The Fall harvest is complete!

The egg retrieval is over and done with! I went in yesterday morning at 8:15am and by 10:30am I was sitting in the recovery area, being wrapped in warmed blankets. Honestly, I don't remember a single thing. The last thing I remember was them having me move to the operating table and then I woke up in the recovery area with the nurse telling me that the RE was able to retrieve 19 eggs from the 21 follicles that were there. He was very pleased (and a little shocked!) with the high numbers. Now the first part of the waiting begins: the fertilization reports. I have to call the IVF lab this afternoon between 2:00pm and 4:00pm to see how many of our little eggs have made it past the first stage and have fertilized. I won’t deny that I am nervous as hell about it, especially since we don’t know the reason why I can’t get pregnant. It’s entirely possible that my eggs aren’t able to be fertilized and that’s why all the IUIs failed, so a whole hell of a lot depends on this fertilization report.

So, while we’re on the subject, here’s the plan for the next few days. If everything goes well and we have a decent fertilization rate, the RE will put the two best embryos back on Sunday morning. In the meantime, we have to wait to see how they progress. Today is Day 1: they have to form into two-celled pronuclei this afternoon. Tomorrow, on Day 2, they have to convert to four-celled embryos. On Day 3, they want to see them formed with either seven or eight cells and if that happens, we’ll be all set for the transfer. A very small percentage (around 5%) of women wait until Day 5 when the embryos have 100 cells in them and are now called blastocysts. The RE already told R and I to plan on a Day 3 transfer, so we’ll probably stick with that. There’s no real documentation that a Day 3 is better than a Day 5 transfer and some doctors say that the embryos are better off getting to where they need to be earlier instead of sitting in a Petri dish until Day 5.

The transfer is a heck of a lot easier than the retrieval. In fact, it’s very similar to an IUI except that they’re putting embryos into the uterus instead of just washed sperm.

And then the real painful part begins: waiting for the blood test. My beta is scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, November 23. I’m trying very hard not to take the fact that 23 is my ‘lucky’ number into account.