2/18/16: An Egg Retrieval Story

Yesterday, we had our egg retrieval - this was the culmination of the stimming shots on my end and the procedure to harvest all those eggs.

Since Jeff had to work, my mom picked me up at 8:20 and we headed to the office for our 9:00 appointment and Jeff met us there at the same time. They took us back, explained how to do the progesterone in oil shots, post-op recovery, and then Jeff was sent to collect and I went to dress for the procedure.

I would like to (somewhat proudly) say that I have not cried or been emotional throughout this whole month of treatment. Not once. However, once I laid down on the operating table and the anesthesiologist came in I lost it.

"WHO ARE YOU?" I asked him. He was NOT my doctor.

"I'm ____. I'm the guy who's putting you to sleep!"

"Oh." I just sat there and looked at him. I was too nervous to do anything else.

"So... if you'll just lay down and let me borrow a vein, we'll get rocking!" He was nice despite the less-than-warm welcome.

I laid down and awkwardly stuck out an arm, making sure not to make eye contact mostly because I was streaming tears at this point. He asked my age, my weight, and went to work. "Those are tears of joy, right?"

"Yeah." I was sobbing.

"Because you're so happy the IV is done?"

"Yeah." Sobbing harder.

Then, my knight in shining armor walked into the room and I was shocked, mostly because we had originally planned for him to go straight back to work so he wouldn't have to stay too late to make up time. He came in, held my hand for a minute, and said "I'll be here when you wake up," gave me a kiss, and then left to go wait.

By the way, still crying like a schoolgirl.

The nurse walked in and said, "Aw, honey, I know! It's so emotional!"

That was just not the right thing to say. "I'm NOT emotional, I'm scared of THIS!" and dramatically gestured to the IV. It clicked that I had started talking really loudly and I flopped my head over to the anesthesiologist. "There's something in there, huh.....?"

"Yeeeep."

And it all went dark.

I don't remember much about waking up but I did ask Jeff to take a selfie so we could show our kids how happy we were on the day they were made.

I look like I'm in pain but I'm flying pretty high and literally could not open my eyes. This will always be one of my favorite pictures of us because it was such an important milestone. I had so many fears up to this point - cancellation of cycle, like both of our IUIs, TOO many eggs, not ENOUGH eggs, we'd miss the retrieval window, I hadn't done the trigger shot right, etc. etc. etc. The nurse had it right, the whole process is emotional. And I'm proud to announce that we got 17 eggs!

 We're so grateful that my mom took the day off work and took me home to make sure I was okay. I got star treatment, including french fries on the way home and a 3 hour nap in a dark room. It was nice not to have to be alone and to know if something went wrong my mom would know what to do. Thanks, mom :).

This morning, we will get the call letting us know how many fertilized and how they are doing. Please, please, please pray for us that all is going well.

It's interesting. I'm not a mom, I'm not pregnant, but I know that our future children are just starting their journey in a lab and I think about them every other minute, hoping that they're going to be healthy, hoping that they're receiving good care (of that I have no doubt), hoping that we can meet them one day. Hoping and praying.

Things we're grateful for: a mom that was with us to help ALL DAY yesterday (I mean, how many grandmas get to say they were there when their grandkids were conceived? My mom. My mom can.), the awesome care from our Dr. and his team, how well everything has gone so far.