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.

TRIGGER DAY + Egg Retrieval tomorrow.

Yesterday, at my LAST monitoring appt, the Dr. gave us the go ahead to trigger tonight.

Triggering is a shot of either Lupron or HCG that signals the ovaries to release the eggs from the walls of the follicles so that they can be aspirated via needle and then (hopefully) taken to be fertilized.

In order to use HCG (the trigger that results in most successful fresh embryo tranferes) is tricky business. It's like fuel to the fire of Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome, where your over-stimulated and englarged ovaries can't quite slow down and just start dumping fluid into your stomach and chest cavity. Read: Extremely painful, very dangerous, and sometimes requires multiple surgeries to drain your body of the fluid.

Obviously, the goal is to avoid that at all costs, so they only do the HCG trigger if your E2 levels are low enough to add the HCG safely.

Long story short, my levels were low enough that we could use the HCG trigger. This is administered through either an intramuscular or subcutaneous injection - our RE prefers subcutaneous, so we mixed up the prescribed dosage and injected at the EXACT time.

The timing on the trigger must be exact - if you go too early, when they go in for retrieval they may have missed the window and you may have already ovulated. If you do it too late, the eggs may still be stuck to the wall of the follicles. The magic window is 35 hours from trigger. Since we're retrieving at 9:30 AM tomorrow, the time for trigger was 10:30 last night. You'd better believe I pulled the needle out at 10:30 on the dot.

FUN FACT: In order to make sure that the trigger was successful, you must take a home pregnancy test and get a positive result. As a long-time pregnancy test taker (I have wasted hundreds of dollars on pregnancy tests) I knew exactly which kind to take to make sure that even if the HCG levels were minimal, it would still pick up.

Lo and behold, at 8:30 this morning I had a pregnancy test as positive as they come. I took a picture and sent it to Jeff so he could see. And then a few hours later I took another just to make sure the HCG was still there.

We're golden,

Tomorrow is egg retrieval, which consists of two of my worst nightmares: anesthesia and giant needles up where the sun don't shine. Good news, these guys are pros and have done it hundreds of times before.

If all goes WELL, we will get several mature eggs, several of those eggs will be fertilized, and then we will get to 5 day blastocyst phase and be able to transfer 1-2 perfect little embryos.

Up to this point, I have to say, we have been extremely blessed. This treatment cycle could not have gone smoother, the appointments were easy, quick, and painless, scheduling has been a non-issue, and I haven't felt truly crazy once. This has been emotional cake compared to previous treatment months on lesser doses of medication and I know that Heavenly Father's been looking out for and helping me through this.

I will probably not be updating tomorrow since I plan on sleeping the day away in a pain pill induced haze. Any prayers would be appreciated - I can't believe we are six days away from finishing this IVF cycle.... if all goes WELL.

Stimming makes you Fat.

I'm 100% sure that over the 1-2 weeks I will have been stimming I will have added weight. I am 2 things, most frequently at the same time: a stress eater, and a stress exerciser. 

Know what's funny about IVF? You only get to be an eater.

Actually, at the class, the nurse said - "Good news - you don't have to be sedentary! A light walk and some yoga is fine."

What is yoga? Why do people do yoga? Yoga does not "relax" me. Well maybe it does. The class I went to a few times was pretty great but I'm not disciplined or experienced enough to do it solo. The whole time I awkwardly flail and stretch my limbs out in weird directions and just wonder inwardly, "Does this look right? Would the namaste lady move my right elbow here? Huh. Does it feel good? No - I think that means I'm doing it right - yoga isn't supposed to feel good right?"

This is why I can't do yoga.

When I'm stressed, I want to go run. Outside. With loud music. For about an hour. That's what I like.

BUT double whammy.

1) My ovaries are getting GIANT. Like I can feel them twinging when I sit. I can feel them twingy when I stand. I can feel them twingy when I walk. The really fun part is when I remind myself we're only about 1 week into a 2 week stim cycle and then I feel my blood pressure go up a teensy because twingy turns into please-don't-make-me-walk-they're-going-to-fall-out.
2) February in Utah means inversion and quite literally the worst air quality in the nation. I promise I'm not fabricating this, just look it up. All this to say that you can not go outside unless you want to die of black lung. I will be staying inside and NOT going for "light walks" until the inversion decides to lift.

Back to my original point - stimming makes you fat.

Besides bloating from the medication which is SUPER real and SUPER uncomfortable (thanks Jeff for the cute yoga pants because I will be living in this for the next two weeks because NONE of my jeans can button) I am semi stressed and hungry but full at the same time. Nothing tastes good except chocolate (if either of my sister in laws are reading this I am 100% off the no sweets bandwagon).

So I'm eating chocolate. I have this cute mental game where I can convince myself if I do a bunch of squats and stuff it will somehow cancel out all of the food I'm eating (because oh yeah remember I CAN'T EXERCISE).

