Fertility Journey {Egg Retrieval}

In my previous September fertility post, I shared all of the prep work that went into beginning our first IVF cycle. Now, it is time for the first of the two surgical procedures. IVF involves a two step process...Step 1: getting the eggs and fertilizing them, and then Step 2: implanting an embryo and praying that it attaches to the wall of the uterus survives.

Our egg retrieval was scheduled for 8:30 in the morning on September 11, 2013. If I remember correctly, something else really important happened around 8:30 in the morning on the 11th of September about 12 years ago. I suppose my body just couldn't possibly pass up this opportunity for dramatic irony. Luckily, this date is not in fact cursed for all eternity because my procedure turned out fine and I was excited that I had the rest of the day off of work so that I could go home and watch all the 9/11 television specials. I'm a history nerd at heart.

That morning, I arrived at the IVF center feeling hungry, bloated, uncomfortable and ready to be done with all of this. Remember, all that medication that had been pumping up my follicles for the past two weeks had left my ovaries gigantic and full of eggs. Not comfortable. I figured that once they removed all the eggs, my ovaries would go back to their normal size and the bloating would subside. I was wrong, very wrong. In fact, retrieving the eggs causes the exact opposite to happen. Fantastic.

The nurses got me all situated in the operating room, IV in place and ready for cocktails. The egg retrieval procedure required me to be under anesthesia which was totally fine with me. The less I know, the better. I feel like having someone jab a giant needle into your ovaries and suck your eggs out repeatedly one at a time is probably not something that one wants to be awake to experience.

The last thing I remember is the anesthesiologist placing the mask over my face and saying "enjoy what will hopefully be your last cocktail hour for the next 9 months". Next thing I know, I wake up in the recovery room feeling not that bad. Jared and my mom came back to recovery to hang out with me and await the results (aka: the final egg count) of the egg retrieval.

 
Only a blogger would make her husband take a picture of her with her iPhone in the recovery room literally moments after waking up. I knew I was going to blog about this process eventually, so I had to get my documentation :)

Once I was in recovery, my eggs were delivered straight to the embryologist in his lab which is literally connected to the operating room. He immediately takes a look at my eggs, counts them up and gives me the results. They we able to retrieve 21 eggs from me! That is a lot. Of course, not all 21 of those eggs are going to fertilize properly or survive, but he is going to attempt to fertilize each one and then see what happens. By the time my results are delivered to me in recovery, the embryologist is already busy at work injecting the sperm into each egg to try and begin the fertilization process.

Now, I get to go home and rest, and begin preparing my body for the next step in the procedure which will take place 5 days later, implanting one of the embryos. Upon leaving the IVF center, I felt fine. A little tired, but no pain or discomfort. This good feeling continued for the next couple hours until whatever medication they had put in my IV began to wear off.

The next morning, I woke up in serious pain feeling crampy and bloated with a weird tightness in my stomach. I took a look in the mirror and this is what I saw...

The night after my procedure, I went to bed with a flat stomach and woke up the next morning looking 4 months pregnant. Uh, this was mildly terrifying. I feel like the nurses need to redefine the term bloating here. "Bloating" is like how my stomach looks after eating one of those multi-course hibachi meals at the Japanese steakhouse. A stomach that is rock hard and looks 4 months pregnant is not what I would simply call "bloating".

The next 4 days were hellacious. This "bloated" stomach of mine was seriously cramping and hurting 24/7. I couldn't find a single comfortable position. I didn't sleep for 4 nights because I was so uncomfortable. Even if I found a comfortable position, it was only tolerable for about 15-20 minutes before I would have to try and find a new position. The nurses told me that all of this was normal. Apparently, the severity of the bloating and cramping depends on how many eggs they retrieve. The more eggs, the more invasive; therefore, more recovery and pain. I was informed that my 21 eggs were sure to bring pain and discomfort at the top of the severity threshold and they surely did.

On day 3 after my egg retrieval procedure, the doctor called to inform me that 16 of my eggs fertilized successfully and were growing as they should be. That is still a really high number and I was very excited that my eggs (now embryos) were doing well. This egg retrieval nonsense is definitely something that I only want to go through once in my life, so I needed as many of those eggs as possible to fertilize.

At this point, I was on yet another intense medication regimen. Only this time, no injections. I was taking Doxycycline (oral) twice a day, Estradiol (oral) twice a day, Medrol (oral) once a day, low dose aspirin (oral) once a day, two prenatal vitamins (oral) once a day and Crinone (neither oral, nor injection, I'll let you use your imagination on that one. Yeah, it's gross) once a day. I had to create myself a little calendar with just my medications on it to keep up with all this stuff.

I also decided that I wanted to know how much this bloated belly of mine really weighed because it felt like I was carrying around a giant weight on my stomach. I had weighed myself on the morning of my egg retrieval procedure and now, 4 days later, I was weighing 10 pounds heavier! No wonder this belly was so uncomfortable, it weighed ten whole pounds. Unfortunately, the nurse told me that this belly was probably going to still be hanging around even a few days after my embryo transfer (procedure #2). Great.

Being at work during this time was an absolute nightmare. I felt like crap, I was in constant pain and my students endlessly made fun of my belly. They kept badgering me nonstop, asking if I was pregnant, telling me I looked like a kangaroo, etc. It was very irritating. Middle schoolers are so cruel.

I was starting to think about how ironic it is that one of the side effects of IVF is this swollen, pregnant-looking belly. It forces a woman who is desperate to become pregnant to look pregnant without actually being pregnant so that people who have no manners can continuously ask that woman if she is pregnant. Oh that's healthy for a woman who is probably already feeling mentally and emotionally unstable. I seriously can't even tell you how many people came up to me during this time and asked me if I was pregnant, and I so desperately wanted to punch each one of them. Harsh, but true.

Despite the pain and emotional trauma, I had to try and stay positive. I needed to be calm and stress-free. I prayed and prayed that my little eggs were growing into strong embryos, that the upcoming embryo transfer would be successful and that I might finally have the results I had been so desperately hoping for. At this point, there was nothing more I could do. It was in God's hands now and all I could do was pray.

Coming up next post...the embryo transfer procedure and the two week waiting game.