It's not a toomah

On November 14th, of 2016, we retrieved 8 eggs, with 5 of them becoming viable embryos that we could transfer to make a baby. It’s the old school thought process that you transfer 1 or 2 of those embryos exactly five days after the eggs are retrieved, then you freeze the rest. I say old school because studies now show that freezing & thawing rarely harms the embryos so it is better to let your body heal from the surgery and transfer them at a later date, known as a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET). 

We had an old-school doc, so he wanted to perform a fresh transfer those few short days after the surgery but something unexpected happened. During the process your fertility doc regularly monitors your hormones, all sorts of hormones that even I (a nurse) wasn’t familiar with. It turned out that my brain, specifically my hypothalamus, decided to unexpectedly start spewing out a ton of a hormone called prolactin. To combat the high level of that hormone some of my thyroid related hormones latched on to the prolactin, causing me to have secondary hypothyroidism. Hot. Freaking. Mess.

Despite all that, I wasn’t all that worried that we were going to do a FET instead of fresh transfer, because this would give me time to get my hormones right. What did make me go into batshit crazy mode was that after numerous weeks of unsuccessfully trying to regulate the hormone levels with meds, the doc felt confident there was a mass on my brain causing this issue.

“A brain tumor. That is all I could think of while waiting days to get in for an MRI. A. Fucking. Brain. Tumor.”

— Rose, losing her mind

Of course I assumed this is why god didn’t give us a baby, because I have a terminal brain tumor. My mind went in approximately 1,204,308 directions. Everywhere from “I’m sure it’s not a tumor” (in my Arnold voice) all the way to making my bucket list and wondering how I would pay for all my cockamamie must-dos.

Meanwhile, while I am thinking I am dying of a vicous life sucking brain tumor (dramatic much?), my husband was in South Carolina for a wedding sending me non-stop photos of delicious food and beach parties. Let’s just say when he returned he felt the wrath of a crazed woman and realized the error of his ways. If I am not having fun no one is having fun, and apparently it doesn’t matter if I told you I didn’t mind you going.

How I envision my look when my husband walked in the door from the airport.

Long story short, we didn’t transfer as expected because nothing in IVF goes as expected, I thought I had a brain tumor, I had an MRI, I confirmed I didn’t have a brain tumor, I forgave my husband for not being perfect, and we kept using meds to get my hormones right so I could transfer 2 of our 5 perfect little embryos.

Next up, our first (of many) FET.

Some of my non-existent brain tumor bucket list items, in no particular order:

• Walk the Great Wall of China

• Start a non-profit for rescuing dogs

• See the Northern Lights

• Hug my mom more   

• Climb Kilimanjaro

• Hike Patagonia

• Swim in the Dead Sea

• Write my niece & nephews letters of wisdom (likely not all that wise notes from Crazy Aunt Rose)

• Spend as much time as humanly possible with my wonderful husband, even though he refuses to miss a wedding or good time

• Spend time helping my favorite dog rescue in Thailand

• Visit little girls in school in India, helping build them u

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!