Why no exercise, you ask? Ovarian torsion. Ovarian torsion occurs when your giant baseball ovaries twist and explode because they are giant and you moved to fast.

So I'll just be over here stuffing my sedentary (except for squatting because duh) face and getting fat.

First monitoring appt

We had our first monitoring appt yesterday.

Tangent: I don't know why I say "We". "We" did not go to the doctor. I went to the doctor. "We" did not get half naked or get "our" blood drawn. I got half naked and got my blood drawn. I think I say "we" because "we" wrote the check, "we" both have issues, "we" are on this venture together. I think that's why.

All is well! Ovaries look great (wait, it's possible that someone doesn't care about what my ovaries look like? Whatever, dudes. Peace out.), blood levels were great, and we should be okay to start shots tonight.

I did get my super cute bandaids - they're Mater from Cars.

Here's my Instagram picture announcing to the Instagram community that we have the okay to proceed.

Hey there, double chin. So glad you could join the party BEFORE I get pregnant and fat. That was super kind.

Also, neck lines. Can you guys take a minute and look at my neck lines? I've had them since I was 17 and they are just getting worse. I'm going to legit look like a prune by the time I turn 30 and obviously it's not 'cause I'm in to tanning.

Do those socks make me look not naked? The doctor loved them. "You're already full of personality!"
Ha. I'm full of something but I don't know if it's that.

Shots shot and more shots.

Our stimming meds have arrived!

Seeing this box on the doorstep felt like Christmas. I've never been so excited to open a box before and I already knew what was in this one.

The picture below contains a total of (5) boxes of Gonal-F (stimming medication), (4) boxes Cetrotide (antagonist - anti-ovulatory), (1) vial low-dose HCG (stimming medication), (1) vial HGC trigger shot, and (1) vial Progestone-in-oil (the butt shot).

And the needles, sharps container, alcohol prep pads, etc. Not pictured: the cute bandaids and comfy sweats I will be purchasing this week. If I have to get bloated and fat and uncomfortable, I will do it in style.

 

In the thick of things, there will be 3 shots per day.

Bring it o.

 

DocuSigning Their Lives Away

This morning, I got an email with a DocuSign packet about 30 pages long.

You know, the usual:

• Yes, I know what IVF is
• Yes, I know what you're going to do to me
• Yes, I know that it might not work
• Yes, I'm aware of alllll of the reasons it might not work
• Yes, I know there might be multiples
• Yes, I know progesterone-in-oil must go in the butt.
• Yes, I know there are risks
• No, we don't want genetic testing
• Yes, we want to freeze remaining embryos
• In the event of one or both our deaths, the embryos will go to.... wait. What?

Yes. There is a section where you decide what will happen to your embryos in the event of:

• One or both our deaths or incapacitation
• Separation or Divorce
• Not using all available embryos
• Change in Wife's physical condition which will render her incapable of carrying a pregnancy to term
• Breech of contract

I was just initialing my whole way through there until I got to that part. There's all kinds of things you can to do your embryos - transfer "custody" of embryos to a third party agent, transfer custody to a needful married couple, transfer custody for disposal, transfer custody to medical research, or grant sole custody to one or the other.

We're talking about itty bitty blastocyst babies here.

I promptly text Jeff and said, "Uh, hey, this is kinda heavy I think Imma wait til you get home tonight, mkay?"

Yep. Just signing the lives away of our yet-uncreated children.

That's a weird thought.

Hallmark Behaviors of an Infertile Myrtle

Today we went into the doctor to do our infections disease blood tests (don't worry guys, standard operating procedure for every patient. Lets them know if any extra precautions need to be taken and, if there were any present, would require a slightly more cautious method of cry-storage of all remaining embryos.).

After both of us getting a few vials drawn, we went to meet with the accounting lady and sign the biggest check we've ever written.

The strangest thing happened - I didn't even blink writing that check (or the separate check for the anesthesiologist). I'm just so. stinking. excited. to be making progress. A little scared too, maybe, but mostly really excited.

It got me thinking - infertile chicks are weird. We do some weird stuff. We have some weird behaviors and thinking patterns. So if you know one, or you are one, take a minute to appreciate this:


HALLMARK BEHAVIORS OF INFERTILE FEMALES:

• You have bought enough pregnancy tests in your life to stock a Walgreens for the duration of its useful life
• You knew none of them would be positive

• You could host a medically accurate seminar on reproductive function, lack thereof, and appropriate medical intervention for any number of issues- without spending a day of your life in medical school.
• When dropping your pants for a stranger was once traumatic, now you can't get your panties off fast enough.
•  You have developed a coping behavior so distracting you don't even notice when they finish drawing your blood (thank you, Insta).
• Oversharing? What's that? 
• You acquire the unique ability to guess who among your friends and associates is within days of announcing a pregnancy.
• You pay more money for fertility treatment than you've paid for a home, a vehicle, or any other typical life expense and you don't even care.