Not So Quick Post-Transfer Update



Well, the transfer is over and now the two week wait begins.  Things are very different at the offices up here than they are where I usually go.  It is the same fertility center, but a different branch and I like my branch sooooooo much better.  People are not quite as friendly and the attention is not as personal up here, but it doesn’t matter…so long as I get pregnant.

I started out with pre-transfer acupuncture, and slept like a baby through the whole thing (always a good sign).  The acupuncturist was awesome, although The Prince was quite convinced that the man smokes copious amounts of pot.  If not, he is just the most mellow man in the world.  I don’t care either way…he was great. 

Then it was on to transfer.  They weren’t concerned about The Prince’s eye, as he was up by my head and was in his usual scrubs, hair net, goggles outfit.  The doctor came in and said that we had 12 amazing blasts, the most beautiful batch he had ever seen.  Seriously!!!  All 12 of the fertilized eggs made it to 5 day blastocytes.  Go donor and go super swimmers.  The picture above is the picture of our little litter.

After showing us the picture, the doctor asked if we wanted to put only 10 or all 12 back in and then laughed.  He agreed with our assessment that two was the best number for us.  He left for awhile, came back in with a nurse and a resident (who observed only) and asked me to skootch down on the table.  Here’s where it started to suck…without any warning he put a cold speculum in, scraping the top of ..well…you know…as he went.  My doctor at home warms the speculum, lubes everything up really well, gives you lots of warning, asks if the pressure is okay, and apologizes the whole way through.  This doctor…not such a romancer.  I yelped and he said “Did that hurt?  Okay, I want you to close your eyes and say ‘I am relaxed, this is easy.’”  I was trying to breath through the pain, but he kept insisting that I “say the mantra,” so I said it to appease him.  I wanted to say “Let me stick that speculum somewhere on you while you say ‘I am relaxed and this is easy,’” but I refrained.

Then, the doctor said “I’ll be right back” and actually left the room with me laying there with the speculum in.  That was new experience for me…and not a pleasant one I must say.  A minute went by, then 5…I was ready to send The Prince out to see what was going on when the crew came back in with our embies in the catheter.  I deep breathed, as instructed, during the actual transfer…and then the best part….

The doctor (who is a bit of a hippy if I haven’t mentioned that before…seriously…like he’s a guru and doctor) took my hand and The Prince’s hands and asked us to form a “hand circle” for “the most important part of the whole process.”  The doctor then asked us to close our eyes (like we were saying Grace) and he said “I want you to see these two most beautiful, amazing, awesome embryos settling into your uterus, as your uterus holds and squeezes them…filling them with love.  Now I want you to picture them growing into babies and you holding those babies in your arms on the day they are born.  If you believe, you can manifest anything.  Believe in these babies.  Say it with me, ‘I believe’….”

At that point, The Prince, a devout atheist and hater of all things hokey, was squeezing my hand so hard, I thought it was going to break off.  I finally conceded and chanted “I believe” with the guru…uh hm…doctor, and he left the room, instructing us to continue manifesting our desired outcome over the next couple of weeks.  It was sweet, really, but hilarious, too.  I started laughing as soon as the door shut behind the doctor, even though I was trying not to because I didn’t want to push out the embryos.  The Prince said I owe him big time because he refrained from laughing while the guy was in there…and he let the doctor hold his hand.  (On a strange side note, The Prince then told me that the doctor must work out because he has the hand muscles that only people who lift heavy weights get…strange how much attention he was paying to that doctor’s hand…but whatever).  I stayed on the table for half an hour, not sure what we were waiting for (manifesting time, maybe?) because no one was big on giving us much information while we were there. 

