This cycle has been a completely hellish roller coaster. I walked into work this morning feeling very… small. My boss excitedly asked me how it went yesterday, and I shrugged. I told her it went okay, but it wasn’t looking promising. How do you explain to people who have no concept of IVF just how dire things looked? How do you possibly try to illustrate that 38 is a fucking lot of eggs, and to have only 1 good one is beyond bad. It’s depressing.

I kept my cell phone close at hand and checked for any voicemail. I was very surprized when at 10:30 there was a missed call and 1 new voicemail. I excused myself and ran into the back to listen. It was the nurse. She said that they were ablet to inject 3 eggs (!!) and that two of those had fertilized. She said that she knew we had all hoped for more this time, but that we had “two good eggs and the lab was very happy this morning.”

Tears welled up in my eyes as I listened, pacing the small room. I was reminded of the day I got the news we were approved for insurance – same room, same pacing, same rush of relief and gratitude.

I’ve been thinking about how it could have gotten from one “could be mature” to them doing ICSI to three (presumably mature) eggs and getting 2 to fertilize. Obviously some eggs matured after their initial evaluation right after retrieval. Yesterday at the bad news it seemed obvious to me that those extra two hours before retrieval hadn’t done a damn thing. But now I’m looking at these numbers, wondering… What if those extra 2 hours did help enough for the eggs to be able to mature after retrieval? What if 2 hours just wasn’t enough, they need maybe 3 or 4? I know 4 would be pushing the limits of spontaneous ovulation, but it might be worth pushing to 3 hours next time. I also wonder, all those extra eggs, did they hinder the process? Would the numbers have been even better if the original 10 follicles had been the only ones? I’ll probably have a discussion with the doctor again later.

I will note here that I am very pleased with this doctor. He has displayed a willingness to try different methods of attack on my immature eggs, as evidenced by his on-the-fly plan yesterday of combining conventional IVF with ICSIing immature eggs on the off chance that something would work. He also has showed me he’s continued to research this subject and keep trying in future cycles. He has also impressed me with the way he speaks to me. He doesn’t talk down to me at all. Ever since I approached him with that research paper and plan he has seemed to share tidbits of research with me, speaking to me directly. I really, really appreciate that. I feel like he’s not just treating me like a patient, a number. For him to call me directly and offer up sympathy and possible things to try… well that means a lot.

It occurs to me that this is the first time we’ve had 2 embryos at the fertilization report. Remember that in my first cycle we didn’t find out about the second one until transfer – it had fertilized late. So the previous two cycles I spent the time between retrieval and transfer feeling very hopeless, wondering if our one solitary embryo was going to kick the bucket before we got to transfer. We’ve never had a spare. I’ve never felt like we had options, backup. Oh it feels wonderful!

To answer the question that everyone is asking: we are only putting back one. Den would probably put two back, but I am not willing to risk twins – not after ending up with a stillbirth after a very low risk singleton pregnancy pregnancy. You can tell me twins are low risk all you want, but I am far too aquainted with how “low” risk does not mean “no” risk. I’ll be terrified enough as it is next time without adding more to it. But beyond that, we know transferring just one embryo has a very good chance of working for us, as it worked before. I am pretty confident at this point that the reason for our infertility is entirely my egg maturity problem – in other words, it is NOT an implantation/lining issue. One embryo is all I need. Especially if it’s a really good looking one, like Devin’s embryo was.

We will be freezing the second embryo, so if this time doesn’t work we can just thaw out our frosty and do a frozen egg transfer – much easier on my body, especially given my body’s tendency to overstim. And that is very exciting to me. I feel positively giddy at the very real possibility of having a frosty. After last cycle I really never thought I’d ever get one – it seemed like I was doomed to doing a fresh cycle every single time. Plus statistically it actually makes more sense. I believe the last statistics I saw for my clinic was the pregnancy rate for single embryo transfer was a little more than 50%, the success rate for 2 embryos was 66%. So you have a higher overall chance of success by doing two consecutive single embryo transfers than doing one transfer with 2 embryos.

I am so looking forward to Sunday. I’m excited to put one little jellybean back inside me and begin the dreaded two week wait. I feel like we really have a chance now… and I know anything can happen and it does come down to pure luck, but oh my wouldn’t that be a fantastic christmas gift?! Going by the same pattern of my last two cycles, my beta should be exactly two weeks after my retrieval… which would be… Christmas day. Yeah. I’m assuming they will schedule it for the day before or day after.

I feel like celebrating, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be doing much celebrating the next couple days. My ovaries are pissed. I am so sore… I was walking very slow at work today, very gingerly getting up onto and off of my chair. They just feel so huge, so tender… it’s like they finally realized what was done to them and they’re throwing a fit. I’m incredibly bloated – I look quite pregnant, lol.

If it is OHSS it’s very mild for the time being. I’m wicked bloated and have some aching pain, but that’s not very surprizing given how many eggs they got out of me. I did gain a couple of pounds as of yesterday evening, but that can probably be attributed to the fluid I received via IV. I have no nausea, no further weight gain since yesterday, no trouble breathing, peeing or eating. So I’m okay with this. I’m just taking it easy and getting friendly with my heating pad.

And when it comes right down to it I would gladly suffer for a few days – hell, even a few weeks – to get some good embryos. So I’m far from miserable… it’s just another price to pay to get closer to our goal.