We woke up at 6am with Den telling me to get out of bed and get in the shower with him, and that he wanted to leave by quarter to 7. It takes us half an hour to get the hospital and I was supposed to be there at 7:30… so I’m not really sure why he added so much time to his estimate, but probably “just to be safe”.<\/p>\n
We got there with plenty of time to spare and went to the surgery center. I gave my name and she said I was supposed to be downstairs in the IVF unit… ah ha. Go down there, wander through to the end of the hallways like I was told, push through a curtain… and there was the whole retrieval suite. Wow, I didn’t even know that was there, lol! They immediately got me into a little curtained-off room, undressed and in one of those beds. I answered questions (“What’s your name? What’s your birthdate? Why are you here? You pass!”), signed some paperwork, and the nurse told me everything that was going to happen.<\/p>\n
Then she went to do my IV. I had written on my paperwork and told her that last time it took four tries to get my IV started and she waved it off with a, “Oh that won’t happen this time. I’ll be doing your IV, and I have plenty of experience!” She was very nice, not snotty or anything. Just jovial. So she picked a vein on the side of my left hand, big pinch, etc etc. Then she says, “Hmm. I’m not sure I like that one.” She turned it on a little bit and asked, “Is this hurting?” It started to puff up a little bit. “Oh dear. It’s not supposed to do that. I don’t like that at all. I’m so sorry!” Apparently I have very small<\/i> veins.<\/p>\n
Luckily the second try worked and she taped it in and said she liked that one much<\/i> better. So at least the success rate has gone up. But even after she taped it in place and left it was… twinging me. I could feel it tugging on my skin a little bit and it was just creeping me out something aweful. I am even more sure now that I DO NOT want an IV during labor. I know it doesn’t bother a lot of people – maybe even most people – but it bothers me to hell and back and I just do not want ANYTHING bothering me when I’m focussed on labor. I actually mentioned that to this nurse – or rather she overheard me tell Den “No IV during labor,” and she said that I’d have to have one anyways, for fluids, even if I didn’t want medication. We’ll see about that. I know people do manage to go through labor without one, and I intend to be one of those people, barring unfortunate circumstances. I do NOT like IVs.<\/p>\n
I do however, love anesthesia. Sitting there waiting for my turn in the OR was the most annoying because my IV on my hand was bothering me and my stomach felt bloated (even though I just went to the bathroom), and there was nothing on the little TV. Plus of course the tension just from waiting and wanting to get on with it. But soon enough the anesthesiologist came in to check in with me, the embryologist came in to make sure we had signed egg freezing consent forms, and then the Dr came over to say I was ready to go. They helped me out of bed (with the IV in they had to carry that bag thing with me), I held the back of my “gown” closed, said goodbye to Den, and walked through some big doors. Then another door and into the operating room. They got me to sit and then lay down on the table\/bed thing that was there, then the nurse wrapped me in warm towels (aahhhhhhh, so nice!!). I had to put my arms out to either side of me on the “wings” so that the anesthesiologist could put on the blood pressure cuff, finger clip thing, and then she put some stickies on my chest (for monitoring… something-or-another). They put an oxygen mask on me and the nurse kept babbling about Natalie Wood and how much she liked her and what a nice name it was. I, uncomfortable with the IV and the oxygen mask, was just hoping they sedated me really really quickly.<\/p>\n
Next thing I know I’m back in my bed in the little recovery room, Den’s reading a paper beside me. I was groggy as heck. But, unlike with my lap I came out of it quickly. However later Den did tell me about a conversation I had with him after waking up that I do not remember<\/i>, period point-blank. He also said that when I first started to stir my hand immediately went to the oxygen mask to touch it. I told him I didn’t like that damn thing – even heavily sedated I wanted it off. :lol:<\/p>\n
So then the moment of truth. The nurse came in and told us that they had retrieved 24 eggs<\/b>!! Wow!! I was thinking they’d get 15 or so, and I was really hoping I’d get closer to 20. But 24! We are both very excited by this… though Den said he’s not going to feel less anxious until we hear the fertilization results.<\/p>\n
After I’d gotten up and successfully peed on the potty they took out my IV (YAY!) and let me get dressed. I was given instructions to take it easy and take pain meds if I felt I needed any (I still have the percocets left over from my lap – I only used 2 of them). I was also told that I’m okay to take advil\/ibprofen until my egg transfer. They said some cramping is normal, same with a little bit of spotting, but if it becomes anything more than that to call the doctors right away. The Dr also spoke to me about OHSS… she confirmed that because of my age and response that I am at risk for it, so to definitely stay aware and let them know if I feel anything at all. She said even if we have a day 3 transfer, if I’m feeling a mild OHSS they’ll only put back one embryo regardless – and if I have moderate\/severe OHSS they may have to cancel the transfer, freeze all the embryos, and wait until it goes away before doing a transfer. That would be a downer, but my health really is paramount. (OHSS goes away shortly when you’re not pregnant – but pregnancy can make it worse and last a lot longer.)<\/p>\n
She said to expect a call around noon tomorrow to let us know how fertilization went, and to schedule our transfer. I guess if we have a good fertilization rate we’ll be going for a 5-day transfer (monday), if it’s not good it’ll be a 3-day (saturday). Fingers crossed that we get a great fert report and get scheduled for a monday transfer of one perfect little blast!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We woke up at 6am with Den telling me to get out of bed and get in the shower with him, and that he wanted to leave by quarter to 7. It takes us half an hour to get the hospital and I was supposed to be there at 7:30… so I’m not really sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ivf1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","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=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}