2/12/2017 0 Comments Egg RetrievalToday was egg retrieval day! Last night around bedtime, my husband had the realization that we totally forgot to pick up our anti-nausea patch from the pharmacy. That made me very nervous. We went to bed fairly early last night since we had to get up at 6 this morning. I couldn't eat or drink after midnight.
We woke up early this morning. I was nervous and excited. We got to the hospital and into the egg retrieval suite. It was nice being the first appointment. The room we stayed in was literally smaller than our closet (granted we do have a nice closet.) I had mentioned to my husband it was almost smaller than our closet, but he insisted our closet is actually bigger. The nurses working with us were very nice. Unfortunately, my veins were not cooperative. They prefer doing the IV on the right hand, but there were no veins to be had there. She thumped and tapped my hand. She had me squeeze my fist and had the tourniquet so tight I thought my arm would turn purple...but nothing. So I had to go through the same thing on the left side. Finally, a little vein made an appearance. When she went for the vein, I guess she missed. I swear she dug around on my hand with the needle for at least 5 minutes. It hurt so much I thought I was going to start crying. I was alternating between holding my breath and taking deep breaths. She finally got it in, but my hand hurt so much she was worried the saline was going in my skin. After several minutes of monitoring, it seemed everything was fine. The anesthesiologist came in for some more questions. I swear she was younger than me. I was shocked at how concerned that made me. My emotions were teetering on the edge of being too much. We had to wait about 20 more years...I mean minutes...for the doctor to come in. My husband and I made funny faces at each other in silence to pass the time. In our very small, beige room there was a nice sized window with an incredible few of Charlottesville and the mountains. In my mind I was singing Country Roads by John Denver. There was stained glass artwork hanging in the window that had pink and white lilies. It was really remarkable how calming that was in such a sterile room. The doctor came in and day wheeled me into adjacent room where they did the retrieval. My heart was racing. I was worried about how they were going to keep my legs up. Of course I picked the most random thing to fixate on. I started getting a little panicky. I was trying to ground myself: "The ceiling is beige. The walls are beige. This really isn't helping." When they got me into this dark room (that was literally two feet away) they immediately put my legs in these large, plastic leg holders (I'm sure that's not the scientific term.) They strapped my legs down and spread my legs about as far as I would imagine they can go. I'm still trying not to panic: "What if there's no egg? This is a lot to endure for no egg. Should we really have ordered that progesterone without knowing if we have an egg?!" There was a door directly across from me that would stay open for about 5 years before it would self close after a person left or entered the room. No big deal. At this point in my fertility journey I have little to no dignity left. Then they put the oxygen in my nose. It's crazy how fast I felt light headed. The next thing I remember was the nurse telling me they got the egg! I think she must have said that 3 or 4 times. I woke up so fast hearing this amazing news. She said the whole team cheered when they got the egg. I felt really good, but I was freezing (normal) and had really blurry vision (not uncommon). The nurse wrapped me up like a mummy with warm blankets to get the shivering to stop. I think I said something like, "I hope my face doesn't look like a mummy." They had me drink some water and I ate some Teddy Grahams (20 carbohydrates! Ahh...whatever they were the most delicious Teddy Grahams I've ever had.) They checked my vitals 5 or 6 times and I had to pee before I could go. I think we left by 10 or 10:30. I can't really remember. We drove to Duck Donuts and picked up some donuts to bring home. By the time we got home I felt pretty good. I did take a nice nap at some point. My stomach feels a little bloated and my ovary hurts a little, but nothing bad at all. We have so many more steps to go and it could all end in an instant. I'm just trying to focus on each minute. Right now I feel good. Perhaps even happy and hopeful. It's weird how terrifying it is to be happy or hopeful. To feel both of those at the same time is pretty scary. The devastation of bad news is pretty unbearable these days. But I'm working very hard to not think about the future until we get there and not dwell on the past. We will get a call tomorrow afternoon sometime to find out if the egg fertilized or not. If it does, then we have to wait to see if we can do the transfer on Wednesday. Today's quote is more poignant than I intended, but no less true. "After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting."--Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
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Heather Joyce
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