The one when the embryo is transferred

Embryo transfer is a piece of cake compared to ER.  Speaking of cake, a lot of it was left behind on Saturday and I’ve been doing my best to eat it so it doesn’t feel abandoned by my in-laws.  Poor cake.

We got up and showered and dressed.  It’s about an hour drive to the clinic where I receive treatment, so I planned to drink my liter of water once in the car.  Once we were on the highway, I realized that I forgot it.  So we stopped and bought the most giant bottle of water I’ve ever downed so fast.  I usually aim to drink that much over a 4 hour period at work but since I knew I needed to fill my bladder, I obviously had to get it all in quickly.  15 minutes.  When we got there, DH said he needed to pee, but I told him if I couldn’t, then he wasn’t either. 😉  So they set me up and checked with the ultrasound, but my bladder wasn’t full enough yet, so they left us for a little while.  When she came back to check she said I was ready.

The Dr came in to put the whatever-they-use into place.  She said it was like a noodle.  They put it into position and basically test it, then they hold position while a lab tech gets our embryo from down the hall.  Then the thing that’s holding the embryo goes through the noodle and the embryo is pushed through that and into me.  She told us what to look for so we could see it happen.  It was just a little flash of white on the screen.  Kind of nothing, but so amazing at the same time.  I was obviously aware of the nurse at my belly with the ultrasound wand, the Dr who was up my hoo-ha, and then the lab guy who came in with the embryo.  But DH said there was another nurse in the room with us, and the lab tech brought a friend.  So including us, there were 7 people in the room when it actually happened.  That’ll be an interesting story to tell if this results in a child.  Can’t wait to tell it at his or her high school graduation.

I had read that study out of India or somewhere that said that laughter after a transfer can help (eh, it was Israel), so after the party people all left, DH showed me some funny kid videos on his phone.  We gave that up pretty quickly though because it turned out I had to pee pretty badly after all that water.  And the nurse told me that studies have also shown a negative effect when you have to pee really badly but you don’t get up to go.  We found a breakfast place nearby that was really yummy.  I had Eggs Benedict that was on top of huge potato skins instead of English muffin halves.  Interesting.  When DH raised his eyebrows at me for stealing bite after bite of his pancakes, I told him I couldn’t help it, the baby wanted them.  He found this both adorably amusing and ridiculous.  I guess I won’t get away with that excuse for a while (fingers crossed).  We went home and watched funny movies for the rest of the day.  All the rest over the last few days, since the ER, made me a little restless.

Yesterday, when I was 1dp5dt, I had to talk to my care team about something, so I asked them if they had the info about how many embryos made it to blastocyst stage to be frozen.  She let me know that I had 4 that had been frozen.  Finding out that I had only gotten 5 blasts from 14 normal embryos was a little shocking.  She said it was not unexpected and what I had looked great and not to worry.  But it made me all the more grateful that we had gotten 14 originally.  That’s only a 35% survival rate.

I’m 2dp5dt today.  I’m at my regular location at work today so it’s busier than where I was after the ER and ET.  I have some cramping, which I know is normal.  I’m not too worried, just a little uncomfortable.  My beta is a week from tomorrow, June 2nd.

On a completely separate subject, something devastating happened to a girl I was friends with a couple of years ago.  She is the best friend of a friend of mine.  She’s my age (30ish).  3 weeks ago, her husband had a brain aneurism.  He’s been in one of the best Boston hospitals since then.  He had been making progress every day and the doctors were very hopeful.  Even on Monday night she updated that he was responding to voices and a video of their kids.  His eyes were following her in the room.  But yesterday morning, there were complications and he passed away.  Their sons are 4, 3 and 11 months.  I can’t get over the fact that this sweet girl is my age and suddenly a widow with 3 babies under the age of 5.  I am absolutely heartbroken for her.  A friend of theirs made a gofundme page to help with medical bills before he passed.  I normally don’t really like those, but I’m linking it here in case any of you are moved to make any size contribution.  This was a truly tragic, senseless loss.  It’s one of those things that reminds you that our time here is not guaranteed and you should never waste an opportunity to say ‘I love you.’

https://www.gofundme.com/22gnkcqc