“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are quite a few struggles we’ve gone through in deciding to start a family: tough decisions to be made on how to conceive; choosing a donor; the needles; the mood swings — yet none of these are as difficult as the waiting that we have endured at every step along the way. There is so much waiting and uncertainty! All of it sort of got the best of us during the past week and we’ve hidden away in our condo waiting, hoping, and seeking distractions.
Saturday, March 9 was our day eleven ultrasound, and we left the appointment feeling a little disappointed in the overall outcome. We knew that the doctor we had been dealing with up until this point was taking a leave of absence due to a family issue, and had discussed this with him before he left. He informed us that the doctor who would perform the final ultrasound before egg collection day did not speak very good English, but we felt reassured that our nurse, Flor, would be there to translate everything the new doctor would have to say. The ultrasound felt very rushed (much quicker than we were used to) and the doctor scurried away as soon as it was finished. The only thing he said the whole time was his own name as he introduced himself at the beginning of the procedure. Our final follicle count was down from twenty at the second ultrasound to seventeen. We weren’t told if maybe some of the larger follicles got too big to count (as the previous doctor had mentioned as a possibility), A*’s endometrial lining wasn’t measured or discussed, and we actually had to ask for the nurse’s copy of the measurement list to see the size and location of the follicles. There were seven on the left and ten on the right. After we asked to see this the nurse offered some further insight into which follicles she believed were likely to have eggs, she indicated four of them as they were at the optimal size.
As we sat with the nurse she told us we would not be continuing stims. Up to this point we had done ten days of the hormone injections. We had also done six days of the Cetrotide to stave off early ovulation. This was all over now and we would have only one final injection to do at 10PM Saturday night. The trigger shot, given thirty-six hours prior to retrieval, was to be .5mL of Ovidrel. It would initiate the eggs to finish maturing and be ready for collection at 10AM on Monday. Flor also then informed us that we would be doing a final round of bloodwork today to ensure A*’s progesterone levels weren’t too high. If they were too high, we were told we could not do an embryo transfer this cycle. This would mean that following the retrieval, we would have two more weeks to bum around in Mexico feeling deflated. It was the first mention of this possibility throughout all the testing that had been done, and it honestly had us pretty worried. In retrospect, I think they were just trying to prepare us for the worst possibilities but it was certainly stressful until we got those blood results back. It’s also possible that because A* was responding a little better than expected to the medications that there was a real concern her progesterone would rise too much. Unfortunately we’ll never know, as we never really had a chance to discuss this (or the results) with a doctor. When they send the bloodwork, we get a copy of the results at the same time as the doctor. This is actually great for feeling included in the process, and when you’re waiting for an answer, but in our case it also involved a lot of frantic research to interpret the results without the doctors’ insights. We had the results that afternoon, but we would have to wait until retrieval day, Monday, for a doctor’s report on it. From our own “Dr. Google” research though, it looked like we would be fine to go ahead with the transfer in a week’s time.
So we were left with all of this to contemplate and fret about for the weekend, on top of hoping the best for our egg quality and quantity. Leaving the clinic Saturday, there were only a few directions to follow: trigger shot thirty-six hours prior to retrieval, no eating or drinking anything for twelve hours prior, freshly showered and completely free of fragrances the morning of, and oh, yeah — try to stay stress free until the retrieval is done on Monday morning (they’re cute). Some things are much easier said than done.
Pride & Joy Family 