Month: April 2017

Where We Stand

/ twomamasarebetterthanone / 3 Comments

Part of me wanted today to get here quickly so that I could know the answer.  The other part of me wanted today to never get here — so that I could live in the “They retrieved 12!” bubble forever.  In reality, I knew the number could be no greater than 4 since a phone call last week let me know that only 4 of our 12 fertilized properly.  Nevertheless, the number 4 kept circulating through my head as the number that I’d love to hear the embryologist say come Monday.

The call came this morning while I was in the library, printing off handouts for my Intro to Korean class.  I was trying to whisper due to the setting, which I’m pretty sure made the embryologist on the other end of the line think that I was waiting with bated breath for what she was going to relay to me.

“Yes, this is Dannielle.”

“Hi, this is _____ from the embryology lab, calling with your Day 5 report.”

At this point, in my head I kept thinking “please, please, puh-lease let us have a bunch to work with.”

“We were able to grow one Day 5 3BB blastocyst, which we are going to freeze for you since you wanted us to skip chromosomal testing if there were only 1 or 2.”

“…….oh………”

“I’m sure that Dr. ________ will be calling you in the next few days to discuss specifics.”

“…….oh………..um, okay.  Well, thank you for the phone call.”

One.

Only One.

A Dozen

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Just a quick not to say that egg retrieval surgery yesterday afternoon was a success!  The doctor was able to retrieve 12 eggs (!!!!), which is great news.  As you might recall, my last two surgeries retrieved 4 and 6 eggs, respectively.  Due to natural attrition that will take place over the next few weeks, I’m really hoping that these 12 will result in 3 normal embryos.  Please pray for them as they grow this week and as they are sent off for testing in a week!

A 1:45AM alarm clock

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What do a Nebraska Gas Station, an Orland Park movie theater, and a Denny’s parking lot have in common?

The precise timing of injections is one of the key components of a stimulation cycle.  For this round, my injections must be given exactly 12 hours apart.  For me, I chose the 8 o’clock hour as the lucky time when I’d have to give my shots.  At the time, I didn’t think of all of the things that I’d be in the middle of at 8AM or 8PM:

  1.  Watching Beauty and the Beast at a movie theater with my family and friends.  Nothing like having Mariya give me three shots (in the dark) while singing along to the Prologue.  “…..Bonjour! There goes the baker with his tray like always…”
  2. Driving on our road trip to Denver, it was awesome giving myself a shot in the car while at the gas pump.  “Babe!  We need to pull over now!  The alarm on my phone is going off!”
  3. Giving myself shots in the bathroom at school before classes start in the morning
  4. Excusing myself from night school classes in order to give myself shots, again, in the bathroom at school.
  5. Leaving the dinner table with friends in order to go to my room and give myself shots.

The list could go on for, well, weeks worth of injections.

The good news, is the shots and medication are working.  At our doctor’s appointment yesterday, numerous follicles had finally reached the ‘magic’ 20mm+ size.  At this size, they are each (hopefully) filled with one tiny egg that can be extracted during surgery.  As mentioned in a previous post, one of the medications that I am currently taking prevents my body from ovulating and releasing those eggs.  In order to induce ovulation, I have to take an intramuscular shot that is perfectly timed with my scheduled surgery time.  For this go around, the time of that shot had to be at 1:45AM.

Yes, 1:45 AM.   I really can’t describe the immense pleasure of setting an alarm clock to wake you up at 1:43AM so that your wife can give you a shot with a 1.5″ needle in your hip area.  I would say that it was a definite highlight of my life — something akin to stubbing your pinkie toe on the coffee table.  🙂

The upside you might ask?  SURGERY IS SCHEDULED AND I AM DONE WITH SHOTS…..(for now).  Please pray for us and for my surgeon tomorrow.  Surgery is scheduled to start precisely at 12:45PM (Mountain Time) on Tuesday.  Please, please, please let there be multiple eggs that are all mature and ready to become our lucky embryos!