Super Embryos

So, we went in this morning for our transfer and got the best news ever:

All 10 of our embryos survived to day 3 and all 10 were of very high quality!  This is truly best possible scenario.  On average something like 70% survive to day 3 and the quality can be quite variable.  I had high hopes for maybe 5 decent ones, so we'd have enough to freeze for one potential future frozen transfer.  But in this case, we were able to freeze 8 of them!  This is 3-4 potential future frozen embryo transfers!  Ian and I just feel so good about what this means for us in this process.  It means that we have a lot more chances, without having to go through the injections and egg retrieval again.  It also means that if this works on the first try, we have future frozen babies to try for later if we want more children.  It means this is not our absolutely final shot.

Soooo....the process of the transfer was like somewhere between the egg retrieval and IUI in terms of how it all works.  It definitely wasn't as intense as the ER - I wasn't put to sleep and it wasn't a surgery.  It was closer to the IUI in that it was a catheter inserting something into my uterus.  But it was more involved than IUI and took place in the same part of the clinic as the ER - attached to the lab (which makes good sense).

So, I was instructed to take a Valium and drink a shit load of water an hour ahead of time so my bladder would be full and my uterus relaxed.   By the time I got there I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants.  They put me in a similar outfit to what I wore for the ER and this time I made sure to get a picture of my booties.







This time, Ian also got an outfit, since he got to come in with me for the transfer.  We had a lot of the same nurses around, which was nice, cause they all remembered us and were super friendly.  The really nice one even said she was glad she was there again so she could see this end of our process and they all wished us luck.

In the meantime, there was some sort of emergency and Dr. Rosen was running a little late and I was near tears with the having to pee, so they sent me to pee out some small amount of my bladder.  Which is not, by the way, that easy to do.  It helped, though, a little.  I felt great relief when I saw Dr. Rosen appear and minutes later they brought me into the room.  (By the way, there was a dude sitting next to me in the waiting area who had just had some testicular procedure done that did not sound fun.)  I mentioned that the bladder was still feeling REALLY full and they sent me back out to pee out a few more drops.

At this point Dr. Rosen told us about our embryos with some details of their quality and told us we would transfer 2.  They do 3 if the quality isn't great, in order to increase chances of one sticking, but in our case, 2 is the right number, because they want to really reduce the risk of multiples.  Our clinic prides itself on having high success levels with low numbers of multiples.  Which I appreciate.  Then he gave us this photo to keep.

These are the embryos that are inside me now!  So crazy!!!  Cute little guys, eh?  (Or girls?  Or girl and guy?)

Then basically they used an ultrasound on my belly so he could clearly see my uterus as he guided the catheter into the right spot and sent in the embryos.  After, he had the lab tech check the catheter and make sure both embryos had actually come out, which they had, and then he sent me on my way.  On my way equaled straight to the bathroom where I peed forever.  Then I inserted my progesterone gel for the day and left.

So, I've been taking steroids for the past 4 days and have 1 day to go (these help prevent my body from rejecting the embryos).  I'll be inserting the progesterone (started yesterday) for the next two weeks and then longer if my pregnancy test is positive.  Starting tomorrow I take 2 estradiol pills a day, also for two weeks and then longer if positive (these things are both to make my uterine lining delightful for embryo implantation).  So, side effects ahoy, still.  I take a blood pregnancy test two weeks from today, so it'll be a long two weeks.  It's the closest I've ever been to actually being pregnant in that I KNOW I have fertilized eggs inside my uterus at the moment.

I have to continue to take it easy in terms of heavy lifting and exercise for the next two weeks and can't have sex before the pregnancy test.  I feel a lot lot better today, although still a little sore and heavy in my lower abdomen.

Yesterday I felt good enough to take a little adventure into the city to see friends and meet teeny tiny baby Henry.  Made me really happy.  Tonight,  I think I'm going to go to a movie cause I'm ready to be out of this house, and tomorrow it's back to work for me.  I also am going to do a tiny bit of shopping.  This whole process has made me feel so icky in my skin - bloated, weight gained, unable to exercise etc - that I feel like a few cute new things can't hurt.

Oh, also, I got a giant bruise on my hand from the IV.