How do you like your eggs?

Egg collection day arrived and after a restless sleep we were up at 5:45am, the clinic is around 1 1/2 hours away and we usually give ourselves 2 hours to get there just in case.
It's not often that I go without food for more than an hour so having no breakfast was torture for me!
We arrived at the clinic at 8:30am and my favourite nurse showed us into the room that we would be recovering in afterwards. After putting my sexy white flannelette gown on (actually it was kind of comfy!) we sat and waited, the embryologist came in and introduced herself and asked us our names and date of birth -I guess all part of protocol to make sure the right embryos go to the right people, and went over our consent forms which state how many eggs we want fertilised, embryos implanted etc.

We then met the absolutely lovely doctor who would be doing the egg collection and it was time for her to put the much dreaded line in my arm. I explained to her I was not good with needles and then I took my standard big deep breath when it was inserted, followed by another big breath, and another......but wait- the needle is still being jiggled around in there and now she's telling me she can't get the vein, okay cue many big breaths, in fact-hyperventilating and panicking now and clenching poor big G's hand so tight, and now she's telling me the needle 'keeps bouncing off the vein'  WHAT THE ...You don't say things like that to a needlephobe for god's sake!
With hideous needle-jabbing-bouncing-vein images in my head now I weakly ask her if she would like to try the other arm-yup I'm so desperate to get that damn thing out I've offered up my other arm for sacrifice.
She gets it in smoothly in my right arm and leaves the room telling me that unfortunately things like that always happen to needlephobes! at least she was lovely throughout calling me darling, and telling me she was almost there, but I'm a total mess now and crying before the procedure's even begun!

Once I'm in the theatre room I've calmed down and I have pain relief and a drug called Hypnoval administered, the nurse tells me I'll feel it wash over me in a minute and I do-the weirdest woozy feeling!
Legs in stirrups and the ultrasound wand is inserted and then the needle-the pain is pretty intense actually and it only gets worse. The embryologist checks the fluid that's drawn out under a microscope and calls out how many eggs she sees as they go along.I remember hearing the first, and then 9 eggs, and then it gets fuzzy.
At this point I'm in agony, keep throwing my head back involuntarily and I can't help but tense everything up, they keep telling my to bring my chin forward and the nurse injects some more pain relief for me. I keep thinking to myself that none of the drugs are working for me becasue I'm not in the 'lovely happy place' that everyone told me I would go to! looking back though I have forgotten chunks of it so obviously something worked but I didn't expect that level of pain for me.
I ended up getting 20 eggs and everyone was congratulating us saying that was a great amount, I was just in tears by now though, I don't know why, maybe just relief that the pain was over, I felt a bit silly and remember saying to the nurse that I hoped I wasn't the only woman to have a big blub about it at the end!She was absolutely lovely though and just said I'd done really well, and then she helped me put my underwear back on and commented on how nice they were(I'm really glad I bought them new the previous day so I wouldn't have the shame of my falling apart-holey underwear being handled by someone else haha)

In the recovery room they came in and informed us that because of the amount of eggs they'd retrieved, any embryos we got would have to be frozen and replaced early next year because I was at risk of developing OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome- you're more at risk if you've had a large amount of eggs retrieved and also if you become pregnant from the fresh embryo replacement)
I felt pretty gutted about this and cried some more...big G was disappointed too but also pointed out that we can enjoy our christmas without the anxiety of a negative or very early positive result hanging over us, and that risking my health isn't worth it.
He's totally right but I can't help but feel gutted we can't just continue what we've started....sometimes it feels like we are constantly waiting waiting.

I should probably point out to anyone reading this that not all egg collections are as painful-so I've heard, firstly my mum thinks that maybe I should have had more pain relief administered from the start given my 6ft2" frame, and secondly I did have 20 eggs removed. And if we have to do it again for whatever reason I'm not scared anymore and know what to expect, plus you do forget the pain!