Finally, a nurse came in and gave us a picture of the two embryos we put in…the best of the best!  (See below)

I went back for another session of acupuncture, and fell asleep so hard, that the acupuncturist had my husband come in to wake me up.  When I awoke and The Prince explained what had happened.  I said, “Well go get the guy so he can take the needles out of me.”  The Prince explained that the poor guy already had removed all the needles and had gently shaken me…but then literally couldn’t wake me up.  And I hadn’t even taken a Valuum this time, as they forgot to give me one before the procedure.  The Prince apparently gave me a light punch in the arm, which did the trick.  Nice.

I’m back at the hotel now.  The Prince is gone and I am on my own for the next couple of days.  I’ve already sampled the room service and I really lucked out in picking this hotel…the room service was delicious!  I think I’m going to sleep now and dream happy dreams of two little babies growing in my belly.  I’ll write more tomorrow.  Have a Happy Hamish Day, everyone. 

Eggstatic!!!

Tuesday's Throne

This morning was the longest morning of my life…or at least as much of my life as I can remember.  I waited and waited and waited and waited for the donor coordinator to call me with the status update- how many eggs were collected from the 15-18 follicles, how many fertilized, etc.  She had said that she would call this morning with that update and I anticipated that she meant late morning.  But then, morning passed and the call never came.

So at 1:00 p.m., I decided to call her.  Her voicemail message said that she had gone home for the day and would be returning messages on Monday afternoon.  Seriously?!?  When my transfer would either be Monday or Tuesday!  So, I called the fertility center’s main line and spoke to the office operator and then a nurse who was able to find my chart.  This is how the conversation went:

Nurse: Okay…so your transfer has been scheduled already for 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday.

Me:     Okay…but do you have the numbers of eggs and how many fertilized?  I didn’t get any update today at all.

Nurse: Really?  Oh.  Sorry about that.  Let me see here….16 eggs, 14 were injected with your husband’s sperm and 12 fertilized.  So you have 12 embryos to work with for now and we’ll do the Day 5 transfer on Tuesday.

Me:     No.  I think that is the total number you are reading.  We did a split   cycle…sharing the eggs…and the donor only had 15 follicles, so that can’t be our numbers.  OH MY GOD!  Please tell me they didn’t accidentally fertilize ALL of the eggs with my husband’s sperm and forget to split them.

Nurse: One second…nope.  That is the split numbers.  Your donor did really well…over 30 eggs.

Me:     Are you really sure you have the right chart?

Nurse: Positive.  You have 12 so far…congratulations.  We’ll see you on Tuesday.

HOLY CRAP!!!  I am so excited and so scared that the phone is going to ring, telling me it was a mistake.  I guess the coordinator’s comment that “they don’t always count the follicles carefully during the scans” was a bit of an understatement.  (By the way…today pushed me over the edge.  Lots of you have recommended that I say something about the coordinator after this cycle is over and I really didn’t want to…but enough is enough.  Not calling me today, even though she looked at my chart long enough to schedule my transfer, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  But I’m setting my irritation aside for now so that I can just be ecstatic.)

I know that a lot can happen between now and Tuesday, but I have so much confidence that Tuesday…whether it results in a pregnancy or not…is not going to be a disappointing day in our journey…and that was something I was genuinely concerned about over the last week.  Instead, things went better than I ever could have expected…even with the donor’s usual response.  As Ants would say “I’m over the moon!” 

Thank you so much for all of your support, prayers, thoughts and good vibes.  I’ll check back in soon.  Right now, I have to go massage my face because I’m not used to smiling this big for this long, and it hurts. (Okay...so really I'm going to do a happy dance in the bathroom, but my face really does hurt).    



