Road Map

First things first....the important news of the day. I got a call from Doc's office this morning with our daily update. She told me that nineteen (NINETEEN) of our embryos fertilized! She said it was a very impressive fertilization rate, and that we should be thrilled! (WE ARE!!) She also told us that they did assisted fertilization on some (where they actually inject the sperm into the egg) and unassisted on the others (just put them in the dish together and let the magic happen...). She said that both ways were very successful, and that is great for to know for the future. As of now, they are only fertilized, no divisions have occurred, but they shouldn't have just yet. She said she will call tomorrow morning with division information and to let us know how many survived the night. That is also when she will tell us when to expect our transfer. We are just so excited. Fertilization was one more hurdle, and we cleared it. Now we just need the little babies to start dividing!

Second, I wanted to let you all know that I am really feeling okay. My back is hurting, and my abdomen is a little sore, but the pain meds are helping and all in all I am doing great. The retrieval went really well. I got to wear some awesome booties, which I really wish I had a picture of. Nick was jealous. I then went into the operating room and they told me to "slide my butt right to the edge of the hole...just to the edge, don't fall in!" What do I do? Stick my butt RIGHT IN The hole...I am not an "on the edge" kinda girl. They laughed and told me I overshot it...nice. Once I woke up I was all sorts of drugged up and repeated myself A LOT, but I am pretty sure I didn't say anything too embarrassing. After that, I basically came home and slept the entire day. Dad brought dinner (Thanks mom and dad!) and then I crashed again. Doc said I most likely wouldn't feel the effects of the OHSS for a couple days, but that he really wasn't to worried about it. He told us that he only expects a mild cse, and although I would be uncomfortable, it should have no effect on our transfer or success rate! He said to take it easy (check) and to not exercise (ahhh hahaha...I mean, that will be tough). So, unless I get very sick very fast, we will be doing this transfer this week!

Now, I realized from some of my wonderful comments over the last couple days(love you guys!) that I haven't done the best job of actually telling you all what to expect next. I guess I am so used to all the details of IVF, I forget that lots of my readers have no idea what to expect! So, I will give you all a rough timeline from here to the end.

• Tomorrow we will get a call updating us on the quality of our eggs. We expect to lose some along the way, which is why it is so exciting we are starting out with such a high number!
• During that call, they will let me know when we are doing the transfer. It will be either Sunday or Tuesday.
• On the day of the transfer Nick and I will go in and meet with Doc. He will rate all the eggs we have left from 1-4. 1 being no good, 4 being great. We will discuss the numbers and what is our best shot of getting pregnant. It is at this point we will decide how many to put back between two and three. For now we are leaning towards three (odds of triplets are very small, but putting in three increases the success rate to 70%), but want to see what Doc has to say.
• We will get daily updates on the remaining eggs until Tuesday, which is when they will decide how many we have worth freezing (hopefully there will be some, but it is not a guarantee, even with this many eggs to start).
• Now we wait...the official two week wait started yesterday (day of fertilization) so we will go in on Thursday September 25th for a pregnancy test.
• Test positive, well...you know...BABY. Test negative, we will then hopefully be able to defrost a couple of the eggs and try for a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET). The more we have to freeze, the more shots we will get out of this one IVF cycle.

So, that's it. Your road map to IVF! Thanks to all of you all for your prayers and support. I can never truly tell you how much it means to me and Nick! I will let you all know the update tomorrow...now it is time for 90210 on my DVR...damn this show is terrible, and yet I can't turn it off...