Sunday, October 05, 2008

Embryo transfer done!

I can't believe it is DONE!

Surprisingly, I overslept a bit so we were about 10 minutes late. As usual though, the clinic was full of ladies there for scans.

I saw one of the ladies who also had her egg retrieval on Thursday. This was the lady who only got two eggs. It's true about quality over quantity because her two performed beautifully and came through the 3 days, and were also grade A eggs, so they were both transferred.

Now, me.

My one embryo was still beautiful but the other two exhibited some other weird signs, so even though they were behaving properly (as I'd been praying!), he said that they might look like that simply because of the ICSI. We can't be sure that they have actually fertilised normally. In fact, based on past experience (other women), they probably have something wrong with them.

So I'm like, "why don't we transfer them and if they fall off, then we'll know"

But this stopped me in my tracks.

If they transfer a dud, it will negatively affect the beautiful, perfect embryo.

And that we are all not prepared to do.

So they'll let those other two grow for another two days but for now, we have a bun in the oven!

My husband asked him what he was going to do with those two and I said, "they're going to throw our babies away" to which he said, "that's a very emotive statement".

Um, yes. Of course it is!

Anyway, I was just having fun with the doctor. He's not my usual Dr G - this one is very straight-laced and together so I can't resist :)

When we left his office to go to the theatre area, I ran into the third lady. We exchanged quick updates - she also only had 1 fertilised egg out of 5 and says to me, "now we know why we haven't been falling pregnant" which is a good way of looking at it.

I said that I'd see her downstairs but I didn't. I later found out from the nurse that they'd decided to do a day 5 transfer for her.

Now, for all you clever IVF people...why would they do that?

procedure
I drank 4 huge glasses of water before I was ready.

The nurse said, "there'll be slight discomfort" so I gave her my "look" and she laughed when she remembered. We'd had a whole debate on Thursday because in my view, all medical personnel say "discomfort" when in normal English, that means pain!

It wasn't too bad. I must say, after reading Sarah and Shelli's blogs about their transfers, I was a lot more scared.

This was my first time with my feet in stirrups! I was a bit nervous that I'd leak while they were pushing that thing down on my belly. Fortunately I didn't embarrass myself in that way BUT the first speculum flew out so I had to endure the insertion again.

I definitely felt the catheter go in and felt some pain but once they found the right spot it was okay. There was a flash as the embryo was transferred and that was that.

Good luck all around from the nurse, doctor and embryologist, and off I went to have a nice, big pee after reassurance that no, it couldn't "fall out".

So how are you guys doing?

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:37 pm

    forgive my ignorance, but does this mean you are pregnant!?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:23 am

    However, in this woman's case, she only has the one, so I'm not sure what the line of reasoning was.....anyone care to speculate?

    In the meantime, it's WONDERFUL news that you have your bun in the oven. Now I'm hoping for a fast 2WW wait for you. But, logically, is that really possible? :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:26 am

    Blasted Blogger....it cut off half my comment, which makes my comment not make alot of sense....so let's try this again...what I originally posted was this:

    My doctor said that waiting until Day 5 to transfer is a matter of more informed decision-making: Sometimes, when you have multiple embryos that don't seem to display much difference from each other, it helps to let them develop for another two days to see if any develop better than any others, thus signifying which ones should be chosen first.

    However, in this woman's case, she only has the one, so I'm not sure what the line of reasoning was.....anyone care to speculate?

    In the meantime, it's WONDERFUL news that you have your bun in the oven. Now I'm hoping for a fast 2WW wait for you. But, logically, is that really possible? :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Christi, thanks so much for that excellent explanation. That makes a lot of sense.

    I’m also going to infertility support group tonight so I’ll find out more.

    I told my husband yesterday, “I’m pregnant until proven otherwise” LOL

    Mindi
    I believe that I am...

    Technically, the embryo now has to implant itself in the uterus. Once you transfer the embryo(s), the success % is much higher (60 - 70%)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous6:52 am

    Hi Leigh,

    My email has been putting your letters in my spam folder, and I accidentally hit the delete spam button. Can you resend them? My email address is: Be Clothes Minded at aol dot com. Sorry for the inconvenience.

    Kind Regards,
    Christi

    ReplyDelete

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