Retrieval day

Friday morning Chris and I went to the doctor's office early and were brought upstairs to the retrieval room. I sat in a reclining table/chair dealie, got hooked up to an IV (antibiotics, pain medications, other anesthesia). After chatting with the medical assistant for a while, I remember the doctor coming in and talking to me, but I don't remember much else. Chris says I wasn't totally out - I responded to questions and made it clear when I was feeling discomfort, but I was fairly out of it.

Before we left they told us that 16 eggs were retrieved.

When I woke up, Chris was in the waiting room (he'd been providing his part of the genetic material while I was recovering) and we went home. I was pretty crampy. We came home and I went to sleep on the couch. Chris got me snacks and movies, which allowed me to stay on the couch most of the day. I felt ok - if a little groggy - most of the time, but when I stood up I was in a fair bit of crampy pain. It even hurt to pee. Not in the way it hurts if you have an infection, but in an internal muscle-related way. I can see why they had me use the enema. A bowel movement would have been unthinkable on Friday.

Ellen brought Avery over in the late afternoon and I played with him for a while. Making him smile is a really fun game, a little bit like the baby version of crack. Chris made me mexican meatball soup, and we watched movies. I felt bad, but not any worse than I'd feared.

I had acupuncture on Saturday morning and then had breakfast with Chris and Adam. We went to Powell's so I could look for books on twins - specifically the decision to have twins. I will have three embryos implanted assuming all goes well, so there is a chance that two or three will implant. I won't have triplets - it is too dangerous for me and gives the fetuses a much worse chance of developing normally. But two - Chris and I are talking about it. We recognize it will be really hard for a lot of reasons, but it would mean that we'd have two kids and not have to go through this again. Unfortunately for me, the books on twins all assume that you are having them. The books on fertility don't address twinning except in general discussions about the impact of fertility drugs on the odds of multiple births.

When we got home we got a call from the clinic. Of the 16 eggs, 15 were developed enough to try ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). Of those, 13 worked. Thirteen fertilized eggs are percolating away in the lab now.

As of Sunday I am still crampy and bloated, but feeling better. Tonight I start daily projesterone injections - shots in my ass that Chris has to administer with a scary big needle. We had the medical assistant draw guides on my butt so C would know where to put the shot. I am not excited about these shots, and neither is Chris. He was pretty cute about it, saying he's not looking forward to this, but recognizes that my worry is probably bigger.

Tomorrow three eggs get returned to me and we hope for the best.