During the drive to the doctor's office yesterday morning, I drank my 20 oz of water as I was instructed to do so. We got to the office and the receptionist recognized us before I even signed in. We have been there a lot in the past couple of weeks. She said she remembers us because we're always smiling and happy and those are her favorite kind of patients. :) Penny came back to get us and took us to our examination room. Along the way, she made me state my name and birthday - just to be sure I was the right one. She told me to get undressed from the waist down (a drill I've come to know very well) and that the doctor would be over in about 10 minutes. I knew that the doctor was going to talk to us before the procedure and I was expecting the "talk" to be in the doctor's office. At first I thought it was a little odd that we were going to have the conversation while I'm wearing a paper sheet as a skirt on the table - but I got over it and just got ready and hopped up on the table to wait.
Dr. Williams is our doctor, but we had Dr. Schmidt yesterday for our embryo transfer. Before you start the IVF process, they do let you know that you could see any of the four doctors during the process - so it wasn't a surprise. For all of our consultations and initial ultrasounds, as long as it was during the week and Dr. Williams was in the office - we got him. But for the egg retrieval and embryo transfers, you just get the on-call doctor (one of the four doctors in the office) - not necessarily your doctor, even if they are in the office that day. I'm guessing they have to do it this way for scheduling purposes - since the transfers and retrievals are typically scheduled at the last-minute based on how the follicles or embryos are doing. The on-call doctor's schedule is probably cleared for that week to keep them available for all retrievals and transfers. We just happened to get Dr. Williams last week for our retrieval, because he happened to be on-call. Anyway, Dr. Schmidt was really nice and we vote him the 2nd best doctor at ORM after Dr. Williams. :)
When Dr. Schmidt came into the room, he was holding a sheet of paper. And after introducing himself, he asked me for my name and date of birth - another check to make sure they had the right person. It matched what was on the sheet - yay! The sheet was one of the forms that we signed back on January 27th before our egg retrieval. It had our names, DOB, & SSN at the top and copies of our beautiful drivers licenses at the bottom of it. The middle section was the "Embryo Information" that was all populated with our good news since the egg retrieval.
- # Retrieved = 18 (eggs retrieved)
- # Inseminated/Injected = 17 (mature eggs that they attempted to fertilize)
- # Fertilized 2PN = 12 (fertilized embryos)
- # Frozen to Date = 0 (means they hadn't froze any embryos prior to the transfer)
- # Available for Transfer = 12 (embryos that they could've transferred yesterday - yikes!)
- Day of Transfer = 5 (Day 5 since the egg retrieval)
- 5 embryos were Blastocysts (2 were Grade 1 & 3 were Grade 2)
- 3 embryos were Early Blasts (2 were Grade 1 & 1 was Grade 2)
- 4 embryos were Morulas (2 were Grade 1, 1 was Grade 2, and 1 was Grade 3)
- What has to happen for the embryos to implant? The embryos that are blastocysts will have to "hatch" out of their shell first. They will be sticky after they hatch out of the shell and just need to attach to my uterus. He said that the implantation should occur later that day in the afternoon or early evening. :)
- We were also asking about fraternal twins vs. identical twins vs. triplets. If both embryos implant successfully, we would get a set of fraternal twins. If one embryo split and the other didn't implant, then we would get a set of identical twins. If one embryo split and the other also implanted successfully, we would get triplets. He did say that the chances of a blastocyst embryo splitting at this stage of the game has about a 1% chance.
- What about the rest of the embryos? Things are still looking really good for the other 10 embryos that we didn't elect to transfer yesterday. The good news is that they don't have to freeze them all at once - so some were probably frozen yesterday and others may be frozen today or tomorrow if they continue to develop. The lab is going to call us on Thursday to tell us how many they were able to freeze. When we talked to the embryologist she said that the embryos can be frozen indefinitely. Their "oldest" frozen embryo that resulted in a successful pregnancy was an 11 year old embryo. Amazing what they can do!
