Today was a good day welcoming in new life! My sister in law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl! It is always a good day when the family is expanding.

Now that I’m back to normal today, I’ll let give you a little more details on the egg retrieval. My mom and I arrived a little bit before 8:30 to the clinic and they brought us in to the pre-op room right away. I changed into the gown and they got the IV started. I had to fill out some final forms related to embryo storage and then it was about an hour wait before they brought me in for the procedure.

As I lay in the operating room waiting for the anesthesia, I had a minor freak out. I mean the only “surgery” that I’ve ever had is getting my wisdom teeth out and a colonoscopy, so it is not common for me to be in this situation. I was laying there almost in disbelief that this is how far I’d go to have a baby. My mom says that within 10 minutes they had wheeled me back out, but it was still scary for a minute.

Once I woke up, I was under observation for a little while. They hadn’t yet come to tell me how many eggs were retrieved, when I heard the nurse tell the woman next to me that she got 15 eggs. I started panicking as to why I hadn’t been told anything yet. I sensed it wasn’t great news. When the nurse came over to bring me water, I asked her and she said she had to go check. She then came back with the news that they retrieved 5. This felt pretty devastating. With 16 follicles, I had been hoping for almost that many eggs to be retrieved and had been hoping for 8 minimum to make it through fertilization. Starting off with 5 felt depressing.

I spent the rest of yesterday in bed resting. I had some pretty bad cramping especially in the evening, but survived on just tylenol. This morning they called me to say that 4 out of the 5 fertilized. That made me feel better. They still need to survive until transfer day and then freezing for those left over, but at least I have 4 right now. The transfer is tentatively scheduled for Friday. I’m a little nervous because the nurse this morning said that there would be a message for me on phone tree this afternoon with more information on my Friday appointment, but there was no message. I’m going to have to call in the morning to get an update.

Everyone keeps asking how many I’m going to transfer. The doctor is going to give a recommendation based on the embryo quality and then I need to decide. If they are good quality, I’m likely going to go with 1. While it would be nice to get pregnant faster and up my chances with more than 1, the high risk of twins worries me. We’ll see. I don’t know for sure what I will decide until I’m in that moment.