What have we done? (My ovaries are over achievers!)

It's been five weeks since our egg retrieval. I feel like enough times has passed that I have (mostly) forgotten my pain and suffering and can now joke about it.

But, HOLY SHIT man, I had NO idea. No idea what I was in store for.

I was concerned about OHSS (Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome) before I even went it for the retrieval. Three days before, I was feeling EXTREMELY bloated and uncomfortable. And, since I have PCOS I kinda figured my ovaries might over produce.

Over produced may be a slight understatement.

Does this bloat make me look fat? Photo taken July 20. Two days AFTER my retrieval.

The doctor retrieved 30 eggs. THIRTY! 30! (As my darling husband likes to say, "Over achiever! That's like doing two and a half years worth of ovulation in one day.)

So let me tell you the story about the week of retrieval....

Friday, July 15 (three days before retrieval)

Time to settle our $9,999.000 bill. (Our insurance covers NOTHING as far as procedures when it comes to IVF. Thank God for Freedom Pharmacy!) So, we whipped out two bank cards and two credit cards to pay our bill. Of course, the banks all have limits on how much you can charge in one day. Oops! So, DH goes out into the hall to start calling the banks as I stand in reception and tap dance. Embarrassing  But, I'm sure they've seen it all before.

Monday, July 18 (day of retrieval)

I'm nervous about going under, but DH stayed by my side holding my hand until it was time. The anesthesiologist was very nice. Dr Positive and our fav nurse were both in jolly good moods so I felt pretty good about the retrieval. There was some discussion about getting Dr Positive to sing Lady Gaga during the procedure, but I wasn't awake to verify he actually did it. When I came to and they told me they retrieved 30 eggs I about passed out again. But I was so happy that we had so many eggs!

Nurse told me to come back on Tuesday to get an IV drip of fluids since I was clearly bloated and apparently, full of fluid.

Tuesday, July 19 

Sat in a comfy chair in the doc's office and had two, TWO bags of fluids pumped into my system. Surely, this will make me feel better.

The embryologist came in while I was filling up and told us that 13 of the 30 eggs were mature. They went ahead and fertilized all 13 (vi ICSI). 

Wednesday, July 20

Oh

Mm

Gee

Slept on the couch because I couldn't lay down flat. Woke up every four hours to take my pain killer. Woke up around 7 am having trouble breathing. Dear God, the bloat had creeped up to my sternum!

July 20, two days afte retrieval. Full of fluid.

Tried to wake my darling husband, "Can't breath. Help!" At first, he just rolled over and patted the bed mumbling, "Come back to bed." I shook him and this time he opened his eyes and saw my look of panic.

So, we called the doc and he said to come in to the office. We got there, and, long story short, they had to "aspirate" my ovaries. I was full of fluid, 500 mL to be exact. I was awake for this procedure, not big deal, the numbing shot stung a little bit and the sound of the "wet vac" "sucking" the fluid out of me was more than a little disturbing, but I survived to go home a few hours later. I definitely felt better.

We also got the news that five embryos were happily dividing. I was extremely happy with the five number. But if you think about it, from 30 eggs to only 13 being mature, and then we were down to just five embryos... Well, it was a little depressing. How in the world does anyone get pregnant?

Thursday, July 21

I was doing better. I hadn't lost any weight, but I felt lighter. I spent most of the day catching up on The Secret Life of the American Teenager. We knew by Thursday that there was NO WAY my body was going to be ready for the transfer. So we were going to have to freeze our embies. The embryologist said we should wait to freeze on Saturday to see how many of the embies could make it to blastocyst. Secretly, I was praying that all five would make it, despite the fact that the embryologist said that number five was a little behind.

Friday, July 22

Oh no! How did I gain 3 lbs overnight?!

Back to the doctor's office for another round of wet vac. This time, they collected 750 mL. Ewww. At this point, I felt like I should start paying rent at the doctor's office, I mean jeez, I was there almost every day for a week. I could never have survived all this if everyone at our clinic hadn't been so nice. They took good care of me. I also had my DH by my side the entire time. 

By Sunday, I was able to get off the couch and hug my nieces who had just arrived in San Francisco.  By Thursday, I was able to drive, and waddle around at Target with my sister-in-law, the two nieces and two large carts.

On Sunday, we got an email from the embryologist:

We froze two embryos on Day 5 that were nice looking blasts.  I had two of the others that were at the morula stage, which is the stage just prior to blastocyst and I thought they would progress to blasts today, but they did not.  They have both arrested.  The final embryo became a very poor quality blastocyst with few cells.  There is good data out there in the scientific literature that poor quality blastocysts seldom give rise to good pregnancies and that very, very high percentages of poor quality blastocysts are genetically abnormally.  We don’t freeze these types of embryos.  The real issue is when the blastocyst has no “inner cell mass.”  This is the group of cells that give rise to the fetus.  No ICM = no baby.  This is what was happening with the one embryo that became a poor quality blast today—no inner cell mass.  So, unfortunately we only have 2 frozen embryos and we have discarded the others.  But transferring two frozen/thawed embryos is pretty much our standard frozen embryo transfer, so I think you have a good chance at getting pregnant from the frozen cycle.  We just don’t want to do an FET cycle until you are completely recovered from this stim cycle.

At first I was really, really, really sad. Only two? After all of that. Only two. Then I got scared. What if these two don't make it? Would I do another IVF cycle? Could I? Could we even afford it?

Five weeks later and just a few days from our FET I'm trying to remain positive. These are our embryos. After two and a half years we have gotten farther than we ever had before. And that's exciting. Our genetic materials have actually met, co-mingled and formed embryos. Two embryos. And as scared as I am about having twins, part of me has kinda settled into the notion that these will be our two babies.

Our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) is scheduled for August 25, if my hormones and lining cooperate. Until then, I will enjoy a glass of wine (or three) and pray that my two star blasties are having sweet dreams about growing up and learning to drive and graduating from college and eventually, having little embies of their own. I hope and pray that our stars come out of the deep freeze rearin' to go. We really want to see you grow up!