A Grain of Sand
7 May 2008
We headed out to the hospital a little early yesterday morning, not expecting much traffic. Of course there was an accident on the bridge which caused Drew an enormous amount of anxiety which he managed to hide quite well. I was slowly floating down into my (prescribed) Valium coma and wasn’t too worried about any of it.
We managed to arrive on time, checked in and headed upstairs to the OR. I was once again instructed to strip and change into my cap, gown and booties, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a set for Drew. Neither of us realized he got to be in the room during the procedure. I was 99% happy, and 1% disappointed because I had been imagining what a great story it would be to tell about how I got pregnant and ‘Daddy’ wasn’t even in the room.
After we were shown into the transfer room we went over the stats of the remaining embryos. 4 had survived. The other 2 were not dividing properly and were discarded. The plan was to transfer 2 and freeze the other 2. Time to get rolling.
Everything went pretty smoothly. The speculum was very uncomfortable and was the most painful part of the procedure. I was expecting problems with the catheter insertion because they had problems during the mock transfer, but that part was a breeze. I didn’t feel a thing. It was over before I really knew it was happening (other then the uncomfortable speculum).
They had me get up pretty quickly after the transfer, and Drew asked the nurse about them “falling out.” It’s a reasonable question. She told us that the uterus is not the big open cavity that most people assume it it. It’s pretty compact. She likened the transfer to putting a grain of sand inside a peanut butter sandwich. It was actually a very reassuring image.
The embryos are still in their protective shell. They won’t hatch for probably another day or two. After hatching they need to find their way to the uterine wall and embed themselves. Anything can go wrong. They can stop dividing, there could be problems in hatching, or they could not embed. We have no way of monitoring the progress for the new few weeks until it’s time to take the blood test.
And now we wait.
on May 7th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Nice re-telling. I have nothing really to add about the process so don’t think I’m going to write my own post, except that:
1) everyone was really, really nice and was such a welcome contrast to how filled with anxiety I was for the 1 1/2 hours it took us to get through traffic to get there.
2) The doctor kept saying how he was going to take all the time he needed to be sure that it was perfect, which I’m sure was meant to be reassuring, but I could tell Amy really wouldn’t have minded if he had used a 2nd gear.
3) The stats were interesting (to me) of how each of the embryos were graded and I asked them to make us a copy of their report.
4) Finally, the embryologist hung out there and I didn’t quite understand why she needed to be there, but it was their show. Once the doc had the catheter in, though, she pops out and comes back with this gigantic needle, or thin tube. Anyway, this apparently has the embyros in it. Doc feeds it through the catheter, which has been placed where he wants it and pops them out. Then he hands the needle/tube back to the embryologist who looks under the microscope to be sure they they weren’t in there any longer. Anyway, that seemed odd - that they just don’t know because ultrasound doesn’t have the magnification to see whether it worked or not until they go back and look under the microscope again.
on May 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Sending all my good thoughts your way!
on May 7th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Amy,
I am thinking of you. Let me tell you from my experience the last two weeks - this is the hardest part - just waiting. Drink lots of tea, distract yourself with TV and slow walks - and be nice to yourself. : )
on May 8th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Yay! *fingers crossed*