All Our Eggs in One Basket

Pre -Frog and egg retrieval we thought that was just what we were going to have to do.  The slow way my follicles were growing was getting us kind of down on how many eggs we might get and thinking best case scenario would be that we would have maybe only one or two eggs to implant with none to freeze.  We had prepared ourselves for a one shot deal in regards to this whole cycle and were already trying to figure out how to pay for another.  But after Thursday's egg retrieval things are looking up, in fact after this morning's call from the Embryologist I think I might need more baskets.

Tuesday night at exactly 10:15 per the Magic Man's specific instructions, Brady triggered my ovulation with an intramuscular HCG shot.  The reason for this is that the eggs kind of attach themselves to the inside of the ovaries and only release when ready to ovulate, so the docs have to trigger this so they can actually go in and get them, but it's kind of a narrow window.  Too early and they won't be able to grab them, too late and we lose them to my body.  There is a whole part of the power point presentation in class 1 about this and our instructions list our time for the shot with a disclaimer at the bottom stating any deviance from this schedule could jeopardize the success of our procedure. This was our first intramuscular shot and earlier in the day we had gone over it with the RN at the clinic, she even helpfully drew nice round targets on my upper hips with a sharpie so Brady would know exactly where to inject (they are still there two days later I might add).  This shot was similar to the Menapour in that you have to inject a diluent into the vial with the powdered medicine and mix it before injecting it, unlike the Menapour this med didn't dissolve as quickly.   Brady was nervous enough about this shot because of the larger needle, so he was trying to take his time and do it right but then the medicine took longer to dissolve and I am there at 10:12 with my face buried in a blanket leaning against the counter with my jammie pants pulled down to expose the target telling him to hurry up! We were going to be late! We were going to miss the window! We can't deviate from the schedule!!!  Finally with the shot ready (and his annoyance with me at an all time high) he went in at the perfect 90 degree angle and drew back on the plunger (to make sure he didn't hit a vein) and administered the dose.  It didn't hurt as badly as I had anticipated, I was glad for this and we headed to bed where we once again repeated our frog routine and hoped for the best.  Wednesday I am told to lay low and relax, this is normally quite difficult for me, but the fact that we have no injections today helps immensely.

Fast forward to Thursday morning, we head into the clinic bright and early, which is good because due to the anesthesia I cannot eat or drink anything, even water.  We are a little nervous and excited and ready for this part to be done.  The literature states that I will be administered intravenous anesthesia, the good stuff they say so that I won't feel anything when they go in through my vaginal wall to retrieve the eggs.  We have a super cool nurse that assures me that not only will I be allowed to bring the frog with me into the egg retrieval room, but I can hold on to him the whole time.  I think this is pretty rad of her and we get a consensus amongst the nurses and the doctor going in for the eggs that whatever good energy we can get is good.  They wheel me in and take Brady away to "the sample room" and I remember talking about the frog and my blog and then that's it, nothing.  I wake up in recovery and am wickedly groggy.  I hear the doc come in and tell Brady we got eggs, that we actually got 9 eggs.  9 EGGS!  We knew after Tuesday's appointment we had 5 large follicles on the left and 2 on the right, we were thinking of a best case scenario of maybe 7 eggs, with not all of those being mature but 9? We were stoked and I remember thinking, finally something was going our way.  It took about an hour for me to fully wake up from the drugs, I really had to use the bathroom due to the large amounts of fluids the nurses had pumped into me via the IV and I asked if I could get up and hit the little girls room.  I was told no, I could not.  My blood pressure was super low and they were afraid I was going to faint but not to worry because they had a bed pan I could use.  Yeah, no thanks.  I opted to wait a few more minutes while they administered something through the IV to get my heart pumping faster to get the blood pressure up.  I was finally able to sit up and from there, I just wanted to go home.  I was given post-op instructions and Brady packed me up and took me home.  I immediately passed out on the couch and slept for about 3 hours.  I wasn't in any real pain, mostly just tired and groggy but still pretty stoked that we got 9 eggs.  Climbing into bed we praised the frog once again, convinced now more than ever that he is in fact our fertility good luck charm.

This morning I was eagerly awaiting the call from our embryologist to let us know how many of the 9 eggs were mature and had fertilized.  I was hoping for 6 and Brady had said he would be happy with 4.  We were both hoping for enough to make it to day 5 (transfer day) with at least 2 embryos to implant, and a bonus if we had one or two to freeze.  The call came around 9 and I was super nervous, my nervousness turned to elation when I heard that 8 of our 9 eggs had fertilized.  I was going between tears of joy and shouts of woo hoo and I think I probably scared the nice lady on the phone.  8 out of 9, that means that after 5 days (some will not make it past day 3) even if half our eggs don't make it we will still have 4. Two to implant and two to freeze and potentially more (or less but I am trying to think positive).  This means so many things for us.  It means that if our first implantation doesn't take (we know this is a possibility) that instead of starting all over from scratch with a whole new cycle we can hopefully do just the implantation part again with frozen embryos.  You know what that means? NO MORE SHOTS PEOPLE! Well ok, that isn't entirely true, I still have one shot a day and it's a doozie.  The progesterone shots start tomorrow and go all the way through the 10th week of pregnancy (if we are fortunate and the transfer works) and is a large intramuscular shot that takes an entire minute to administer.  I can totally handle this, it hurts allot the next day since it's in the muscle and I'll probably be limping around and whining like a wimp but one shot over three I will take any day.  It also means that my eggs and Brady's sperm like each other, in fact they like each other allot. I hope they fall in love and make a baby.