Dr. Schmidt returned a little bit later with Penny (our nurse) and our embryologist for the day, Kelly - who had our little embryos. When Kelly entered she again asked for my name and date of birth and how many embryos we requested. They never can be too sure, I guess. :) This was my first ultrasound that wasn't internal - Penny put the cold goo on my belly and got the ultrasound in place to pull up my uterus on the screen. Kelly was holding the end of the catheter that had our two little embryos in it. During the procedure, I didn't feel any pain - though I could feel some slight pressure as Dr. Schmidt was getting the catheter in place. He was doing a good job of narrating what he was doing. Things were going well until he hit a "roadblock" for lack of a better term. I'm not sure if my bladder wasn't full enough, but there was "turn" or a "corner" that he was having trouble getting around. Since the ultrasound was on my lower abdomen, I was trying to be as still as possible and didn't want to ask too many questions - so they could focus on the procedure. I could see a tiny little line that was going in/out towards the bottom left-hand side of the screen and I think that was the tip of the catheter. My husband said that he would take the catheter out and bend the tip of it and try again. After a few attempts, I was starting to get a little worried. I wasn't sure how long our little embryos could be outside waiting like that - so I was more worried about them. And slightly worried what would happen if they couldn't get past the turn. Even though I didn't voice my worries, Dr. Schmidt assured us that the embryos were fine and that I was fine - nothing to worry about. That made me feel better! Eventually he had Kelly leave the room to go get a special tool. He told me that I would feel a little pinch - but I didn't feel a thing, of course. And before you know it - we could see the little line on the ultrasound screen moving way up towards the center of the screen. I think I said something like, "Oh, you wanted to get all the way up there?" :) I asked if he had injected them yet and he said, "Not yet - but watch at the tip right now and you'll see a little blip." And I think I did see a little itty bitty poof of something on the screen. And that was it - our embryos were in their new home!
After the procedure, they told me to lay on the table for 15-30 minutes, as long as I could stand it. I guess most women are dying to pee after having drank all of that water, but I didn't really have to go that badly. They also gave us my instructions for resting the rest of the day and the next day. They wanted me to be in bed - only getting up to use the bathroom. He said I could get up to eat dinner at the dinner table if I wanted as well. But they just wanted me to take it easy. On Thursday, they said I was fine to go back to work. They wished us good luck and the left us alone to wait for the 30 minutes of resting to be up. While we waited, I had my husband google for an IVF due date calculator. My IVF buddy was telling me about it the other day. You can enter in your egg retrieval date and it will give you your due date for one, two, or three babies. :) We learned that for one baby - my due date would be October 20, 2011. This date has special meaning because it's one of my best friend's birthday - who also happened to have a baby on my birthday. I'm also born in October and think it's a great month to be born in. For two babies, the due date was September 28, 2011. And for triplets (which I really don't think we have to worry about), it would be be earlier in September. We also talked about what if it's a boy or girl or two boys or two girls or a boy/girl twins. We of course agreed that any of the outcomes would be "perfect!"
After my time was up, I got dressed and we headed home. It was kinda weird to think that I had two little embryos in me. I reclined my seat back on the ride home. Just as we were getting on the highway, it kinda hit me that this was the last step in our big journey and that hopefully it would be just the beginning of a family for us! All of the emotions were a bit overwhelming and I started to cry. I really haven't cried much during this entire process, not that I've been holding back because I'm not really one that cries very often - but it was probably a good release. We have been through a lot, but we are so lucky that things have gone so well. We are just hoping for our happy ending to this fairy tale IVF journey.
When we got home, I used the bathroom, changed clothes, and got comfy in my bed - my home for the next two days. We made a few phone calls to our parents and I was texting some friends back. I used most of the afternoon to catch up on my DVR'd shows - watching "Live to Dance," "Saturday Night Live," and "The Bachelor." My husband brought up lunch for us and we had lunch-in-bed. My little nephew came over with my sister & brother-in-law to visit. I had dinner-in-bed with my sister and watched some episodes of "Chuggington" with my little nephew. As I mentioned, the ice storm was affecting our Internet connection - so I wasn't able to blog last night. My husband and I ended up watching "The Other Guys" - but we both fell asleep! So far I've been a good little bed-rest patient - only getting up to use the bathroom! I have a nice agenda of magazine reading, movie watching, and Christmas stocking work ahead of me today. Fun, fun, fun!