Last night I could barely sleep… I was hyped up on adrenaline. I opened my laptop for a couple hours, just to try to distract myself until I got somewhat sleepy. So I managed a few hours of sleep… and then slept in so that I didn’t have enough time to wash my hair. Oh well, that’s what hair nets are for in surgery, right?<\/p>\n
We arrived right at 8pm, I got changed into the surgical gown and into bed. Then they started the incessant questions and paperwork. I feel bad for them, really – that is a lot of paperwork! And they have to arrange it all in a particular way so the doctors can just walk in, check through it, and walk off.<\/p>\n
I mentioned working full-time and the nurse asked me what I do. I, without thinking, answered truthfully: part-time as a bank teller, part time as the assistant manager of a animal rescue organization. BAD IDEA, NATALIE. I do this every time, and every time Den and I want to kick my ass, because this always triggers a 20-minute discussion about cats – one that I don’t particularly feel like having while waiting for surgery. And why is it that the conversations always involve their cat who ran away, got eaten, hit by a car, they want to get rid of, etc etc. It inevitably leaves me biting my tongue. After the nurse left my little cubicle Den hissed at me, “I was trying<\/i> to get your attention to say NOOOO don’t say it, but you said it anyways!” I am stupid. Next time, duct tape my mouth shut please.<\/p>\n
The two nurses were talking a lot over the equipment for starting IV… something about the needles and tape and such. I was starting to shoot Den some panicked looks, like, this is not boding well. A little bit later they got to starting my IV. She looked at the vein in my left hand, tapping it and humming and hawing. A little novocaine, the needle went in… and that was IT. It was my best IV start yet!! I barely felt a thing, it started right away, and I had no problems the rest of the day. It was fantastic!!<\/p>\n
A woman came by and introduced herself as being from research. She said that she knows my history of having a lot of immature eggs, and would I be willing to join a study? The study is about IVM – in vitro maturation, a technique which currently does not have a very good success rate (and thus is not covered by my insurance, in case you were wondering why we haven’t gone that route). They want to study immature eggs to figure out why they don’t have good success in the lab, to hopefully make it a viable solution for people like me. So Den and I said, “Yes, sir!” and gleefully signed the consents. Like Den said to me privately, it’s kind of neat to be on the leading edge of stuff… trying experimental things and helping pave the way for future women like me. Maybe in 10 years they will have some actual protocols for addressing this issue so they aren’t just shooting in the dark.<\/p>\n
When the doctor arrived and got changed it was time to get into the OR. I left Den with my blackberry so he could peruse the news while bored and waiting, and I waddled off with the back of my gown clutched shut, IV bag held by the anesthesiologist. Same as always… lay down, arms on the wings, legs in the big stirrups. No stinging in the IV hand this time, just that things started to go a little blurry… and then a lot blurry… and then I was out.<\/p>\n
When I woke up Den told me they got 25 eggs out of me. That was more than I was hoping for – I was aiming for about 20. I just worry because my very first cycle we had 24 retrieved, my successful cycle we had 13 retrieved. But 25 is a good number still. I twittered from my blackberry and then we were on our way.<\/p>\n
Before we left I asked if the nurse could check on how many eggs were mature and let me know today. Since, you know, waiting is freaking torture<\/i>.<\/p>\n
We stopped for breakfast on the way home (I was still feeling a tad bit tipsy from the anesthesia, but not too bad). Tasted awesome. Ohhhh food after surgery is fantastic.<\/p>\n
Den had to go to work, so he just dropped me off at home and left for his meetings. I went straight to bed! Whether from the anesthesia or my lack of sleep last night, or some combo of the two, I was exhausted! I carefully put my phone (making sure the ringer was ON) on the pillow beside me and fell asleep, expecting to be woken up by a call.<\/p>\n
Instead I was woken up by the sound of a dog puking (maybe after this she’ll stop eating the plastic plant containers in the basement? Probably not). And no phone call. I looked at the clock, 3pm. Should I call them? They probably forgot. But then I thought, what if they haven’t called me because they can’t find any good ones and they’re desperately trying to find some before calling me? My mind can imagine a lot of bad news without much help. I called and left a message… could they please find out from the lab how it’s looking?<\/p>\n
A few minutes later my phone rang. I answered it. It was one of the nurses. “I just called down to the lab. They’re still looking at some of the immature ones to see if they will be able to ICSI them later, (my heart starts pounding)<\/em>… There were 5 eggs able to be ICSI’d right away, and then a little after that they were able to ICSI 2 more.”<\/p>\n All I could say was, “Holy crap!”<\/p>\n WE HAVE 7 MATURE EGGS AND THEY MAY HAVE SOME MORE LATER!!!!!<\/p>\n I thanked her profusely, hung up the phone, and burst into tears. 7. SEVEN. That’s 28%!!! Every one of my previous cycles has had an 8% maturity rate. This more than TRIPLED the number of mature eggs I normally have!! Oh my GOD.<\/p>\n I am still crying. I can’t wait until Den gets home so I can give him the news. I already called Kel to tell her. This is just unbelievable. I really really never expected that this was even POSSIBLE from my body.<\/p>\n Tomorrow I find out how many of them fertilized… I don’t expect it will be all of them, but it looks like we will have some good frostie candidates this time!!! WOW!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night I could barely sleep… I was hyped up on adrenaline. I opened my laptop for a couple hours, just to try to distract myself until I got somewhat sleepy. So I managed a few hours of sleep… and then slept in so that I didn’t have enough time to wash my hair. Oh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-1562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ivf-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions\/2221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}