100 Miles Away...But There In Spirit

This morning, an amazing woman we’ve never met will go to the fertility center, sport the awesome “cap, gown and booties ensemble” that I know so well, and will have her eggs removed…eggs she is giving to us (and another couple).  It is strange to know that this is happening…this monumental step in what could be the beginning of my happily ever after…but I’m not going to be there.  I should be so grateful that the hard part is being done for me but, instead, I’m feeling really sad that it’s not me in that room today.  I want my legs up in the stirrups (never thought I would hear myself say that).  I want to be surrounded by beeping machines and a flurry of release waivers.  I want to feel the lovely “sleep” wash over me as the anesthesiologist pushes the magic plunger.  I want to be physically close to those eggs, sending them love and willing them to find a nice sperm, settle down and get married (or at least fertilized) right away.  I want to tell the immature eggs to grow up and act their age like their brothers and sisters…immediately!  I guess I just want to be important right now…and I feel like I’m not.  I’m removed from this situation, and that makes me sad.

With that said, I am also filled with a million (okay maybe not a million…but many) happy emotions, as well.  I feel pride that The Prince has made the trip on his own this morning and is determined to show me that he can handle the tasks at hand (there we go again with the mastrubation puns)…I just need to give him more credit and have a little faith in him.  I feel gratitude, more than ever, for everything our egg donor has endured over the last month and a half.  I am humbled by her beautiful, kind and generous spirit.  And I feel joy that this leg of the journey is almost over.

I get sick on roller coasters (great transition, right?  Very smooth. Stick with me, it's worth it).  In fact, I have always gotten sick on roller coasters, ferris wheels, carousels, and just about any other moving ride (including swings).  Despite this fact, I have continuously tried…and tried…and tried to ride these things, believing that I would have “outgrown” my stomach’s violent response to spinning motions.  I am always…always…always wrong, and there are many unhappy people who have been on these rides with me in the past that will tell you just how wrong I am.  I tell you this because there is a point during these rides when I am trying so hard not to embarrass myself by tossing my cookies that my mind becomes incredibly focused…and I "will" the conductor with all my heart to please stop the ride.  For a long time, it seems as though my telepathic pleas fall on deaf ears and then…the magical moment occurs and I realize that he is slowing the ride to a stop...that I only need to hold on for a little longer and I can get my feet back on the ground and try to feel like myself again.  That is the exact feeling I have right now – after what seems like an eternity of intense focus on a singular plea that no one was answering, relief that the ride is coming to a halt and I am going to be on solid ground very soon.

You know what I don’t feel this morning?  Worried.  Maybe I’m too emotionally exhausted, or maybe there is no room for another emotion in my heart right now.  For whatever reason, even though I know that there are a lot of things I have no control over which could still derail this whole cycle, I am not worried or anxious.  It’s out of my hands right now.  I’m just going to jump right past thinking about how many eggs are going to be retrieved and instead focus my hope on this morning’s “The Dating Game – Embryologist Style.”  As many of you ladies have said to me in the past…it only takes one good embryo to make a baby.  So eye on the prize. 

And, litle eggs, if you can hear me from over one hundred miles away, please heed my earlier advice and know that the prize for getting this one right is a nine month stay in a luxurious uterus (recently redecorated in a fluffy pink lining which won the prestigious “triple stripe award”), with meals of your choosing, spa treatments, live entertainment (there's a prince who's a real comedian...even when he's not trying to be one) and all the love you can handle included for free.  So try little ones…please try!  I may not be there with you this morning, but I love you already.  Please try.



Time For The Prince's Quest...

WARNING:  THIS PARTICULAR POST HAS LOTS OF DISCUSSION REGARDING THE MALE PORTION OF THE FERTILITY EQUATION, SO IF YOU ARE SPERMAPHOBIC, I WON’T BE OFFENDED IF YOU SKIP THIS ONE.

We FINALLY have our retrieval day scheduled!  The donor has 15-18 follicles that will be ready for retrieval tomorrow (Thursday).  I’ve developed a peace with the fact that the follicle numbers aren’t what I had hoped for…and I’ve immediately replaced my new-found peace with a new-found worry - can The Prince complete tomorrow's quest on his own?

