We arrived early and were waiting when they unlocked the doors this morning. The receptionist had seen my face so often the first words she said were "so are you guys ready?". That we were.
We filled in a form and waited for about 20 mins, which was great as gave us time to relax a bit before the nurse called me through.
The room we were taken to was tiny, the nurse, DH and I could only just fit. Here we would confirm my details, put my tag on, take my sleeping tablet and get dressed into my gown. I bought little socks to wear as one of the vloggers I watch on YouTube had suggested it. The Embryologist came through to run through the procedure with me, she was impressed I had done my homework so I omitted to tell her I had actually googled ridiculous amounts every night for weeks as I like to be 'prepared'. I couldn't believe how young she was, that's a very important job to have, she must have studied hard. The nurse came back to check that i was ready (sleeping tablet had kicked in) and put a hot water bottle on my hands ready for the cannula when we got down there. She had advised us there was loads of egg retrevials that morning so we were going to be shipped out as soon as we were ready.
Once DH got back from doing his bit they took us down to the procedure room. I'm must say by that time I was veeeery relaxed and DH could tell as I kept repeating myself. The RE that was performing my procedure wasnt my RE but I wasn't surprised. He had done my scan the other day and obviously knows what he's doing so I wasn't worried. The room as set up with a table for me to lay on, the ultrasound screen on one side, the tubes that would soon fill with the fluid from my follicles on the other side then a window where the embryologist sat ready to do her thing. DH was at my head beside me, couldn't even see him but once they had my cannula in, pumping me full of antibiotics and sedative and local I just lay my head on the side of the ultrasound screen and watched. I was quite fascinating watching the needle pierce the tiny follicles and drain them, as there were only 12 and he was only doing my left the procedure didn't take that long at all. I could hear snippets of conversation between everyone, the counting of my eggs 1...2...3...4...5, the nurse checking me make sure I was ok, the RE and I discussing NOT to remove my right ovary unless there was something wrong with it, I think they were all hopeful the would be a slight possibility we could retrieve from it however it was too far away for the needle to reach. Those follicles would eventually ovulate and release the eggs themselves over the next day into my abdomen which would later be absorbed.
Once the procedure was finished they sat me up, gave me a minute to adjust to being upright and then transferred me to a wheelchair. Meanwhile the Embryologist was still counting at that stage, think we were up to 10!
They wheeled me through to the recovery area and transferred me into a lazy-boy with a hot water bottle. Was warm and cosy place to wait while I came around. A nurse came and gave me a injection in my stomach, don't recall what it was as I was half asleep and gave us a script for Progynova, which is a HPT drug to take as well as my Progesterone pessaries 3 times day. She went and heated me up a muffin and made me a camomile tea. The Embryologist came round to let us know that the final count was ...12 eggs! We were totally stoked with that result as that was an egg from each follicle!
Once I was a little more awake a nurse came in to suggest when I felt able to start getting dressed and they would come and remove the cannula from my hand.
It was only an hour after the egg retrieval and we were ready to go home. We drove to fill our prescription and were not far from our house when my phone rang. It was a private number so guessed it may be the clinic. It was, the sample that DH had given earlier was not a good enough for ICSI, which is very strange as he followed the instructions of one days Abstinence as they had advised? She apologised for not letting us know before we left so we drove straight back in so he could give another one. It wasn't much as it wasn't long after the first one but we hoped it would be ok.
We got home for a very anxious wait to see if we got any more phone calls. DH went off to his Uni lecture and I ate (finally) and got settled on the couch. Once the local and the sleeping tablets wore off I was so sore I could hardly walk, bend over or go to the loo so decided I would be spending the rest of the day right there with a wheat bag across my tummy and drinking loads of water. Still no phonecalls by dinner time, I finally fell asleep on the same couch later that night watching a movie with DH, he woke me up about 10.30pm to go off to bed in the hopes I didn't wake up during the night with OHSS. Super anxious about the call from the clinic in the morning, it would take 18 hours to fertilise the eggs... really hoping it was good news.
