We woke up well before the alarm, staring at the ceiling and trying to act “normal.” Hahaha! It was hard to remember what “normal” felt like. But on the positive side, our hopes were high. Last we heard we were hoping for anywhere from 6-10 follicles. I hoped the result after all of this was on the high side! To help explain, follicles contain the eggs. Sometimes you can have a follicle without an egg inside, or sometimes the eggs won’t be good quality. Thus there is no guarantee how many eggs you will end up with after retrieval.
We got to the waiting room early, as everything had to be timed PERFECTLY from the trigger injection shot to the egg retrieval. No room for tardiness today. We sat there with heightened awareness of everything that was going on, not really talking that much, except some excited little whispers. I felt like I had a sign on my head that said, “this woman is full of eggs and we’re popping them out today!” Definitely a strange moment.
They called us back. Yikes! Time to prepare for the operating room. Eric came back with me while I got in the hospital gown, laid down on the bed, and they worked on getting the IV in. They were having ALOT of trouble getting the IV to go in where they wanted. I started to panic that we were losing time. What if the eggs burst while they were messing with this IV? They had to call in the head nurse to get it inserted. She opted for the hand on my other arm. Finally success, with just a bit of pain. I was getting groggy from the anesthesia, and they eventually brought me into the operating (Eric was not allowed back there). There was a buzz around the sterile looking room. I met the embryologist and several nurses, as they prepared me for egg retrieval. Eventually the dear doctor came in. He goes in with a needle (something that I prefer not to think about) and they retrieve the eggs from the ovaries using a suction type of instrument – a process called egg aspiration. The concept makes me squirm, but there it is.
The next thing I remember, I woke up in a different room, and Eric was sitting beside me holding my hand. It was so comforting to have him there by my side, smiling at me. The whole procedure had taken less than 30 minutes. I had to wait for about an hour until they would release me. I was not in much pain, but was just really loopy and glad that the procedure was over. Eventually, we were told that they only retrieved five good eggs, as the other three were no good. Overall, that was somewhat disappointing, but hey, five is five, right? We tried to continue to keep our hopes up. We had to.
The next step was to wait and see how many eggs would fertilize…
Eric hooked us up with that part.
Please join me next week to hear more about my personal journey down the infertility path. I look forward to speaking with you. And I wish you the best on your journey.
Warm regards,
Cathy