Egg retrieval ... super fun stuff

WARNING: Much of this is TMI. Stop reading now if my talking about a medical procedure and/or my need to pee or my uterus and/or ovaries will bother you.

So you all know we're doing IVF. I've been giving myself shots for several weeks. The doctor at the "satellite office" has been monitoring me closely this past week, afraid I was hyperstimulating. Since I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), this was a definite possibility. To have a successful IVF cycles, you need to have 10 follicles total all at 10 millimeters or more. The last ultrasound I had this week showed around 53 follicles, 22 on the right and 31 on the left. Holy hell. No wonder I felt super uncomfortable and bloated and couldn't really button my pants.

The weird thing was my blood work didn't match up with the number of follicles they were seeing. They check the estrodile level in the blood -- which from my understanding is estrogen -- to monitor follicle growth. With 53 follies, I should have had an estrodile level at 5,000 or more. Mine was 1,500 or so. That meant I had "empty follicles," or follicles containing no eggs.

Friday we went to the U of I for egg retrieval. This is where they knocked me out and went up through the vaginal wall with a giant needle, aspirated the follicles, and suctioned out the eggs. I was nervous about the number of eggs they'd get, and then their quality, because of the difference between my follicle numbers and estrodile levels.

When I woke up I was in a lot of pain. They gave me two shots of Fentanyl and two Tylenol 3s, and I was still effing miserable. I can only assume this had something to do with the amount of follicles I had and the fact that they were poking around at them. What I was feeling was akin to really bad menstrual cramps. Worse than I've ever had off the pill, and that's saying something right there. I didn't know that pain could get worse.

Then I had to pee. I thought maybe a full bladder was making the cramping worse, since I've experienced that with regular menstrual cramps. To get me up to the bathroom, they had to sit me up, check my blood pressure, then stand me up and check it, just to make sure I was okay. The first time, my BP plummeted. I already have low blood pressure, so that wasn't terribly surprising. I almost passed out. Or threw up. Or both. So they made me lay back down.

I laid there wrestling with my need to pee and my need to not pass out and crack my head open or puke on the nice nurse. It took two more times -- and an offer of a bed pan, which I practically screamed in protest at -- to get me to the bathroom. The pain got worse and sharper the longer I laid there waiting for my body to cooperate with me.

Once in the bathroom ALONE I realized that I should have had Brian come in with me. It hurt like a mofo to pee. I think this was just the use of the muscles to push the urine out competing with my abused ovaries. It took me a good five minutes to empty my bladder, and another bout of cold sweats, almost puking, and almost passing out. I definitely should have had someone in there with me. When I was walking out I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I was bone white, lips and all. The nurse freaked when she saw me. I could barely walk the 20 feet back to my bed to lie back down.

Once I got back into bed, though, and stopped sweating, I felt AWESOME. Clearly, the full bladder was a problem, because my pain went down significantly after that.
They gave me lots of fluids, because they kind of thought I was dehydrated and that was the cause of the low BP. By the time I left, I felt pretty damn good. Brian and I actually stopped for lunch on the way home.

I've been some pain since then. I couldn't stand up straight without pain meds until today. I called the doctor, and he said that my ovaries were probably just bleeding and the blood was pooling, which is totally normal as long as I wasn't running a fever or nauseous, which I wasn't. I just kept taking my pain meds, and today I'm feeling much better.

On to the results: They retrieved 10 eggs, two of which were immature. That's a pretty low number considering the amount of follicles I had. They inseminated eight, and four fertilized. Because there are only four embryos, they're doing the transfer on Day 3, which is tomorrow. If they get more than 7 embryos, they'll sometimes wait until Day 5 so they can continue to monitor and culture the embryos in a controlled environment. If there are less than 7, they transfer them at Day 3 because the embryos can die, and they don't want to risk that.

They're also going to put two in tomorrow. This is also because of the low number of embryos. They can't tell the really good ones from the poor ones by Day 3, so they put back 2 just in case. This gives us a 33% chance of having twins, which, the more I think about it, the more excited I get. Two for one! I'm going to call them BOGO (Buy one, Get one). LOL. The other two will be cryogenically frozen for use later.

It's a really strange feeling knowing I have four babies just chillin' up there at the U of I waiting for me. It's bizarre. As my dad said, "It's really weird to know I have four grandchildren I've never met." he's also calling them his "handmade grandchildren." Ha!

I'm thinking this whole lots of follicles, few eggs thing might be the reason we've gone four years without getting pregnant. Just because I develop follicles doesn't mean there are eggs, obviously. I think the blood work I've had done over the years would still show I've ovulated, even if there are no eggs, so the doctors didn't know. It's pretty exciting that this may have been our only issue, and that we're bypassing that and hopefully this will just work right away. It's also REALLY scary to think it might not work. This IVF process has really been an emotional roller coaster.

I'm fairly restricted in my activities. I can't lift more than 15 pounds, have to take it pretty easy, and we can't have sex until my pregnancy test. I'll have a blood test on March 2nd. Neither of us are terribly happy about that. My subconcious is clearly disgruntled, judging by the vivid dreams I've been having. Sorry. Told you this would be TMI.