Egg Retrieval Day

Ever since I can remember, there have been two things about me that always end up biting me in the ass. One - I am a planner. I plan things to the very last detail and I do not know how to handle it when things have to change. I had a five-year plan for my five-year plan. You would think being married to a man in the military would help me to learn to go with the flow, but really it just taught me to write in pencil and not pen. Two - I have to overachieve. When I was younger and would take home grades, nothing was acceptable unless it was an 'A'. My response to my dad was always "but dad this grade means average", and my lovely father burned into my brain "but baby you're not average". Thus, a monster was born. With everything I do in life, I must exceed expectations. It has been a blessing my entire life but today it has come around and smacked me in the face.

Let us backtrack a little bit, I realized I have not posted on the blog with many updates. We ended up having 4 monitor visits and total injection days of nine plus the two trigger shots. My ovaries reacted extremely well to the medication and by the fourth injection or so, they were the size of baseballs. At one point we were estimated at 70 follicles or so. Every appointment I went to the ultrasound tech, or the doctor was shocked at how large my follicles were getting. For some reason, seeing everyone's shocked expressions helped to validate the immense discomfort I was feeling. My progression was so fast that I had ultrasound visits every other day for the week, followed by two back to back. We triggered Monday, May 28 and Tuesday I got a nice little break from injections. WOOHOO. I woke up multiple times the middle of the night crying in pain, it definitely got worse with each day.

Today was the egg retrieval and I could not be more excited to get these things out of me. The bloating was so bad at this point that I already looked pregnant, what a cruel joke. My wonderful, overachieving ovaries produced 49 eggs. FORTY-NINE EGGS INSIDE MY BODY. To try and help you all understand the pain and discomfort, I will put it this way; a woman ovulates one egg per cycle. So the cramps and pains you feel during ovulation and that time of the month, I had but times 49. Let us take a moment to let that sink in.

With me now? Good. So 49 eggs were successfully retrieved and 37 of those eggs were at the mature size, meaning they were over 16mm. I know for a fact I had a bunch that was well over 20mm also. This all sounds so great, and it even shocked the doctor, all she kept saying was "I mean wow. It really is amazing". The only downfall to all of this above averageness is that my transfer was canceled. Due to a large number of eggs, the size of them, and my progesterone levels, it no longer was safe to do a fresh transfer. My ovaries have been so stimulated that I am almost at the point of OHSS. This makes it more uncomfortable recovering from today's procedure and will take a bit more time to feel better and let my body heal.

What all of this means is that instead of becoming pregnant on Monday, we have to wait for me to get a period and shed some of this overstimulated mess. I am expected to get one in a couple of weeks and then will be put back on birth control. Once my body is healed and ready, we will "thaw out" an embryo and do a frozen transfer. We are looking at 5-7 weeks until that is possible. Of course, I cried when they told me it would be canceled, who wants to wait even longer than we already have? Now, after having time to sit on it, I know it is a good thing. My body has just gone through so much, it has taken an emotional and physical toll on me and I need time to heal. I want to feel good when they do the transfer. I want the pain from all the stimulation to be gone and I want to enjoy the run to the finish line. Having to do this adds $3,000 to our cycle, fees for a frozen transfer. At this point, it is what it is. We have come this far and neither one of us are willing to risk my health for $3,000.

Right now, I focus on recovering and wait for a period. Please do not feel too bad for us, we are upset of course but I honestly am happy about the break and having time to heal.

Keep praying Team D

xoxo, ALD

Baby D IVF ttd: $11,403.38

Consultation: $124

Nurses Class & Procedure - $7,965

Medications - $1,644.38

Saline Ultrasound - $470

Medications pharm. 2 - $450

Monitor Visits - $750