The Prince’s “contribution” needs to be at the fertility clinic at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow.  Only, The Prince has to bring his sample in, as he can’t collect at the fertility center.  I’m sympathetic.  He has “performance anxiety” around me when under pressure, so I can see how being in a strange room, in a fertility center, knowing that hundreds of men use that room for only one purpose, could ruin the mood. 

The Prince and I (and our fertility team here at home) are used to our “home collection system.”  He makes love to a clean catch cup, and then I keep it warm from the time of collection to the time it gets to the clinic.  It can’t be jostled, and (most importantly) you have 15 minutes from collection to when it needs to be at the center.  The Prince will never take it to the center himself, as he gets embarrassed (which he promises won't be an issue tomorrow).  So, I end up taking it in for him (handing over a little cup of sperm is about the least embarrassing thing I go through each cycle).  I can’t tell you how many trips I’ve made to our fertility clinic (which is a little over 15 minutes away if driving at the speed limit), with a cup of swimmers tucked in my cleavage (the ultimate incubator), thinking about how I would explain the situation to a police officer if I were pulled over for speeding.

The plan was originally for The Prince and me to leave at 9:00 p.m. tonight, after he returned from teaching his night lecture, to embark on the two and a half hour drive to the hotel near the fertility center.  I was really hurt when he suggested that I sit out this trip and that he just go alone.  I already feel so removed from this situation.  I need to feel like I’m a part of the conception process to the extent possible.  But it has occurred to me that: (A) it makes no sense for me to spend 5 of 11 hours in a car, getting only a little sleep and missing a half day of work….which is what will happen if I go, and (B) my presence in the hotel room will likely have the same effect on The Prince as using the room at the fertility clinic.  The truth is, fertility treatments have taken a toll on our sex life that I just couldn’t have seen coming (bad choice of words, I know).  Even with the help of Viagara, The Prince equates sex with our unsuccessful baby-making efforts and the pressure is too much for him, so he doesn’t even want to try.  

I’m sad that The Prince will be taking on tomorrow's quest on his own, but I'm also nervous.  As I’m sure we’ve all been told the ideal is that our partners will have “exercised the demons” no more than 7 days before retrieval and no less than 4 days before retrieval.  I know that I haven’t been performing any exorcisms with The Prince during this time, so I have to hope that he’s been doing a solo act.  Only…I can’t ask because he specifically asked me not to.  Apparently, I make things much worse on him by micromanaging his physical end of things (who, me?).  I get it…I just also know that if I asked him today what the proper window was, he would have no clue.  He can’t be trusted to get this stuff right, as awful as that is to say.  It’s not his fault…it’s just who he is…details are my things not his.  But combine the need to be detail-oriented to the concept of masturbation, and you are asking for disaster.  So…The Prince's mastrubation timeframe is yet another thing I am just going to have to accept as being out of my hands (Dear God, will the awful puns never end?).

The Prince has another task tomorrow, too… a gesture that is SO important to me.  He needs to bring the donor’s gift, card and letter with him to the clinic.  I am terrified that The Prince is going to come back with that stuff sitting in his car, right where I will have packed it for him (so he doesn’t smoosh it into his suitcase).  My plan is to call him at 7:35, when “his deed” should be done (God forbid that I interrupt that…seriously) but he won’t be far away from the clinic, so he can turn around the car and bring the gift back to the clinic if necessary.  When I explained his task to him he said “What?  Do you think I’m incompetent?”  I said that I did not “but…” and then I listed off about six situations in the last month where he has forgotten to do something important and I had to call, or make an extra trip somewhere, to fix his oversight.  I hate to be a mother hen, and I try to pick my battles, but the truth is, I feel like pinching his cheeks and saying “My little man is headed into battle…good for you…,” as I pin a reminder note on his shirt.

I am just going to visualize all of this going smoothly…or me writing an update to you tomorrow about how amazing The Prince did and how my fears were baseless.  I am trying to have faith that when he really needs to, my prince can rise to the occasion (UGH!  It happened again…I'm stopping this post before it gets any worse).