More on Yesterday

Thank you to all of you for your support, especially on my last couple of posts -- I cannot express to you how grateful I am for your words of love, encouragement and advice.

As I mentioned last night, egg retrieval went very smoothly.  I spent the morning relaxing and we arrived at the clinic at 9:45.  I got to change into the lovely gown, footies (I was wearing the heart socks sent to me by one of my Braces Bunch friends), and hair cover (why are those gowns so darn big?).  I sat down in the recliner with hubby next to me and the IV was started.  Did I mention my favorite nurse was my nurse?  Katie's simply awesome!   She also went over the details of what we need to do between retrieval and transfer on Wednesday.  My clinic only does 5 day transfers.

I asked if I could take my headphones back to the retrieval room with me and was told yes (I was expecting to not be able to).  At this point we were just waiting for Dr. C to show up.  He showed up a few minutes after 10 and came in to see if we had any questions.  We didn't and I said 'Let's do this.'   He said "Just give me 2 good eggs to work with -- the rest is gravy."  Katie gave me some of the relaxation drugs and she and another nurse walked me back to the retrieval room.  

I laid down on the table and they immediately started covering me with blankets -- including wrapping each of my legs in separate blankets which I thanked them for in my drugged up state.  They spent some time cleansing my lady parts, asking me to lift my butt up and down and scooting down further.  Katie told me there were about to start and told me to let her know if I wanted more drugs at any point. I think something was said about exfoliation which frightened me a little bit.  Before I knew it wandy was put in and I was feeling the extraction, which was quite unpleasant.  So I asked Katie for some more of those drugs and that is the last thing I remember.  

I woke up around 11:30, laid back in the recliner in the recovery room.  I'm  embarrassed to say I woke myself up snoring!  Luckily we were the only retrieval yesterday morning. Hubby and Katie were there and Katie told me we got 8 eggs, which she said was great.  I asked how I had gotten back to the chair from the retrieval room and was told I had walked.  Um yeah, don't remember that at all!  Hopefully I didn't say anything too incriminating during this time!  Katie asked me about pain -- I had none really and then took out my iv.  

Hubby came into the bathroom with me to help me get changed and Katie marked 4 lovely spots on my tush for the progesterone shots, which start  tonight.  We headed home, getting some food on the way, and then I made my home on the couch, where I slept off and on until about 4:00.  

Yesterday and today I have felt pretty bloated and sore.  Not really crampy, but can definitely feel that there was trauma in that area.  Some light bleeding yesterday, but that has ended.  Today I'm taking it easy again. Tomorrow I am getting together with my best friend which will be awesome!

While I was initially disappointed about the 8 eggs, I am choosing to look at it very positively.  Given the news of my AMH and FSH earlier this year (AMH was under 1 and FSH was over 10), and my advanced maternal age (I hate that phrase) I felt like the clinic was sort of writing me off on producing much of anything.  I'm no longer a spring chicken ya know!

I went into this fully aware that the whole process could be canceled at anytime -- if I wasn't making any eggs, if fertilization didn't occur, etc -- and I feel extremely blessed to be this far with eight lovely eggs that may turn into my rainbow baby. While some might consider me a pessimist, I really feel that I am an realist and like to be prepared for the best and worse case scenarios. I will not take any part of this process for granted.  I'm trying to not Dr. Google too much. 

So now we wait until Wednesday for transfer.  Please continue to send your good thoughts and prayers for growth of the embryos!