Friday, July 22nd - I got a call from the Reproductive Care Center at about 3:40. I had been waiting for this call ALL DAY! I was so worried that we wouldn't have any embryos to transfer. So she (Rachel) called me and I had to three-way call Nate, so he could hear the news. Guys, we have 4 embryos!! I can't even believe it!
She said that of the 11 eggs they retrieved, 6 were mature, and 4 fertilized! I know they are just embryos but those are possibly our future children! I've waited for 2 years to hear that news. So the plan is to freeze 2 embryos and do a fresh cycle with 2 embryos! This is happening on Sunday and I couldn't be more excited! By 12:15 pm on Sunday, I will officially be "pregnant".
I'm so grateful for so many things like that fact that my insurance covers infertility costs, and that both Nate and I have worked really hard to get to where we are. I feel one step closer to having our family started!
Sunday, July 24th - Today is the day! I woke up at 7:00 am because I couldn't sleep anymore. I'm feeling really anxious and excited about today. We are going to do 2 embryos in hopes that at least one is sticky! I hope it's as painful as an IUI, and nothing worse. These last couple days since the retrieval, I've taken it really easy because I've been super crampy. They have me taking progesterone suppositories (not fun) twice a day, so I have to wear a liner because I leak :( It's really uncomfortable, and if I get pregnant, I have to do them for like 12 weeks. But it will all be worth it if I get a baby from it!
So... we got there at 11:45 and the nurse talked to us about the procedure. Dr. Swelstad also came in to talk to us. He told us that we had 4 viable embryos and one that was not growing as fast as the others and would probably be discarded. Of the 4 embryos, 2 were in the "excellent" category (this is the example embryo that all other embryos should look like, 8 cells and everything), 1 in the "good" category (8 cells still, but a some anomalies), and 1 in the "fair"category (only 6 cells). We decided to do one "excellent" and one "fair" and freeze the other two for the next time. Here is a picture of our two potential kids!!
embryo pics
To get a little technical with you: I have a high FSH (16) and low AMH (.9) which translates to my eggs feel like they are 35 instead of my actual age. With the egg quality so terrible, it was hard to see if anything would really work, hence the 5% chance we would be able to have kids.
When one does IVF, the doctors usually like to grow the embryos to day 5 before the transfer. So after we did the 3-day transfer and when my wandering fingers went to google, I started to get really worried that we didn't wait long enough for them to grow and that our percentage that the embryos would work was even smaller. I called my nurse Jeanette and asked her about this. She told me a couple things: 1. It is not very common for there to be an excellent quality embryo. She said they tell patients that it rarely happens, but not to expect it, and we got 2 of them!! 2. The reason they did the 3 day transfer, was because they wanted to have something to transfer. Due to my high FSH levels, they were worried that if they let the embryos grow to day 5, none of them would make it and we would have nothing. So that's what we did. We froze the other two 3-day embryos and hoped we don't have to use them for a while.
We didn't tell anyone that we were doing the transfer today. We told our family that my progesterone level was higher than normal (which is true) and that we wanted to wait a cycle for my levels to be normal. So we would have to wait another cycle before we could freeze any. So, if this works, it will kind of be a surprise for them!
The Embryo Transfer:
I took 1 of the 2 Valium pills to help my uterus relax (which is better for the procedure I guess) and got dressed in my awesome scrubbies! Nate was in the room too, so he needed to have his outfit too.
I have had several inseminations before so I kinda knew what kind of pain to expect. He put in the speculum, and flushed out my area with a special liquid. Then the nurse knocked on the embryologist's door to tell her he was ready. She then turned on the giant TV to my left and showed us the petri dish with our two embryos in it! She (Sasha) then took a catheter, stuck it in the petri dish, and we watched the two embryos get sucked up in the culture medium.
She then handed the catheter to the doctor who then put the embryos where they needed to be, and released them. This was all done through ultrasound, but my uterus is tipped and my left ovary was casting a shadow, so we couldn't actually see the release of the embryos :( (STUPID OVARY!) After that, we stayed in the room for a little while, got dressed, and went home.
My blood draw to see if I'm pregnant is Aug 5th (SO LONG AWAYYY!), so if I am, we are going to California that next week and we can surprise my in-laws! I'm really excited, but super scared that it might not work and we'll have to go through this ALL over again...
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