The room we were taken to was tiny, the nurse, DH and I could only just fit. Here we would confirm my details, put my tag on, take my sleeping tablet and get dressed into my gown. I bought little socks to wear as one of the vloggers I watch on YouTube had suggested it. The Embryologist came through to run through the procedure with me, she was impressed I had done my homework so I omitted to tell her I had actually googled ridiculous amounts every night for weeks as I like to be 'prepared'. I couldn't believe how young she was, that's a very important job to have, she must have studied hard. The nurse came back to check that i was ready (sleeping tablet had kicked in) and put a hot water bottle on my hands ready for the cannula when we got down there. She had advised us there was loads of egg retrevials that morning so we were going to be shipped out as soon as we were ready.
Once DH got back from doing his bit they took us down to the procedure room. I'm must say by that time I was veeeery relaxed and DH could tell as I kept repeating myself. The RE that was performing my procedure wasnt my RE but I wasn't surprised. He had done my scan the other day and obviously knows what he's doing so I wasn't worried. The room as set up with a table for me to lay on, the ultrasound screen on one side, the tubes that would soon fill with the fluid from my follicles on the other side then a window where the embryologist sat ready to do her thing. DH was at my head beside me, couldn't even see him but once they had my cannula in, pumping me full of antibiotics and sedative and local I just lay my head on the side of the ultrasound screen and watched. I was quite fascinating watching the needle pierce the tiny follicles and drain them, as there were only 12 and he was only doing my left the procedure didn't take that long at all. I could hear snippets of conversation between everyone, the counting of my eggs 1...2...3...4...5, the nurse checking me make sure I was ok, the RE and I discussing NOT to remove my right ovary unless there was something wrong with it, I think they were all hopeful the would be a slight possibility we could retrieve from it however it was too far away for the needle to reach. Those follicles would eventually ovulate and release the eggs themselves over the next day into my abdomen which would later be absorbed.
Once the procedure was finished they sat me up, gave me a minute to adjust to being upright and then transferred me to a wheelchair. Meanwhile the Embryologist was still counting at that stage, think we were up to 10!
They wheeled me through to the recovery area and transferred me into a lazy-boy with a hot water bottle. Was warm and cosy place to wait while I came around. A nurse came and gave me a injection in my stomach, don't recall what it was as I was half asleep and gave us a script for Progynova, which is a HPT drug to take as well as my Progesterone pessaries 3 times day. She went and heated me up a muffin and made me a camomile tea. The Embryologist came round to let us know that the final count was ...12 eggs! We were totally stoked with that result as that was an egg from each follicle!
Once I was a little more awake a nurse came in to suggest when I felt able to start getting dressed and they would come and remove the cannula from my hand.
It was only an hour after the egg retrieval and we were ready to go home. We drove to fill our prescription and were not far from our house when my phone rang. It was a private number so guessed it may be the clinic. It was, the sample that DH had given earlier was not a good enough for ICSI, which is very strange as he followed the instructions of one days Abstinence as they had advised? She apologised for not letting us know before we left so we drove straight back in so he could give another one. It wasn't much as it wasn't long after the first one but we hoped it would be ok.
We got home for a very anxious wait to see if we got any more phone calls. DH went off to his Uni lecture and I ate (finally) and got settled on the couch. Once the local and the sleeping tablets wore off I was so sore I could hardly walk, bend over or go to the loo so decided I would be spending the rest of the day right there with a wheat bag across my tummy and drinking loads of water. Still no phonecalls by dinner time, I finally fell asleep on the same couch later that night watching a movie with DH, he woke me up about 10.30pm to go off to bed in the hopes I didn't wake up during the night with OHSS. Super anxious about the call from the clinic in the morning, it would take 18 hours to fertilise the eggs... really hoping it was good news.
No comments:
Post a Comment