C-day according to Jill

By the time we got to the retrieval, I was feeling terrible.  The last ten days had become pretty disruptive of my everyday life.  I had missed several days of work from not feeling well.  In the early part of the week of the retrieval, I was barely able to stand up straight because I had such pain and cramping due to the hormones.  At one point, I really thought that I was having appendicitis!!  Apparently, I found out at one of the many ultrasounds, my right ovary is actually a bit higher than my left. So with all of the follicles growing, the pain on my right side was still coming from the ovary.

I was feeling relatively calm the day of the procedure.  By then, my curiosity was really starting to get the best of me – I wanted to know how many eggs had been cooking in there!!  And the only thing I was a little apprehensive about was the anesthesia.  I had only had to go under once before, and that was just for my wisdom teeth when I was 16.  So I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the anesthesiologist was awesome and made it all super easy.  One minute I remember talking about manicures and the next minute, only about 20 minutes later, I was being rolled into the recovery room.  Thinking about it now, it’s pretty laughable that I was laying there, legs up in the air in stirrups, and I don’t even remember the doctor walking into the room.

When the doctor came in, he gave us great news.  17 eggs!!  I had really been hoping for double digits, but this was more than even I thought I could hope for.  No wonder I had been feeling so terrible; the doctor said that both of my ovaries had probably grown to the size of grapefruits over the last week.  But he was really optimistic about how things had gone and the likelihood that we would probably end up with extra embryos that we could freeze in case things didn’t work out in this first cycle.

He also told us that they consider retrieval day as conception day, which I suppose makes sense since it’s the day when the sperm and egg come together, but it was kinda neat to think about that.  Although, once we got home, I said to Joe that certainly wasn’t as enjoyable as I thought our conception day would be.  I had to ask him, “Was it good for you?”

Now that the retrieval was done, we just had to wait for the transfer day and I had to start the progesterone shots.  But it was only one shot (which at this point was amateur’s work) and since it had to be given in my backside, Joe has to do that for me. I just have to lie around; they haven’t been painful at all.  Which is a very welcome relief from the weeks of multiple needle sticks.