3/12/2017 0 Comments PUPOYesterday we went in to have my lining measured again. They wanted it to be at least 6, but more than 7 was preferred. It was 10! So we were good to go for our transfer. They told us they would call later to tell us the time for our transfer. When they called we were running errands and the nurse said, “Don’t forget to take all of the Valium before the procedure.” WHAT. No one said anything about Valium. She realized she hadn’t even sent it to the pharmacy so she did. When I got off the phone I realized I hadn’t asked her a single question. The only thing I knew was that we had to be there at 10:15 with a full bladder and on Valium.
Luckily, I have some friends who have already been through this so I started texting them immediately. On person did the Valium, one was prescribed but didn’t take it, and one wasn’t even prescribed it! Crazy how each clinic is different. This morning we got up at 7:00 to do the progesterone shot. My husband, being the smart thinker he is, realized that because of the time change we should probably wait to do the shot since they’re pretty time sensitive. You have to take them within one hour of each other. So if you take it at 7:00 one day you’ll need to do it between 6 and 8 the next. So we waited an extra half hour before doing the shot. Then we got up and started getting ready to leave for our transfer. I’ve been trying really hard to not think about our “maybe baby” (I saw this term in an article once and fell in love with it). We had no idea how our embryo was doing. They didn’t really tell us anything specific yesterday. I kept thinking, “What if we get there and they tell us the condition is too poor to transfer?” Would they call and tell us or make us get there before they broke the news?” You also have to go in for your transfer with a full bladder. So I was trying to make sure I was drinking enough water. I drank two glasses of water and was already feeling like I had to pee before we even left. I remembered for our mock transfer I drank way too much water so I was trying to take it easier this time. At 9:45 I took my 3 Valium and we were on our way. On the way out, I stopped to feed the cats. I noticed a small whisker on the floor by their food bowl. A few weeks ago a good friend of mine gave me a really sweet painting. It’s a painting of two cats next to each other with the quote, “Time spent with cats is never wasted.” She painted the background green for fertility and poked three holes for whiskers on one of the cats. She asked we find three whiskers (one representing me, Matt, and our baby.) I’ve had this thing for weeks and haven’t found a single whisker until this morning. It felt like a good sign. When we got there the nurse said she hadn’t had an update on the embryo yet either and she was excited to hear what the embryologist had to say. I got all suited up (or down…) in my gown, hair net and fuzzy socks. Matt also got to have some shoe covers and a hair net. I didn’t realize he was going to get to be a part of this too! They wheeled me into the room where the egg retrieval had been. The embryologist came to talk to us and he said our embryo was as perfect as a three day embryo could be. They grade them on a scale of 1 (not so good) to 8 (best). Our little overachiever was rated as an 8! I’ve been trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but hearing this good news made it hard to fight that off. They put my legs in the stirrups, inserted the speculum, and started looking at my bladder with the ultrasound to see how full it was. It was very full. It was painful when she pressed on my bladder with the ultrasound. When they did the mock transfer the catheter went right in. This time…not so much. They tried and tried and couldn’t get it to go in. They then had to ask me to pee a little bit. I had to pee into a cup standing up and once the cup got to a certain point I had to jump up. This was really awkward and interesting considering the Valium was in full effect. I peed in the cup (I think I am now literally a pro pee in a cup-er). I went back in and go resituated. This time the catheter went in much easier. Once that catheter was in my cervix we could see our embryo on a computer screen behind the doctor. I don’t know what it’s like to hold your own baby for the first time, but I was filled with so many emotions when I finally go to see our little bundle of cells on the screen. I almost cried because it was literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It was literally perfect (not just according to me…but also confirmed by the embryologist). They verified my name and date of birth (for the 39007947 time that morning). It was correct and that was our embryo. He took a picture of our embryo that we got to take home. The embryologist came in with another catheter that contained our embryo. They inserted that catheter into the other catheter and placed the embryo in my uterus. They then had to check the end of the catheter to make sure the embryo wasn’t still stuck to it. How cool is all of that?! How in the world did they ever figure all this stuff out?! They wheeled me back into the other room and had me lie there for 20 minutes or so before I could pee. They offered to drain my bladder with a catheter but I felt like I could wait. They gave us a card with our little embryo picture in it. I couldn’t stop staring at it. I think I even had to remind myself to hand it to Matt so he could see it. So I am officially PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise). IVF is not how it was portrayed on Friends when Phoebe decided to be a surrogate. In Friends, Phoebe had her transfer and came home later that day to take a pregnancy test and it was positive. In the real world, you have to wait an excruciatingly long time (about 2 weeks) to find out if it worked or not. The risk of a false positive on a pregnancy test is pretty high after IVF. So, I solemnly swear not to take a home pregnancy test. (At least that’s how I feel today). I also am going to do my absolute best to not Google anything along the lines of “Is *insert symptoms here* a side effect of progesterone or a pregnancy symptom?” It sucks so much that progesterone side effects are identical to pregnancy symptoms and symptoms of a period are also quite similar to pregnancy symptoms. So, I will undoubtedly be driving myself crazy for the next two weeks. We go in for our blood test on March 24th. “There are two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein.
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Heather Joyce
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