Saturday, December 3, 2011

Little baby oblong

I didn’t have the easiest day yesterday. I went in for my transfer. The worst part of the transfer by far is the fact that you have to do it with a full bladder and I’m not good at having a full bladder. You are supposed to drink your water an hour before the transfer so I finished my water at 2pm in preparation for a 3pm transfer. When I got to the office they drew blood, checked my blood pressure and recorded my weight….and then I waited. The Doctor (not the one who travels in TARDIS but that would be really cool wouldn’t it?) was coming from the Vineland office and he hit some bad traffic so he was running late. I was starting to get flushed, sweaty and pretty worried when at 3:20pm he still wasn’t there and I still needed to go through the briefing and then all of the transfer prep. When the doctor walked through the door seconds later, he apologized a lot and they let me empty out a little bit so I wasn’t so uncomfortable.

When we sat down with the doctor he said, “All I want for Christmas this year is a Miduski baby.” He then told us his plans to transfer 3 embryos instead of the usual 2. He said that given my history there is still a greater chance that I won’t be pregnant at all and he wasn’t worried about triplets or more. He then went over our results. I ended up with 7 eggs, they performed ICSI (injecting the sperm directly into the eggs) and we ended up with 4 embryos. He explained that in the past my embryos were loose, which means that the cells didn’t fill out to the edge/zona. Though nothing with infertility is absolutely positive the thought is that loose embryos have a lesser chance of surviving. This time around our embryos had filled out nicely. One was a 5, which is the best grade and the others were 4. Two looked hopeful, one hadn’t quite filled out to the edges and the other was our little oblong.
Above is the actual picture of the three embryos they were preparing to transfer. The top two look pretty good. They are nice and round and filled out to the edge. The bottom one if filled out to the edges but instead of being round it is oblong shaped. The doctor and the embryologist differed in their opinions a bit. The doctor thought that oblong embryos aren’t super great and have less of a chance of surviving. The embryologist thought that there wasn’t enough evidence that that is the case and thought that they could survive and implant just as well as any other embryo. The doctor joked and assured us that no matter the outcome our baby wouldn’t be born with a head like Stewie from Family Guy.
I laughed that there is actually a cartoon called The Oblongs and our little oblong embryo made me think of them. I must admit that I fell in love with our little underdog unusual embryo.

They had me walk to the same top security area where I had the retrieval and I changed into the same attire. My husband then changed into scrubs complete with cap, booties and a face mask. They want to be sure that nothing compromises the embryos. I then climbed up on the table and they prepped me a bit.

Due to my endometriosis and the adhesions that come with it my uterus has been pushed and pulled to the right side of my body instead of being in the center. My right ovary was still quite enlarged and was also pushing on my uterus obstructing the view. This was making getting a good picture of my uterus impossible. When completing the transfer you have to place the embryos in an exact spot at the top of the uterus but it was hard to see where the top was. The doctor decided that retro-filling my bladder may help to push my uterus into a better position. This involved inserting a catheter into my bladder and then pouring liquid through it so that my bladder could expand more and more. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it also wasn’t fun. There was then a lot of pushing on my tummy and jiggling of this and that desperately trying to get a good picture. At this point I wasn’t feeling a ton of pain but there was a lot of uncomfortable pressure. Then my cervix was being stubborn as usual and didn’t want to let the uterine catheter through. I was doing my best to relax so that my cervix would be more relaxed but being in an awkward position with all sorts of things already inserted and a bladder that felt like it was going to burst it was challenging. The catheter was finally able to be inserted and at this point I was feeling really uncomfortable. There was a lot more pushing and jiggling as the doctor and nurse did their best to find the catheter in my uterus as it was still difficult to get a clear picture. They were finally able to get things in place as best as they could and the doctor promised they were going to try to move quickly. The good thing about all of this extra time was that the embryologist was able to examine our fourth embryo and found that since looking at it the day before it had filled out nicely so she switched it out with the oblong one (I know that this was to give us the best possible chance but I have to admit that I was a little sad since I liked little oblong. They will let us know in a few days if it becomes freeze worthy. The embryos were finally transferred through the catheter. The catheter was given to the embryologist to give the all clear that all the embryos were inserted. After that the doctor used the bladder catheter to completely drain my bladder, which was actually the positive part of having had that inserted because after the transfer is complete you have to lay flat on your back for an hour and that is pretty unpleasant when your bladder is full. Feeling much more comfortable, I was transferred to a bed and wheeled to the recovery area where I chilled for an hour. My husband sat with me so we chatted and I admired how handsome he looked wearing scrubs. I was finally able to get up, change and then leave.

Our food tradition for the transfer has been chicken croquettes. So we stopped at Palace Diner (because they have yummy croquettes) and my husband ran in and got two dinners to go since I am not supposed to exert myself. I enjoyed my dinner and we spent the night watching Star Trek episodes. I was feeling pretty beat up and exhausted. I’m still sore and feeling beat up this morning and the same instructions apply today. I am supposed to laze about all day and not walk or exert myself. I have to continue the progesterone oil shots and I have two oral medications that must be taken three times a day. Now comes the worst part of the process, which is having to wait for weeks for the blood test to find out if the process worked. I do a lot of praying and try not to think too much so as not to drive myself crazy.

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