My Egg Retrieval and Embryo Status

My egg retrieval was Wednesday, September 30th.

I've done this before so I wasn't scared or nervous. I did have a little trouble sleeping the night before, just because I felt a bit anxious and excited. In fact, I had a dream that we were in the mall and some bad guys were holding the whole mall hostage. I was scared at first and then I was mad that they were making me wait around. Finally, I threw my hands up in the air and said, "Ya know what, I have an egg retrieval to go to and it's imperative that I be there on time. I'm outta here." So I risked my life and walked right out. I wasn't going to miss my appointment and lose these eggs!

Thankfully, we had no such hold up in real life. We got to the clinic on time and I went in to have a consult with the doctor that would be performing the surgery, a doctor who I hadn't even met before. I thought my own doctor would be available to do it but I guess not. It really didn't matter since I'd be asleep anyway!

He was actually a very nice doctor and was trying to accommodate me in getting some footage of my egg retrieval. We had planned for Nick to take some footage so I could share that with all of you (not any footage of my sleeping body, mind you, but of the ultrasound screen), but the doctor was telling me that some policies would not allow my husband to be in there. We arranged for one of the nurses to take my camera and do the footage herself, which was fine with me.

I got dressed in my beautiful hospital gown and went into the operating room. The nurses and anesthesiologist were there. I think the anesthesiologist didn't waste any time pumping his sleepy juice into me because I swear the lights on the ceiling were moving around the moment he got me hooked up to his IV. I'm thinking, "Sheesh, dude, lemme get situated first!"

The embryologist came in to talk to me. I've actually never met anyone who handles the embryos. I said, "Wow, hello, you have the most amazing job!" She asked me to verify some information and to confirm that we are doing ICSI, which is short for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Basically, instead of putting the sperm and the embryos in the same little dish together, they actually pick out the best looking sperm and inject it into the egg. Pretty crazy, right? I said yes to the ICSI (pronounced ick-see), and told her not to pick any two-headed sperm. My anesthesiologist said, "But haven't you heard? The two-headed sperm is all the rage right now!" Haha!

Yes, these are the jokes you make when you do in vitro fertilization.

And yes, there are two-headed sperm, and sperm with two tails, and a whole lot of other abnormalities. When they do a semen analysis, they check for sperm count and also check to see how many sperm look normal, how many are swimming straight, what the pH balance is, etc. If your numbers are slightly off, then they recommend ICSI just to increase your chances of picking out the best looking sperm and making a healthy embryo. You can see some of the typical sperm abnormalities here.

I found this fantastic little video showing the ICSI process. We don't talk much about sperm and if we do, we're usually joking about them. But I actually got a little emotional watching this video, just to be reminded of how incredible this process is. It's remarkable, miraculous, and mind-boggling that we all started from this tiny egg and itty bitty sperm. So I recommend watching it just to appreciate the miracle that you are. The link is right here.

I think the egg retrieval took about a half hour. They go through the vaginal wall with a needle and aspirate the follicles out, using an ultrasound to see the ovaries and guide the needle. The nurse took some footage of my egg retrieval so you can actually see this process on a video right here.

I woke up from my egg retrieval and was thrilled to hear that we'd gotten 24 eggs. What a fantastic start to our journey! I took some video explaining our result, which you can see right here. I had a good laugh at it since I don't remember taking that video and I'm so groggy-looking. Kind of amazing that I had the wherewithal to talk on a video, take a selfie and post it on Facebook, all while being completely out of it. Next time, do not give me my phone until I'm coherent. 

Nick had a good time laughing at me, especially since I was asking him the same questions three or four times: 

"Have you ever gone under before?" 

"How many eggs did we get?" 

"Did we get video of the egg retrieval?" 

"Was I still asleep when you got here?"

They sent me home pretty quickly and I took a few naps throughout the day. I was definitely feeling some pain all over my pelvic area. But I'm feeling pretty good now, so the recovery wasn't too bad.

The nurse called me this morning, the day after my egg retrieval, to tell me how my embryos were doing. This is one of those big calls you feel a little anxious about, waiting to see how many eggs were able to be fertilized and how many are progressing. Those numbers are everything. They represent your chances, your hopes of having a baby. Still, I was pretty calm, especially because we started with such a good number of eggs.

I was in the grocery store when I got the call. The nurse told me that 16 of my eggs were mature enough to be fertilized, which is about what I expected. Remember how we were measuring those follicles to see which ones were ready, and I knew we had about 15 or so that were the right size. But I wasn't too happy with what she said next. After 24 hours, five of those embryos had broken apart, leaving me with 11 embryos altogether. That may sound like an excellent number, but I had 20 embryos at this point last time. I'm sad to see so few progress from my original egg count of 24.

Anything could happen at this point. They will be watching the embryos each day to see which ones progress, with the cells dividing like they should. You can watch a quick video of this incredible process of embryo cell division right here. And here's a picture of the growing embryo.

We know that we will lose a few others during these next few days and this is where I'm hoping with all my heart that we don't lose too many. I admit that I'll be disappointed if I end up with three embryos or less. I'd love to see a number closer to five or six. But, of course, it's the baby that we really need, so even if there are only three embryos, there may be a baby in there. Heck, all three may even work out. Ya just don't know until you get there.

It's amazing how so much hope can be contained in something so small, the size of a grain of sand.

They have me scheduled to put embryos in (called an embryo transfer) on Saturday morning, the 3rd. If my embryos are doing really well, then they'll let them incubate a little while longer and do the embryo transfer on Monday instead. So we're in the "wait and see" game right now.

C'mon, little baby of mine. Mommy and Daddy want you so bad, and you will just LOVE Gavin, I know it! :)