Transfer Time

I've posted to Twitter and Facebook about how things went on Saturday, but haven't actually taken the time to write here.  So, it went, actually, very well.  We expected to get fewer eggs than last time, based on what we saw on the ultrasounds, and we were aiming for quality this time, more than quantity, in the protocol we used.   Lo and behold, though, we actually got more eggs!  A grand total of 20!  (Last time it was 16.)  Hopefully the quality is also better, but that is yet to be determined.  

Man, I really love anesthesia.  I remember laying down on the table thing, and Dr. Tran asked me my name, birthdate and why I was there and I said, "Sharon, 12/20/75, egg retrieval" and I remember thinking, "Should I have said my last name?"  My arm started burning like hell, and I asked if that was normal (where the IV was) and next thing I knew I was sort of waking up in a whole different place.  As someone who has a hard time falling asleep and sleeping well through the night, this kind of sleep just feels soooo good!  I slept pretty much most of the day at home on the couch, too.  Awesome.  I mean, I was in a lot of pain, but the sleep was awesome.

So, anyhow, on Sunday I got the call with the fertilization report and transfer time while I was in the bubble bath (where I have terrible reception), so that was delightful.  Of the 20 eggs, 14 were mature, and 12 of them fertilized, so as of Sunday we had 12 embryos.  Again, as a comparison, in our last cycle we had 10 embryos.

My transfer is today at 2pm and we will find out at that point how they are doing - if they all made it to day 3 - what the quality is - which ones we are transferring today.  The plan was to transfer three, and I hope that's still the case.

There are pros and cons to all these embryos.  The obvious pro is that this isn't our very last try.  We will most likely have embryos left to freeze today, enough for some frozen transferring.  It's less scary going into this knowing that.  On the other hand, I'm tired.  And more tries sounds tiring.  And expensive.  I also don't want to put off moving forward with other options for another year of frozen cycles and be in this exact same place for that much longer if none of them work.  Ian and I have agreed that after this fresh transfer, if it fails, we will talk more seriously about moving forward with the adoption process simultaneous to any future frozen embryo transfer cycles we may go for.  That makes me feel a bit more win/win about it (in a very non-win so far situation).

So, that's that.  I'll let you know how it goes today.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share this random blog post I found, because this person has the total same Infertility pet peeve that I do.  If you've ever called the thing that I am doing today "implanting the embryo" instead of "transferring the embryo", this is about that.

Yeah, I don’t really have a good excuse for my sensitivity, but I think it has something to do with the idea that whether an embryo actually adheres to the uterine wall and grows is such a hit or miss proposition—really something of a miracle. The word “transplant” makes it sound like something that is pretty routine …something within the control of the doctor. There are still some of the blessedly fertile (and ignorant) who believe that IVF is a guaranteed cure for infertility. You make embryos, the doctor implants them, and voilà—nine months later you have a baby. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And just so this isn't all wordy word words, here is a picture of my cat, Bella, supervising the writing of this very post.