Mothership

I took this week off of work, and with the exception of my boss/bff, everyone thinks I had an emergency appendectomy.  I'm totally in the closet at work, but in 10 weeks when I have real news to share I'll probably tell most of them the truth.  I knew that I would want this week to recover from the retrieval, (and boy was I right on that), but I also knew that I needed some down-time for myself. To be still. With my heparin and PIO shots being the only things with significant directive over my day.  And I'm grateful to inform you that I have accomplished just that.


I found quiet.


I found sunshine.


I found some long sought-after peace.


My week has been pretty fantastic and I'll likely share about it at a later date, but I've been getting all kinds of endearing harassment from a select few of you asking for an update. And I can't tell you how much that means to me - you know who you are. Part of me feels bad, because I assumed with having taken all this time off that I would be updating like crazy, but I've just spent a lot of time being a lazy bum and enjoying the sudden onset of gorgeous weather in the Bay Area.


Yes, we had our transfer yesterday morning. It went well. And wow, it was so much more emotional than I ever expected. The first part of our appointment was spent in Dr. 3's office, going over our embryo report. We have five little guys left:


1 Grade I - Blast, which by the time our actual transfer came, was a borderline Expanded Blastocyst
2 Grade II - Early Blastocyst
2 Grade III - Early Blastsocyst


At that point Dr. 3 talked to us about just how many we planned to transfer. He said aside from our one little rock star, based on the quality of all the rest of the blasts we might want to consider transferring three. This was something Brian and I have discussed but not really recently. And the weight of having to make a game day decision on this suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. Brian began to speak saying that he of course wants the best chances of us having an actual take-home baby but... Then he looked at me and I couldn't help but take the lead and ultimately say what felt like the last word. I want more than anything than to increase our chances of becoming parents BUT, I just can't imagine putting myself in the position to have triplets, nor do I want to be in the position to have to selectively reduce. I know ladies out there who've been in both situations; keeping High Order Multiples and Selectively Reducing - and you're incredible women. And I couldn't think more highly of you all - it's just not something I can willingly put myself in the middle of. So I turned to Brian with the most sincere open hearted stare looking for his approval, and he nodded. Then I looked at Dr. 3, and asked him to transfer the best two. Dr. 3 said if I were 38, and not 32 he would be pushing for three, but he thinks we made "a fine decision"... 


The discussion closed with some information about the rest of our embryo's. The lab will let them grow to day six to see where they end up. Best case scenario we get three frosties. But more likely is the case that we end up with one or none to freeze. That part part hurts. I had put quite a bit of faith in the fact that we would have frozen embies hanging out somewhere. We'll probably find out tomorrow what, if any made it.


Brian and I were taken to the very back and given gowns and hair nets. I got a Valium, while he got to keep his pants on. I laid down on the table and they prepped me for the transfer. Then a nurse brought in a folder with the picture of our little blasts. And I lost it. I wept softly, while Brian and I looked at each other and the picture with sheer awe and amazement. Dr. 3 came in with a huge smile and demanded to know if mine were tears of joy. Of course they were. We're here. We've made it so far. And I'm the closest to being pregnant that I've ever been. 


My beta is Sunday April 10th. 


I have no idea if I'll test before then.

We Have Embryo's...

I woke up this morning feeling only slightly better than yesterday. Which isn't saying much. My retrieval was scheduled at 11am, but Dr. 3 was running behind. They had arranged my procedure to be the last of the morning because I had the most follicles of their patients also scheduled for the day. 17-18 that they could see. They wheeled me back to the  - what is that? an OR? - Whatever the name, it was a little surreal, let's just say that. I proceeded to lay on the table in the padded stirrups for what felt like an eternity while the nurse babbled on about my husbands chosen profession. In reality it was only about 25 minutes, and I was long gone within about a minute and a half of Dr. 3 gracing us with his presence. Afterward they managed to wake me up just before transferring me from the table to a gurney and I could hear the doctor telling me it had taken less than 20 minutes and that I'd done very well. I remember asking how many eggs they got, but he said he wasn't sure yet. Still, I persisted "lots?"... "Did you get lots of eggs?" And I'm pretty sure I remember them laughing at me.


The next thing I knew I woke up crying in recovery and asking the nurse for Brian. She gave me a heating pad for my abdomen and shot of a pain killer in my IV.  I remember several people asking me why I was crying, and to tell you the truth I'm not sure I could narrow it down to one specific thing. I felt relieved that this part was over. I felt grateful to see my husband standing over me with concern. But I also felt violated by the fact that I even had to go to these lengths to achieve such a common human experience. Parenthood. And suddenly none of what I was doing there made any sense.  How do blood draws, and stabbing myself in the stomach repeatedly with fine gauge needles, and procedures that require general anesthetic, and lab technicians, and petrie dishes... how does all this lead to motherhood? It felt so unnatural. Unfair.


But maybe that was just the pain talking. Because my mood quickly elevated from there. They gave me a box of apple juice, and propped me up so that I could feel a little more normal. Shortly after that I felt decent enough to change back in to non-assless clothes, and before we knew it Dr. 3 came in to sit down with us. First he reviewed the follow up "NK Assay" blood panel they had taken earlier in the week. Great news: The Humira and Dexamethasone had done their jobs and all of my levels were normal. This meant that I wouldn't be required to do the ($700 per session) Intralipid infusion until after a positive pregnancy test. The plan they initially set for me required one at the retrieval, one after the transfer and then every few weeks after positive betas. Whew, deep breath. Then he told us they got 19 eggs. Nineteen... We were  thrilled. 


I spent the rest of the day in bed with my new best friend Mr. Heating Pad. Seriously, if you have a retrieval pending be sure to pick one of these bad boys up. Brian took great care of me, getting up and down, going back and forth with my every whim. Dr. 3 told us that we'd likely get a call by "lunch-time" today with our fertilization report, but they tortured us until a little after 1pm. Out of the 19 retrieved, 11 were mature, and 9 fertilized normally. That's an 82% fertilization rate. Which is pretty good. Which is why I feel like a total asshole for being a bit disappointed that we didn't have more mature eggs. But such is the life of a PCOS gal. We can produce quantity, but not always quality. Intellectually I know that nine embryo's is good.  And I will keep telling myself that. NINE IS GOOD. But my poor little infertile heart wanted more. More mature, more to choose from, more to freeze. I know we're lucky to have this many and to have even gotten this far, so I'm going to end it on that. Nine is good, and we're lucky.


I won't hear anymore about the status of our embies until Thursday, when we go in for our transfer.  Please keep our little ones in your thoughts until then. Thanks again for all of your support.