IVF Series: 9

The nurse told me that I was going to take a little nap and Reuben (the Anesthesiologist) does a good job with that. I chuckled when she said that, but she was right…. And then I woke up and it was over.

The morning of the retrieval I woke up in a very peaceful mood. I remained that peace throughout the procedure. Brock and I kissed with our masks on (which was actually kinda cute) and he stayed with me until he was taken away. An older gentleman with frosty hair, very kind eyes, and a calm voice came and wheeled me away. He almost seemed like an angel. I don’t know how to explain it, but his demeanor was very peaceful. I went into the surgery room and the next thing I remember I woke up in a recovery room. It was almost as if he really was a dream because I never saw him again. The doctor came in and told me that they successfully retrieved 20 eggs! I was so happy I had tears of joy! 20! Wow! That was more than the 15 I was hoping for! I told her that was a very successful egg hunt and she agreed! I wasn’t in recovery long before I was released into the hands of Dr. Brock Luttenegger. He drove me home, got me all settled, gave me some soup, and let me rest. The rest of the day I slept on and off and had my puppies watching over me per usual. I had quite a bit of cramping and needed some ibuprofen to get through. Waking up the next morning I was feeling pretty good, a lot better than anticipated. My nurse did mention that I would have some severe bloating coming up in the next few days though. I thought, great, I already feel like a beached whale. That next morning I received a phone call from the Embryologist that out of the 20 eggs they retrieved that 13 of them matured. Out of those 13 mature eggs, 11 successfully fertilized meaning I now have 11 embryos. Those 11 embryos need to be monitored for 6 more days to ensure that they get to the blastocyst stage. This is the stage where they will be strong enough to be freezed and stored and then implanted at a further date. We may lose a few during this process. I hope we can get at least 5 to this stage. So now we wait. We wait for the successful cell division and for those little embryos to grow grow grow!

And for now,

Xoxo