Stop. Retrieval Time
Now that we’ve covered how ridiculously large my belly was during the creation of what felt like 42 dozen eggs, let’s talk about what came next… the egg retrieval.
The days prior I had to constantly stop in to the clinic to have an ultrasound to make sure I was progressing, and I continued to inject myself in the morning and evening. The last injection is the “Trigger” shot, which is timed to the exact minute based on the time of your surgery. I’m sure it does some magical shit, like send your ovaries a singing telegram to release the army of eggs, but to be honest I am not quite sure what it does and I’m too tired right now to google it.
I got up in the middle of the night, something like 12:42am, and took my trigger. Then we waited the 36 hours to have the surgery, which was a complete mind fudge. I spent the next 36 hours thinking everything I did would impact the outcome of the egg retrieval. As I sat eating my greasy spoon diner pancakes I wondered if the sugar would somehow tarnish my eggs. Would the smoke I inhaled by walking behind the guy on the street ruin everything.
So I did what any sane person would do, I went home and googled all the ridiculous stuff I should have been doing all along. Let me tell you, us infertile ladies are batshit crazy with the IVF old wives tales. Some of the things these chicks sweared by was eating pineapple core, chugging pomegranate everything, McDonalds french fries on the way home, wearing crazy socks, bathing in cat piss, and hanging upside down while showering. Ok, maybe not the last two, but there were some doozies. I had to step out of the crazy zone and stop reading what everyone else was doing. If these eggs didn’t like pancakes, then I don’t want anything to do with them!
So the morning of November 14th, 2016 my husband and I stepped foot in our clinic hopeful that this surgery would provide us with a load of eggs that would we could use to build a loving beautiful family. We truly both thought this was going to be one of the most pivotal moments of our life. The surgery went well.. at least I think it did because they knock you out with an IV sedative, Now I totally get why Michael Jackson loved the same medication; a truck full of Ambien couldn’t give you sleep that good!
I look fab in blue!
What we didn’t know is that the days following would be full of nail biting emails with our egg/embryo count getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
11/14: Retrieved 8 eggs via surgery
11/15: Given update that 6 were able to undergo ICSI (assisted insemination)
11/17: Email saying all eggs fertilized, and 3 were moving along as expected
11/19: Email saying 5 embryos continued to grow, but moving slowly
11/20: All 5 were frozen
We started with 8 eggs and ended with 5 embryos, not too shabby but still a roller coaster. Many, and I really mean MANY, women I know started with double digits in eggs and ended up with just a couple good embryos, so we were riding high on our numbers.
Powers, party of seven!