last Monday was the egg retrieval.
I had started to get very uncomfortable in my abdomen, very tender.
then on sunday that pain moved from my abdomen to my left side, almost to my ribs, had i not been going in the next morning i probably would have called them.
because of the awful pain and not being able to button my pants i was concerned about ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome(OHSS), it is a possible complication to taking all the medication i was taking. It is when women make lots of follicles and they start to fill with extra fluid and that fluid leaks into your abdomen and potentially into you lungs, it can get very serious.
we got there about 10 min late, but that was ok. they checked me in had me change
and took vitals went over the plan one more time then placed my iv, which surprisingly didnt hurt with a student doing it.
ready to not be uncomfortable anymore!
I kissed ean and walked back to the OR. I laid down and she said, okay it's time for your morning coctail and i said a bloody mary sounds great and she said oh honey this is way better then a bloody mary and that is the last thing i remember!!
next thing i remember is i can't see anything but i can hear myself saying
"I dont remember coming here, thats so weird how did i get here"
then the next thing i remember is them saying --you can go get her husband
and i remember seeing ean for a brief moment
and then i remember the PAIN!!
now, im not a crier, and i have a high pain tolerance, i also have horrible period cramps so bad that i get hot flashes, throw up and missed work/school at times. so when they said it would feel like bad period cramps i was like ok, this will be tolerable
nope, she asked me my pain # and i said 9 and i said im gonna puke
so they gave my Tylenol (cause thats gonna do nothing) and no morphine because i was nauseous
she left and i started crying and telling Ean i wasn't prepared for this its not supposed to hurt like this
and i was terrified i was going to start puking and i knew how that felt after surgery of sorts.
i got the norovirus 12 hours after giving birth to Dash, and puking after after birth is the worst pain ever!!
so yah i was terrified to puke!
the nurse came back after what felt like years, really only 15min asked about my pain...yah no good i lied and said 8 when really it was still a 9.
she got me some codine
and then explained that my left ovary was stuck behind my uterus so they had to do a lot of pushing on my stomach to move it and that i would be in more pain then usual from that.
"ohhhh that explains so much" explains the weird displaced pain on sundy and the extreme pain now.
i went in and out of sleep, ean fed me crackers and 7up
at some point the dr came in and said that i had 43 follicles (that is a ton!!) and at that point they had 30 mature eggs, but they were still cleaning some off and counting. YOWZERS!!
I rested a little more and then the nurse came in and said it was time to go pee. yay :/
so she took my blood pressure laying down, again when i got sat up and while sitting i started to feel nausous again so she said to be really careful when i stood so her and ean helped me I stood and started to get dizzy and really hot.
she asked if i was ok because my blood pressure dropped and I said not really, no.
but I walked to the bathroom anyway, ean came in with me and had to hold my IV bag (which totally freaked him out) and she told him to pull the red string should I pass out! (his face, had i been able to see it clearly was probably pretty priceless!)
He looked at me like what the hell and i looked at him like....well, like i was gonna pass out.
I peed a little and then stood up and got dizzy but we made it to the door and she helped me back in bed where i stayed for another 45min or so before she did the blood pressure test again and unhooked my IV and i got to go home!
we stopped at panera...i ate none of it and went and got dash from my friend who was watching him!
i took some pain pills and went to sleep.
i was sent home with a hat for the toilet and told to measure my intake and output and weight
just in case i had OHSS. I did end up with a mild case...gained 3lbs in one day(they say to call at 5lbs) but the next day i lost it and peed out way more then i took it, so yay!
you can only drink gatorade, with small amounts of water but they want you to have the electrolytes....I dont like Gatorade or sugary drinks like that...even though it was the less sugar kind i still wasn't a fan!
it was pretty bad pain, (not like i was expecting) it hurt to walk. hurt to pee, not like burning UTI pain like pain in my abdomen, instead of getting the sensation that i had to pee i would just feel extra pain...it was weird! i think because my insides were bruised from all the pushing and poking!
I spent the next 2 days laying down a lot with a heating pad on my stomach, Ean did go back to work on tue so i couldnt take my pain pills till after i picked up chasen from school!
On wednesday they called with an update. they froze 18 eggs (incase we want to use them later to have 1,000 kids i dont have to go through this again!)
inseminated 15 (using ICSI) and 13 of the 15 fertilized....ummmWHAT!?!?! 13 possible embryos, i was freaking out....happy it worked so great but thats a lot!!!
Thursday i finally felt like i didnt need pain pills, i was crampy and sore...like i had done 1,000 side crunches...except that certainly didnt happen ;)
they called me again, but did not update me on the #of embryos just told me what time to be there on saturday!
Friday still sore but better, just ready to do the transfer
Saturday, Happy Valentines day! we arrive to get my blood drawn and then head up to the same place i had my eggs retrieved, it was the same nurse which was nice!!
this time Ean had to don the apparel!
I helped him fix his hat after the photo ;)
you have to have a full bladder so the dr can see better on ultrasound where to place the embryo
and mine was FULL, we were to have the procedure at 11....the dr didnt show up till 11:30 which is super rude when you know the person is about to pee
her pants your table
the nurse came in after 10 min and said she had paged him and he was downstairs but on his way.
15 min she comes back, she still hadn't seen him and paged him again but she let me go pee --just a little, ha! it did help relieve the pressure.
He showed up and FINALLY we got to know how many embryo's
and Im sorry but i wont share how many (our family knows...or can ask, i can't remember who we talked to!) but, i just dont want the whole world knowing how many potential children we will have, Id like to keep a little mystery. I will say however that it is way less then 13!!!!!
the dr showed us pics of them all
and here is the one we used!
see that arrow, it is pointing to the part of the embryo that is hatching .... which is great! if the embryo is hatching at the time of transfer it means it already has a surface to stick to the uterine wall!
all of that "bubbly stuff" inside the circle(called the zona) will "hatch" out of the zona and (hopefully) attach its self to my uterine wall and become a bouncing baby!!
procedure took not long at all we got to watch the embryo go in ...there were 3 tv sceens of my uterus!! and the embryologist opens a little door (i couldnt see her. i felt like the wizard of oz...who is the woman behind the curtain?!) but heard her say one embryo for ean and abby caskey and then the door closed and we saw this
its a picture of an air bubble LOL hahaha what!?
you can't see the embryo without a microscope so they put the embryo in the tube,then an air bubble so they can see on the ultrasound that they are placing it in a good spot of my uterus.
then the tube is handed through the door to the "great and powerful Oz" and after a minute I hear her say "the tube is clear, your embryo transferred" and they all cheered! and left us alone for 10 min so i could
rest lay there longer having to pee :) after that we were on our way!
(apparently the embryo can get stuck in the tube so they check to make sure, if it did they just put more solution in and try again!)
and kids THAT is how babies are made ;) --- hopefully. now we wait!
