you do the trigger medication, the last one at the exact moment that your doctor asks for it – 36 hours later we have to go and get those oocytes. That is the timing that we need this medication to mature the oocyte but not provoke the ovulation, spontaneous ovulation. So, we have a window in which we have to go get these oocytes and it is important to follow the strict recommendation plan and indication of your doctor.
There’s nothing much you can do to prepare for an egg collection. It’s important that the patient’s well being is managed because when women reach the point of egg collection, the hormone levels in their body are so high usually by that time so they’re already feeling very hormonal. A lot of estrogen in their body by that time, they sometimes feel that their ovaries are enlarged because obviously they’re all those follicles that are growing in the ovary. So usually by the time of egg collection a patient feels quite uncomfortable. I usually say that you will feel that it’s important to manage their expectations. I always prepare the husbands more than I prepare the wives or the partners, more than I prepare the patients themselves because it’s important for the couple to exactly understand that what they would be expecting as they get to the point of egg collection.Typically, yes you’ll feel hormonal , yes you’ll have mood swings, yes you might feel a bit uncomfortable, yes you might feel pregnant already because you feel that your tummy is bloated. Very rarely does a patient start feeling hyper-stimulated and again the good thing about modern day reproductive medicine and the drugs that we use, that in patients who are a bit hyper-responded or hyper-stimulated, we can use certain trigger injections to minimize the effects of ovarian hyper-stimulation. So by and large there’s nothing much one can do to prepare for an egg collection. Just keep the well-being there, keep the plenty of fluids going. Make sure that as a couple you’re continuously talking, because otherwise the hormones can get the upper hand and when the hormones are high, couples can start having arguments, keeping the relationship tight.
