Giving Thanks for One Egg

The title says it all.  We have one egg!

Mr. Bob was very good today.  He got up early and got ready early so we got to the clinic on time.  I was told to check in at the front desk on the 7th floor for an ultrasound first.  Then the staff would send me up to the 8th floor waiting room to wait for someone to get me inside for the retrieval.  I made sure I asked the front desk lady if I had to check in again so that the 8th floor staff knew we were there.  She said that the nurse would let me know what to do after the scan.  Okay I would take your word for it.  I was quickly called back for the scan, which found two follicles still there; one 24mm and one 19mm.  What a relief that I hadn’t ovulated yet!  The nurse told me to just go right upstairs to the 8th floor.  We went up and sat at the waiting area from 8:15 (our scheduled arrival time) to 8:40.  The sign said just to wait and someone would come get you.  However, no one came out.  The door was tightly closed:

 

It must have been the Val.ium because I was feeling very slow.  Like it was time to take a nap.  It was quite a weird feeling.

One of the nurses that I saw multiple times on the 7th floor came out from the elevator and said “Hi Isabelle!”  I don’t know if it’s good that the nurses know you by name.  She went in for a few minutes and came out.  I spoke up and told her that we hadn’t been called back and it had been 25 minutes delayed already.  She went inside and checked for me.  Good thing I spoke up.  Somehow 7th floor did not communicate with 8th floor so the nurses on the 8th floor didn’t know that I was there.

We walked in.  It was the same nurse that helped us the last two times!  I was so happy to see her.  I knew the drill, changed into my gown, and walked out with my Batman socks on.

 

The nurse exclaimed and said, “I love your socks!”  We also showed Bob’s matching Batman shirt to her:

Since I was the first retrieval, the nurse saved me the best seat in the house, the one by the window where the warm sunlight enveloped that whole area.  She put the IV in and I just waited.  Then I had to go to the bathroom with my IV insert on.  The bathroom was occupied so I waited outside while holding the IV fluid bag.  In my horror, I was watching my blood flowing out of my arm and down the IV line.  The nurse came to my rescue as I didn’t know that the IV fluid bag had to go above my heart.  At least it meant that my heart was pumping well!

Dr. No Nonsense entered the clinic and I was officially ready to go into the procedure room.  I am sure the Val.ium was making me happy because I apparently was talking nonstop and no-filtered according to Bob.  I was talking about how we should inform Dr. NN of the outdated “educational material” in the sample collection room for the male partners.  That was exactly what I did while lying on the procedure room table.  I told Dr. No Nonsense that Dr. Dry Humor suggested to me that I should really discuss with him about the magazines in the sample collection room because Dr. NN is the lab director.  This was the best time to say it because I was under the influence of Val.ium so what I said wouldn’t count. 😀  Dr. NN said that it should be pretty updated.  HA.  He told me to ask my husband afterwards.

As usual, Dr. NN put in the speculum and cleaned the area down there.  Then he removed the speculum and informed me that the needle would go in.  When it went in, the nurse asked me how I was doing.  I was fine, and she was amazed that I didn’t even blink when the needle poked through.  I was asked to describe the pain level from one to ten to which I responded “one”.  She rubbed my hands and praised me for doing well with the pain.  The embryologist announced that we got one.  Dr. NN tried to get the second one but seemed like there was nothing.  He then said that since my pain tolerance was so good, he would poke the needle through one more time.  He really wanted to scrape it one more time to make sure that he got it all out.  I really appreciated that.  He warned me that it would go a little deeper so it might hurt a little more.  Now that pain level shot up from one to three.  It was a very strange feeling of something deep being stirred inside your organ.  But it was totally tolerable.  The embryologist still said “one”.  One egg it is.  I am thankful that Dr. NN tried though.  He called me a trooper and told me that maybe because this cycle had delayed so much that the second follicle just petered out.  Interestingly, I didn’t bleed at all this time.  The last two times I bled for quite some time.  This time Dr. NN must have done a great job, or maybe my follicles were in a different location.

Amazingly, I was not disappointed at all.  I am very thankful for one egg as this is a natural cycle and we expected one egg.  I was a little bit worried about Bob’s reaction though.  I remember how he was calculating how much each egg cost after the last two cycles.  This appeared to be the most expensive egg ever.  But I was worried for nothing.  My husband is amazing.  He walked in after he gave his sample, smiled, and asked how I was doing.  I raised one finger and he was smiling genuinely and said “Good!”  He did not mention anything about the cost.  He was just saying that this would be what we expect: one egg for a natural cycle.  Exactly my thought.  So I sat there sipping my ginger ale and eating my saltine crackers while Bob made good use of UCSF’s free wifi and downloaded a bunch of things for work.  He also got his share of graham crackers and apple juice.  I was well taken care of as I sat there bathing in the warmth of the sun with two heating pads on me.  Bob said, How about five more minutes after my download is done??  HA.  Gotta love this man.  He also said that the material in the sample collection room was from 2011 instead of 2008 like last time, although it was a different room.  Haha.

When we said our good-byes, my nurse said she hoped that she would see me only two more times: one more retrieval and just one transfer!  I hope so too.  🙂

We walked out and back to my work where we had parked the car.  This is one of the perks of working so close to the clinic.  Otherwise we would have to pay for parking at the garage since street parking was only for two hours.  We were there way beyond two hours.  Bob and I drove to the same restaurant that we went to after the last retrieval.  While walking to the restaurant, a little four-year-old boy looked up at Bob and said very  happily, “Hi Batman!!”  It was so cute!  That totally made our day!

We ordered the same things as last time:

Ha that looks so familiar and it hit the right spot.  We headed home.  I had to take a nap as a headache started to develop.

You may think that I would be disappointed.  But I am not.  So I thank the Lord for that because my emotions could go the other way.  It reminds me of my friend Anna who had one follicle for her IUI that resulted in her baby.  I know going in that we might get zero, one, or two embryos.  So anything is possible.  I am very grateful that we have five embryos saved up.  We’ll get a phone call tomorrow.  Gotta love a clinic that doesn’t close on Thanksgiving day.  (Not the Irvine clinic that we considered cycling with; they close on Thanksgiving day.)

Thanks everyone for reading!  I am happy that we finally get to this point and put this cycle behind us.  I am thankful for this one precious egg.  I hope that Kevin will decide to join us this time.  Onto the final cycle with my own eggs!