Well, my fear of having no eggs in the follicles was put to rest yesterday. Deb and I set off for the U of Iowa hospital at 6:30am for the big retrieval. We arrived and were greeted by an awesome nurse, Mary and after some paperwork, an IV was put in and I was ready for the retrieval team. Our anesthesiologist (Dr. Funny) was quite a comedian. He asked some questions and then came over to begin putting the IV in. Apparently my vein immediately popped out when I made a fist so he thought it would be funny to offer Deb the opportunity to put it in. WHAT!!! I'm certain my heart rate went through the roof as she excitedly leaned forward to take the needle. Ha ha ha they laughed and of course Deb sat back and he proceeded to put the IV in. Don't get me wrong, Deb is awesome at giving shots but her shoving a monster needle into my vein is not my idea of fun.
Next came the egg collector, I'm sure Dr. Durand has a more technical title but we'll go with this one today. They wheeled me back to a very cold surgery room where I met more comedians. Seriously, you must have to have had a shot on Last Comic Standing to work with IVF. I was then up on the table, my legs were put up into stirrups, a heated blanket was put on me and Dr. Funny started telling jokes while the egg collector sang "Rumor has it". Not kidding! The nurses joined him and I thought what on earth am I doing here. Thankfully, our awesome nurse, Mary, chatted with me a bit more and before I knew it, I was in the recovery room with Dr. Funny yelling at me to wake up. After a very groggy twenty minutes, apparently my eyes kept rolling in a ton of directions, the egg collector came in to tell us that everything had gone really well. He had a bit of trouble getting to my left ovary, surprise, surprise, I've had very painful ultrasounds in the past as they tried to find my elusive left ovary. After draining all of my follicles, the egg collector ended up with 21 great eggs. Wahoo! The eggs were sent to the lab where they were introduced to the swimmers about 4 hours later and I stayed in recovery. After about 4 hours, I was released.
With an ice cream bucket on my lap we drove home to Dubuque and I snoozed on and off feeling every bump in the road in my ovaries. I was so happy to pull into my parent's driveway where I would be on bedrest for a day or two. The first day home, I was very sore and achy. Walking back and forth to the bathroom was enough excitement for me. My nurse, AKA: Nana, was wonderful keeping track of all of the different meds and times. Deb and Addie came up to visit which made the day much, much better. Deb also got to give me another shot. This one was progesterone in oil and I will get this every day for the next 2 weeks and if we get a positive pregancy test then these will continue for up to 12 weeks dependent on my blood levels. After hearing horror stories about how painful these shots were, I was quite nervous. Honestly though, it wasn't the worst. It was certainly painful and having Deb rub the spot after the shot to help the oil disperse wasn't very fun but overall, I think i'll be able to handle these. Ask me again in a week when both of my hips are bruised and sore though. :-)
So here we are on day two waiting for 2pm to roll around when we can call the Patient Info Line to find out how our eggs are doing and how many fertilized. We'll also find out when the transfer day will be, either Monday or Wednesday. That's the crappy thing about infertility, you are always waiting, holding your breath, and hoping that it worked. I've spent most of the day in bed, aside from a trip to the front porch to cheer on the Grandview Gallopers and watch Addie run through the sprinkler. Very fun but very tiring. I'm very crampy, constipated (shout out to my girl, Alicia, I now know how you felt :-)) and bloated. Thanks to a shot of Milk of Magnesia, disgusting, things are starting to work again. The rest of the day will be spent in bed as my stomach is starting to hurt again and we are trying very hard to curb Ovarian Hyperstimulation: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/ovarian-hyperstimulation-syndrome-ohss/DS01097
Avoiding water and drinking gatorade, eating protein and resting seems to be helping so far but we won't be out of the woods until after the pregnancy test and even then it can develop. The crappy thing about OHSS is that it can keep us from doing a fresh embryo transfer and it can also develop once we're pregnant so this could be an interesting next couple of weeks. The short of it is that the egg collector took all of those eggs out of my ovaries that were swollen 5 times the regular size which left two open "balloons" that my body thinks should fill with fluid. Because they fill fast, my body can't reabsorb them fast enough and the fluid leaks into my abdomen. Neat, huh?! We're being optimistic and very careful to keep it from happening beyond the mild hyperstimulation that I have.
Here's to a great egg retrieval and 21 little embryos growing! :-)
Cheers,
Mic
No comments:
Post a Comment