Eggs, Painter Suits, & Good Drugs

Yesterday Pat and I went in for our egg retrieval. When we got there they had us go in and change since the room we would be in was sterile. I had covers for my feet, a hair mask & gown. Pat looked like a painter in a white jump suit, mask, hair net and booties.

It took forever for them to get the IV in but once they did I told them to fill me up with the meds. We had 8 people in the room and each one had a job. I loved the nurse with the meds. She made the experience more enjoyable. We watched on an ultrasound machine each follicle being poked with a 16 in long needle connected to the ultasound probe, they would vanish instantly and the egg and fluid was transferred into a special test tube. When we got there the doctor told me he thought I would have 15 good eggs out of the procedure. They had about 18 test tubes and I heard them call for more. 30 test tubes were filled and the lab called in about 5 min after the procedure was over and told us all they found 25 mature eggs!! Everyone was so happy and excited. More than we all thought I would have.

In fact I was told I had the most eggs retrieved this month. Under the influence of meds I clearly stated to them that they needed to put a plaque on the wall and put my picture up on it and give me a discount for being the winner this month. They thought it was funny but I was pretty serious! They shared with me that the lady that had the same procedure the day before only had 7 eggs. I felt so sad for her and almost started crying. I thought of the whole process of meds and the torture your body goes through and then the devastation of only having 7. Pat as joke told me I should give her some of mine but I wasnt in the joking mood so the nurse gave me another squirt of meds very quickly to take me back to my wonderland.

Recovery was tough. My body shook uncontrobly and I could barely move. My mom told me she had the same thing after giving birth. Well I just gave birth to 25 eggs so I think my body had a right to do what ever it felt like doing to show me it wasnt happy!

While at home recovering the lab was hard at work making us our embryo's. We decided to do ICSI. (The picture above is an example of ICSI) They will manually insert a needle into 1 egg and insert 1 sperm to fertilize it. They are going to save a couple eggs to see if they fertilize on their own. If they dont...well then we know what has held us back from having a family these past 2 years.

I should get a call from the embryologist today with an update on how many eggs survived and how they are coming along. They will tell me what stage they are in. I guess they have a process of lettering them A,B,C, & D. We want A's!! Friday we will go back and will hopefully have Grade A embryo's. We signed a waiver to transfer 2 embryos and freeze any that are left for future children.

We are hoping the embryo's are happy and will stick. Who know's what our future holds but things happen for a reason. There were so many different signs and everything just seemed to fall into place for us throughout this whole process. The money, the med coverage, support from family and friends, the amount of eggs retrieved, acupuncture, even driving to the appointment yesterday we saw a truck with one of the names we decided on if it works. Little signs everywhere.

Pat and I are so excited to have such great results from this. We want to thank everyone for being there for us through this long and difficult road. I will update later once we have more info.