Day 1 of "The Wait"

Countdown:
Transfer – 4 days!

Embaby Status: (That’s what they nickname the embryos at Bennett Fertility Institute.  J)

9 eggs aspirated

I find this picture to be awesome because I keep telling Todd that I want to decorate the nursery in owls.

As you can tell, I got a little Instagram-happy yesterday.  I was adding borders to all of my pictures before posting them.  However, in order to get them saved to my phone to be able to post them, I had to share them on Instragram.  Well, that’s a problem because my bonus daughters are always checking Instagram.  We are not telling the kids that this is the IVF month because we want to surprise them with the BFP, so I had to share the pictures and immediately delete them.  It worked fine because they were at school and not on their phones (or they should have been J), so I don’t think the surprise was ruined.  Anyway, I’m enjoying playing with the pictures.  I have two more for today.

Now, as a follow-up of yesterday, we’re still waiting for the big call today.  As you know, they aspirated 9 eggs and 500,000 sperm.  Three hours after my retrieval, they fertilized our eggs.  There are a lot of names for all of the phases that the eggs go through at this point, but for simplicity sake, we’re just going to call them embryos the entire time.  However, Bennett Infertility Institute (where we had the retrieval and will have the transfer in Oklahoma City) calls them embabies.  It’s like calling my follicles by the nickname of follies.  It makes it more fun.  J

Anyway, our embabies have been made.  Today, Mary Kathryn will get a call from BFI telling her the status of them.  Now, for those of you that are new to IVF, you should know something very important.  I will not have 9 embabies on Monday.  That means that not all of the eggs will make it.  Some of them probably were lost during fertilization yesterday, so we won’t even have 9 today.  Then, some of them will stop maturing each day, so we could lose some every day of the process.  The prayer is that there will be at least one good one left on Monday.  If there are more, that’s a blessing!  Am I nervous?  Not at all.  I’ve prayed about this, and I know that God is watching over our little embabies, now.  Even the doctors can’t do anything for them at this point.  I’m excited and anxious to hear the news, but I’m not nervous or worried.  God has his plan for me, and the cool thing is that we’re going to get to see it unfold a little more each day for the next 4 days.

As for more of a follow-up from yesterday, I had considerable back cramping last night.  It was just very uncomfortable and made me want to sit down.  Today is still sore and feeling very bloated.  I need to drink more Gatorade!  (By the way, I learned what the V8 and Gatorade are for.  The sodium in them helps to keep you from hyperstimulating during the process.  She told me that now that my ovaries have been aspirated, the sodium will fill the void and keep fluid from building up in them, causing me more bloating and pain.  It seems crazy to me, but I believe her.  This was from the nurse at BFI.)

Todd is still having quite a bit of pain, but they gave him the good meds to help with that.  He’s working from home today (thank goodness), so he can keep ice on his wounds.  They used a 12-gauge needle (which is big!!!), and he had 10 stitches inserted.  Poor guy!  I am so grateful that he’s finished with all of this for at least this round and the next potential 3 IVF rounds.  That’s awesome.

He did make a funny comment yesterday that caused quite an uproar in the operating room.  When they got him back there and removed his gown, he said, “I was in the pool.  I was in the pool!”  It’s a line from Seinfeld.  I could hear them laughing in the pre-op/recovery area.  Like I’ve said, married to a comedian.  J

Our trip home was uneventful yesterday, thank goodness.  Todd took me to Cracker Barrel because neither of us had eaten since the night before.  We purchased two gifts.  One is for Baby Provence.  It’s his/her first stuffed animal from Mommy and Daddy.  J  The other was this great Willow Tree figurine.  It will remind us of the excitement of our first retrieval day.

Our Little Monkey

Our Future

Last night was the first Progesterone shot.  Todd did a fabulous job!  It didn’t hurt.  However, I can already feel the bruise today.  I’ve been rubbing it and trying to keep the knots at a minimum.  Hopefully, with heat and rubs, these shots won’t be as bad as everyone else has said.  Fingers are crossed.

As for now, all we do is wait for our daily embaby update.  I’m also praying that my uterine lining is growing nice and thick.  I’m going to do some research today to see if there are any tricks on how to help that happen.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

As for everyone that texted or messaged me yesterday, thank you!  I was overwhelmed and surprised by how many friends remembered the appointment.  It was awesome to know people were thinking about us and praying for us!  I can’t thank all of you enough!!

I’ll update again later today when Mary Kathryn calls.  Grow, embabies, grow!!