IVF #1 - Egg Retrieval to Transfer
Thanks for being patient this week for an update! This week has by far been the hardest part of our IVF journey.
My surgery was scheduled for 8:00 am on Sunday, April 30th. In total we were at the office about and hour and everything went smoothly. I was a little cramping sore when I woke up, but nothing too bad. After I woke up, our embryologist came in and told us they retrieved 18 eggs! At my last ultrasound there were less than 10 maturing eggs, so we were in shock. She told us that we had the option to do ICSI (Intracytoplasmic sperm injection) where the embryologist removes the outer shell of mature eggs and injects the sperm directly into the egg. Since you have to have mature eggs for ICSI to work, our doctor recommended doing ICSI for all 18 of our eggs in hopes we would have at least half make it to fertilization. After we left the office, we came home and I rested for most of the day. Around lunch time we got the report from our embryologist - ALL 18 eggs were mature! We were in complete amazement!
Our embryologist told us they would follow up the next day to let us know how many of the eggs fertilized. She told us if we had more than 5 fertilize, we would have to wait until transfer day to see how many made it to become day 5 blastocyst embryos. They do this to allow the embryos the best chance at successfully developing. We got an email on May 1st letting us know that we had 13 eggs fertilize! Again, I was shocked and overjoyed at the goodness of the Lord and his hand in creating our family.
It's hard for to me to admit, but my excitement and thankfulness did not last long because the next few days were filled with intense abdominal pain, ovarian swelling, headaches, constipation, diarrhea, and nausea. Oh the glamorous life of IVF! Like with any surgery, some people have easy egg retrieval recoveries, and some of people really struggle. I unfortunately am in the later group. It's been 5 days since my surgery, and I am still sore and just starting to feel semi-normal. I have been so lucky to have my best friend taking care of me, but our hope is that we do not have to do this part of IVF again!
Like I said, today is day 5 post surgery or EMBRYO TRANSFER DAY!!! We are about to head to the doctor to find out how many embryos we made, and transfer them back to into me. Today is going to be my first day as a momma!
With Love & Ever Expecting,
Ashton
