Updates & Questions

The night of retrieval we obviously did not hear from the doctors about our eggs and we had to wait 24 hours before getting an update, this was very odd for me and made me feel like a total weirdo! For those 24 hours of waiting I felt empty.......SO WEIRD I KNOW!!! I have been growing these eggs inside my uterus for the last 2 weeks, giving myself daily injections, and be very careful so they were healthy and now they were all taken out of me and I have no control over what happens from here on out......what an odd freaking feeling.....they are just eggs!!! This is what I tell myself, yet I still have this feeling that I want to go to the lab they're in and watch them myself and make sure the embryologists that are watching my eggs are doing everything right! Ugh.....control issues here.....

So they did a process on the night of retrieval that they call ICSI, which I believe is the process where they fertilize my eggs with Andy's sperm. We received our first update Tuesday morning, 24 hours after my retrieval.  They told us that out of the 10 eggs they retrieved from me, 9 were mature. They performed the ICSI and throughout the night, we lost 3 but 6 developed through that phase.  I did not know how to feel about this.  I felt overwhelmingly sad that we had lost 3 in just 24 short hours, but at the same time was very pleased to know we still had 6 strong ones hanging on. THEN....so many thoughts rushed through my head that if we lose 3 every 24 hours, that will leave ZERO to implant into me on Saturday  :(                    Will this be the case? I can't do ANYTHING about ANYTHING!!!

I have felt a roller coaster of emotions over the last few days. I barely sleep because of the emotions and worry and on top of the emotions I am so uncomfortable! My ovaries are still humungo and I am still sore from the retrieval surgery so sleeping on my stomach is absolutely not happening, but now we do nightly injections of progesterone in the rear, so it hurts when I sit or lay on my buttocks, plus I have night sweats so I wake up freezing cold but am covered in sweat (awesome!) plus with my ovaries being so big my bladder is being completely squeezed so I have to run to the bathroom once an hour....this is some crazy stuff no one tells you about when you hear someone is going through IVF-geeze!!! But it is SO ALL WORTH IT to work towards getting our little miracle.            

So at this point we had 6 embryos still living and on Wednesday they would be left alone to grow and develop in their incubators. We received a message this morning (Thursday) and I was terrified to open it. I thought to myself, ok, we lost 3 in the first 24 hours and we have not heard about our embryos in 48 hours now and I tried to prepare myself for being down to 3 or 4. I opened the message from RAD and it told us that as of this morning, all 6 of our embryos were still living!!! WOW! I was beyond happy and tears filled up my eyes, I think from shock and a slap of hope in my face to not always think negative. However, the message did explain that all 6 embryos were still alive but at all different stages of development and to be prepared that all 6 most likely will not make it to "blastocyst" stage which is when they are ready for transfer/implantation into the body or ready to be frozen for later use/implantation.  I had spoken to a few women I have met that have gone through IVF and all 3 I spoke to had 2 on the day of transfer.....1 to implant and 1 to freeze for later use.  I think I have put into my head to hope for 2.  Everyone keeps telling me "but you only need 1!!!" which yes, this is VERY true, I do only need 1 to implant for 1 chance. However, if this does not work and I do not become pregnant than we want to try again. If I do not have any embryos to freeze than we have to start all over again instead of just doing a simple frozen transfer.  At this point I am a bundle of emotions.....just today so far I have cried from being sad, cried from being scared, cried from being shocked, cried from being happy, yelled for being angry and laughed for being comforted.......how is this healthy for ones body to go through these ups and downs every single day?          

At this point, we will not get a message about our embryos until we get to the office on Saturday morning at which point they will explain how many are still alive and what their quality looks like.  From our understanding, if we only have 2 left and they are both low quality, they may transfer both embryos in which is risky but at the same time could give us better chances....technology is INSANE, AMAZING but never PROMISING.  I thought this would be a very hard physical challenge, no way......I can probe and stick myself all day but the emotional challenge is something I have surprised the hell out of myself with and every day I need to stop and think and realize how goddamn strong Andy has become, how strong I have become and a part of me used to hate this process because I felt it was ripping our marriage apart.....I now almost thank this journey because I believe it has made Andy and I's marriage so strong and our relationship and friendship better than it ever has been.  We have found this new love for each other that in the past we would want to hate each other for, but I think we are now starting to understand each other more, which is so weird to say being that I totally do not feel like myself at all anymore. 

I have had so many new thoughts and questions run through my head that I can't believe some of them and others, I feel quite often. The thought of my ugliness has gone through my mind so many times, almost daily.  Will Andy leave me for someone who can have a baby? Will he leave me for someone that doesn't have ridiculous stretch marks and bruises all over their stomach and butt? Will I always be a person who cannot do what a woman is supposed to do? Will I always be so tired and angry? Will I every be able to look at a baby and see myself? Will I every be able to look at a baby and tell my husband it looks just like him? Will I ever have someone need my unconditional love the way I have needed my Moms?