Egg Retrieval Recap

This is a long one, so grab your coffee and pull up a chair!

I’ve posted a lot of this on Instagram, so if you don’t follow me on my Instagram account for this blog, why not? Give me a follow here! But if you don’t, you may not know how my retrieval went down. I tend to quick post things there and share to FB when I don’t have the time or energy for a full blog post.

Anyway, I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning. I had to be to the doctor’s office at 6:45 for my 8 AM retrieval. I thought FOR SURE I’d wake up before the alarm from excitement, but nope! True to myself, I was bolted awake by the alarm at 5 AM because that is a time no one should be awake.

I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight the night before, except to take my thyroid meds with a sip of water. I did that and then was overcome with an intense thirst like I was crawling through the desert. I have never craved water more in my life than when they told me I just had to sit there parched for hours.

I dressed in my comfiest clothes and my #BumpSquad shirt to head to the doctor’s office. I knew that shirt would be good luck because I would have all of you with me!

I got to the office about 6:35 and there was a line out the door. The monitoring window for ultrasounds starts at 6:30 and apparently that’s when a lot of people show up. But you get right in. It wasn’t too many people, it was more that there was only one receptionist so check-in was slow.

I wasn’t too freaked out, but just a tad because I didn’t know how long the pre-op stuff would take. And this is all very time sensitive. You ovulate 36 hours after the trigger shot and I needed that all to work out because I didn’t want to end up in the procedure room and them find all the follicles empty.

Side note: I actually read about that happening quite a few times from posts in the FB groups I’m a part of. Those groups can be so amazing and so awful at the same time. Case in point, Wednesday night, right before I was going to bed, a woman in the 40+ IVF group posted about THIS EXACT THING and it being because of the drug she used to suppress ovulation, which, hey! Was the exact same drug I used! And apparently it has less success with women in their 40s. I have NO idea if this is true because I wasn’t about to Google it the night before my retrieval, and it took a whole lot of meditation episodes to get me to calm the fuck down enough to finally get to sleep.

But it all worked out. I’m pretty sure I was the first patient and once I got back into the hospital room, they asked some questions, took my weight and then I changed into the gown and hat and booties. I met the doctor doing the retrieval (she wasn’t my doctor, but she was supposedly very good), talked with the anesthesiologist and got my IV put in. I was given some Tylenol and Zofran for nausea. I got to take the Tylenol with another sip of water and it tasted like heaven.

And then we just waited. Because of the trigger shot, you can’t go in too early, so I just had some time to myself in the room. And then it was go time and things moved VERY QUICKLY!

I was told to go pee, which is not easy to do with an IV bag and gown not tied in the back. After peeing, I was brought into the procedure room, verified my information with the lab and then that was all I remember.

Actually that’s not true. I remember the anesthesiologist telling me she was putting in the drugs and I would start to feel it pretty soon. And I remember that I did start feeling it and I said “oh yeah, I feel it. Wheeeee!” And then that was the last thing I remembered.

The next thing I remember was them waking me up and then making me move from the one bed to the other. And I vaguely remember this from my appendectomy too, but that is not easy to do when you are literally out of it. I could not figure out what they were asking me to do and how to do it. I remember finally saying “oh this is a different bed” and I understood they needed me to scoot over. And so I did.

I was wheeled into the recovery room and given a heating pad for my abdomen. I felt OK. Super groggy, but not too much pain. Kind of like period cramps, which I’m super familiar with. They let me sleep for about another 30 minutes and then they came in and offered me my choice of cookies and juice (I chose shortbread cookies and apple juice, just like giving blood!), and they told me how many eggs were retrieved and what my next steps were.

Three. It was three total eggs retrieved. I was immediately disappointed and may have cried in that dark room alone. I know I’m old and there aren’t many to begin with, but I wanted so many more. Just a few more to increase my odds. It took me awhile to get over that disappointment, but I did. I determined that these were the Three Eggs That Could, the Three Eggmigas!

I was more wondering why only 3 when I had 4 follicles measuring. Did I lose any from the meds, like that one lady on FB? Was Ol’ Lefty hard to reach? Did I ovulate before they could get in there and retrieve them? What about those smaller ones from two days prior?

I still don’t have the answers to this. And I’m hoping I don’t need them. Because I’m hoping and praying it is all a moot point.

I read so much about retrievals, and asked for advice in the groups, and everyone says to drink all the fluids. Chug the Gatorade. And that is because of the risk of the bloating and something called Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, which is common when they go in and get like 20-30 eggs. All those follicles release liquid when you ovulate. When it is one, it’s not a big deal, but with 20, that’s a lot of fluid in your belly.

I was not concerned with this AT. ALL. Because I knew at most I would have 7-8. So who cares about bloat? Not this girl! I got home from being dropped off (shout out to my amazing friend Marisue for coming to pick me up and get me!), and went right to sleep for about 4 hours.

This was NOT SMART. I mean, I drank some water, but not much. I was still so tired, I wanted sleep. I should have chugged a thing of Gatorade before going down for a nap.

The bloat is real, friends. It don’t matter how many eggs you get. I have no idea how women with more eggs deal with it. It’s still around, almost a week later. It’s definitely not as bad as the day after. It hurt to walk and I could feel the liquid with every step I took last Friday. But it was better by Saturday, and I think my acupuncture session helped moved things along. I started taking a stool softener to help with that aspect of it. And now, I’m almost back to normal, but know that I probably won’t be until I get my period. And all that shit flushes out.

I got a call from the lab on Friday morning as I was blow drying my hair. Of the three eggmigas, two were mature and two were fertilized. That was a HUGE relief and I was so happy! I was also super relieved that my donor’s swimmers were good and did their jobs!

And now I wait to hear from the lab on Tuesday to see if my #dynamicduo made it to Day 5. That’s what they call a blastocyst and it means that the cells divided enough and the eggs and sperm are now an official embryo. When that happens, then they take a teeny, tiny biopsy of the embryo and they send it off for genetic testing and the embryo is frozen.

The testing takes about 2-3 weeks. After that, we find out if they are normal or abnormal and then we will move on to transferring them!

So keep those #bumpsquad powers activated on the #dynamicduo! They need all our energy to know they are loved and wanted!