Egg Harvest Wednesday!!!

This week we have made a lot of progress towards starting a family!

Starting last Thursday Dr. Hessla increased my appointments for blood work and ultrasounds from every other day to daily. So every morning I awoke and went to his office to check on my follicle growth. We knew the egg harvest would be this week, so on Monday Don came with me to the appointment so we could find out together the exact day that our babies would be made. I was thinking he would say Friday or Saturday, but Dr. Hessla said I was so stimulated that he wanted my egg harvest to be on Wednesday! Don and I were ecstatic for many reasons. The primary reason we were happy is because Don has a mandatory conference he has to attend for school in Phoenix next week, so we were walking into this thinking he wouldn’t even be here for my implant. However with the Wednesday egg harvest my embryos will be placed back on Monday so Don will be there for the whole thing!

Dr. Hessla gave us very exact instructions for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I had to get my HCG injection at midnight on Monday night. It was very important to get the injection at the precise time because HCG is what triggers ovulation 36 hours later. This whole cycle I have been taking drugs to stimulate my eggs to produce lots of follicles and taking drugs to keep me from ovulating before I was in the OR. If I was to ovulate before getting to the OR all the eggs would be lost and this cycle would be a flop.

Monday night Don and I went out for a late dinner and watched HGTH until my midnight injection. Up until this point I have given myself all of the injections because they were subcutaneous. The HCG however had to be intramuscular, so Don got to give me a big shot in my butt. (One of the photos at the top is Don proudly holding the needle he was about to stab me with!).

After the HCG injection we went to bed and I stayed on bedrest on Tuesday. Once I was given the HCG shot my chance for ovarian hyperstimulation began. Hyperstimultaion is a somewhat complex medical condition that can result in a lot of different things, but the primary concern for us is that if I am to hyperstimluate they will not be able to do the embryo transfer. To reduce the risk of hyperstim I am supposed to do very minimal activity for the next two weeks, drinks lots and lots of Gartoraide (so gross) and eat a low potassium and sodium diet. I have to weigh myself twice daily and if I gain more than 10 pounds in 3 days I am in big trouble. Yes, I said 10 pounds in 3 days! That is the main way I will know that I have hyperstimulated and need medical intervention ASAP.

Dr.Hessla, being his usual funny self, told me to wear baggy clothes for comfort and expect lots of abdominal swelling. In response I told him, “I will live in my yoga pants.” As he was wandering out of the room he said “I have never seen you in yoga pants.” For whatever reason Don and I found that comment particularly amusing, especially because out of the 50 times I have seen Dr. Hessla I have only been wearing pants for two of the times!

This morning we got up and headed off for our big day! We got to the office around 9:45 and were lead back to pre-op about ½ hour later. It was really interesting because I got to see a whole section of the office I did not know existed. The way that ORM has the OR set up is that there is a window in the OR suite attached to the embryology lab. So as they took my eggs out they could literally hand them off to them embryologist!

The RN, anesthesiologist and doc all came in and introduced themselves. Today it was not Dr.Hessa doing harvests so I got to meet a new doctor, Dr. Barbari. I was pretty anxious and had lots of questions. They were all great, answering all of my questions and calming my nerves. Around 11am I got my IV in was whisked my off to the OR with a nice dose of Fentanyl and Versed. When we got to the OR the anesthesiologist hooked up my Propofol infusion and off I went to sleep.As I was sleeping Don supplied his sample and the baby making began!

I woke up about an hour later with some of the most intense pain I have ever felt and itching all over. I got a little more Fentanyl, some Benadryl and Sprite. Within an hour I was recovered and Don and I got to go home.

Dr.Barbari told us that while there were about 35 follicles, only 18 of them had eggs. The current plan is the embryologist will look at the eggs and fertilize all of the mature ones. We will not know until Monday when we return for the transfer how many fertilized or how many made it to the big 5 day blastocyte mark.
Since getting home I have been in excruciating pain. The docs said I may have some “mild cramping.” Well, that was a load of crap! Right now my pain is under control, but I have been sucking down Oxy and Vicoden all afternoon.

We took some pictures at the office today to show our future children all about the day they were made. I have to say it is a little surreal sitting at home thinking that our future children are currently growing in carefully monitored petri-dishes!

Thank you all for all of the support, e-mails, phone calls, ect. These past few weeks I have just felt so awful that I have not been up to returning phone calls. I don’t want anyone to ever think that I am ignoring them. This process has been so emotionally and physically exhausting that I just haven’t felt up to talking to anyone, but we love you all.

Please keep our family your prayers and I will hopefully have an exciting up date next week!