I know I have been a slacker on my blog. But I have a really good excuse, I was in a lot of pain after retrieval and Progesterone is the devil. I have been angry, moody, depressed, indecisive, impatient and all around difficult to be with. I haven’t even liked being around myself lately. Here’s an update of the past few days:
August 29th: I was able to go back to work because I finally felt decent enough. Mary Kathryn called around 2 to update that all of our embryos were looking good still. She gave me cell counts and all seemed to be trucking along just fine. We had a few overachievers and a few slackers but overall she was pleased with them. By the time I got home from working all day I was so tired and in a lot of pain. I think I went to bed fairly early and slept almost 12 hours!
August 30th: It was time to suck it up, clean the house and get everything ready for being on bed rest. I wanted everything ready so that Josh didn’t have to do more work than he’ll already have taking care of two dogs and a bitchy wife. I also didn’t want to have tons of housework waiting for me when I got off bed rest either. Later that evening, we went to my father-in-law’s and watched the OU game and I started feeling really bad again by the time we left so all I had energy to do was to get ready for bed. Oh and my nurse NEVER called to update us on our embryos. I had Josh call because I was afraid I’d cuss her out. If it was just one time it would be forgiven. But I am a woman pumped up on hormones and she is continuing this pattern of not doing what she says she is going to do. I’m. sick. of. it! Well she didn’t answer (big freakin surprise) and Josh left her a very nice message. This is also the same night that I told Josh I didn’t want to go any further with IVF. All of the sudden I felt careless about everything. I got to see Josh have so much fun with his family and I became very envious of him and everyone else. I was in pain and I was just sick and tired of being the one who has to sacrifice everything. I wanted just one thing to be easy for me, physically and emotionally.
August 31st: I went to see a friend of mine who was recently out of surgery. Talking to her about it all made me feel a whole lot better. I had a lot of worries that we wouldn’t be good parents and that I would be the only one who sacrificed anything. I was worried I would always have to be the responsible one while the husband went and played video games, watched football and/or drank beer. But she reminded me that Josh has sacrificed a lot and that if he can be awesome through infertility and IVF then he will be a great Dad. So thanks Lish for setting me straight! I came home and got ready for transfer to the next day. I washed, cleaned out and filled up Josh’s car so we would all be prepared and more comfortable over the next couple of days while we were in it. We went grocery shopping and got all of the essentials we would need for the next week. I prepared some food so that Josh didn’t have to cook so much. Oh and I got a very vague text from my nurse saying she had bad service where she was but that all embryos are alive and well. I tried to shake off the fact that she still didn’t call and I didn’t get to ask any of my questions. But it was hard not to imagine her on a boat at a lake somewhere, not at all caring about how her patients are doing. But to try to ease some nerves and have some fun we went out to dinner at Cheddar’s to celebrate everything!
September 1st: Up at 5:30am and shower (since I won’t be able to for a few days), finish packing and get the dogs rounded up for our road trip! We checked into our hotel and dropped off the dogs before getting to Integris at 9:45 on the dot! I was nervous and really worried since we hadn’t heard anything specific about our embryos. I was hoping we would at least have two to transfer today. We had to wait a while due to there being so many transfers scheduled for that day. First we met Dr. Eli Reshef, the medical director at Bennett Fertility Clinic. He said he would be doing our transfer today and seemed nice enough. We still had no indication of what kind of embryos we’d be working with but he suggested with my age that we transfer 2, max. When the embryologist came in she confirmed my name and date of birth and handed us a picture of two embryos. She said they are both blastocysts and looked good to transfer. She graded them both a D due to them not being old enough yet. She added that we were the last retrieval of the day and she didn’t ICSI them until about 4:45pm. This meant that they weren’t quite 5 days old yet but that in a few more hours she would grade them an A or a B. She acted annoyed when I said I didn’t understand the grading system and gave me some snippity explanation about them being graded A-F on a bell curve and that ours are right in the middle where they need to be. I had to ask about percentages and she quickly mumbled “51% for live birth and 30 something % for twins). Sorry she talked to fast and mumbled I didn’t hear if it was 31 or 39%. I was afraid to ask because she wasn’t very pleasant. We had to sign that we were okay with 2 being transferred and we were whisked away to the back. I did get a chance after transfer to ask the embryologist what happened to the rest of our embryos. She said one arrested yesterday at 10 cells and they discarded it. She said the other 7 are still growing but haven’t made it to a stage where they can freeze them yet. She said they will look at them again tomorrow. The rest happened so fast I can’t remember many details. Once we got into the operating room one of the nurses explained the whole process to us. Then when Dr. Reshef came in he explained it all again. And he also explained every step as he was doing it. I only felt mild discomfort. They kept me on the hospital bed the whole time, I didn’t have to put my feet into stirrups and I got to be under blankets the whole time so yay!
Here is a brief understanding that I have of how the process goes: First, the speculum is put in, then he washes out the cervix with water and dries it with gauze. I think he did this two times. Then, he inserts a catheter through the cervix into the uterus (I could feel it but it wasn’t painful). Then they get the embryologist to bring out our embryos in another catheter. He then inserts that smaller catheter into the one that’s already there and drops them into the uterus. Then the embryologist takes the catheter to the microscope to make sure the embryos were no longer in there. She then said “All Clear!” and we were good to go. The doctor said that the transfer went very well. Then they wheel you out and you sit for an hour on our back with your knees up and touching. We had a funny moment, I hadn’t unfolded the blanket that was on my completely to when I had my knees up I wasn’t completely covered by it. I tried to fix it but Dr. Reshef grabbed it from me and said “You’re paying me a lot for this, you might as well get your moneys worth” and unfolded it for me. He also told us 2-3 different times that my embryos would be implanting in the uterus by the time we left in an hour so that I shouldn’t worry about them falling out and that nothing I did in the next few days would change the outcome. So I asked why we have to be on 48 hours bed rest then? He basically said that it can’t hurt. It can emotionally hurt me! It’s torturous I tell you! They put two embryos in you after beating up your insides 5 days before, your butt is sensitive from progesterone shots and they say to lie completely flat for the first 24 hours. Ouch! When I’m crampy I want to move! I was really grumpy for half the day yesterday and I didn’t want to do anything.
September 2nd: I slept for a long time this morning and we didn’t leave the hotel until about 11:45. We are finally home and I am very happy! I finally got motivation to update the blog. I still don’t know what to feel. I still haven’t processed everything that’s happened. I have felt a pulling sensation in my stomach and sides all morning. It’s a weird feeling I’ve never had before. It feels like when I stretch my legs when they are sore, except it’s on my stomach. I’m still just very tired. Now we play the waiting game again! I’m sure I will go more crazy over the next few days but right now I’m just exhausted!
Best wishes,
Kacy
First Comes Love 