To My Beautiful Child: Egg Retrieval Tips

To my beautiful child,

Lots has been happening! I had a really great week last week and was feeling pretty good each day. I would get exhausted at night, but other than that I wasn’t feeling too horribly. I had an ultrasound and blood draw on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Each day they would check the follicles and measure their size to make sure they were growing well. We were supposed to have the egg retrieval on Saturday but the follicles weren’t the right size yet so I had to take additional shots for another day. I took half of the Bravelle so I only took two powders, but other than that I took all of the meds an extra day. Taking another day of shots is something that I always like to hear. I told dad that I didn’t know how many more days I could do this and just as I was borderline tearing up he would make me laugh. I think he’ll be a good dad. Manipulation of emotions is a powerful trait to master in parenthood and he’s been getting good practice 😉

When I went in on Friday, one of my favorite ultrasound techs, Ashley, said that my follicles were looking great. She may have said something like, “those are the most beautiful follicles I have ever seen in my whole life,” or I could just be making that up. Who knows at this point. I saw Dr. Foulk in the hallway and he said, “see you on Sunday!” I got a call from a nurse on Friday night saying that the follicles looked great and I was ready to give myself the HCG trigger shot. I was driving home when she called so I had to pull over to write down the instructions. I had really high level of estrogen and they didn’t want me to hyper-stimulate so they she wanted me to only give myself half of the trigger shot. My sweet friend Ashleigh hyper-stimulated with her son several years ago and she had to be on bed rest for three months and her abdomen filled with so much liquid that she had to get 10 mL drained from it! It can be very, very dangerous. I had been feeling so nauseous all day, and the nurse said that’s a result of having too much estrogen in your body but she said that if I started getting really sick and throwing up that I should go to the ER because that could be a sign of hyper-stimulating.So…I had to give myself the shot exactly 10 pm, then the next morning Tyler needed to take a pill call Cipro which is an antibiotic. After I got off the phone, I started sobbing. Like, sobbing hard. I had felt SO crappy the entire day but was trying to be tough. Sometimes it feels good just to let it all out. When I sob hard, I tend to talk to myself when I’m alone. At least that happened last IVF cycle and it happened again. I was so hungry that when I got home I wanted to take a nap but knew I couldn’t sleep without some food so I started cutting up an apple and the only knife that was clean was a really thin knife that didn’t cut apples well. I sobbed out loud, “why is this knife so skinny?!” Even at the time I could see the humor in it, but I couldn’t stop myself! After I ate a little bit and stopped crying, I felt a bit better. I texted dad that I was going to be late for dinner. We were meeting your Grammy and Popsy at a Mexican restaurant before the BYU basketball game home opener but I knew I wouldn’t make it through the night without a nap so I texted him that I would be late, he understood of course, then I dozed off for about 45 minutes. I felt quite a bit better when I woke up, re-did my makeup (those pesky tears did a number on my mascara), and met them at the restaurant. Your dad had ordered a bean and cheese burrito for me. When he called me to get my order, I said, “I don’t want a lot of cheese, but I want a good amount of cheese.” He said, “so…you don’t want a lot of cheese but you want a good amount of cheese?” I started laughing. I just wanted the right amount of cheese on my freaking bean burrito, okay?!

We had dinner (luckily for all parties involved, the amount of cheese was perfect), and then went to the game. I was tired but I felt okay and enjoyed the game. Afterward, we met up with Uncle Drew and Aunt Rachel and talked with them for a bit, then headed upstairs and ran into some other great friends including the Smiths and Petersons. I looked down at my watch as we were talking and realized it was 9:55 pm. That meant it was go time! We were at the BYU Marriott Center and I just sat down on the floor and started mixing the drug. I’m sure it was quite the scene! Luckily by then, there were hardly any other people around. Definitely a night to remember!

On Saturday, I literally laid around in my PJ’s all day long. This is so not me but I wasn’t feeling up to doing anything. So…I reminded myself that my number one job is to stay healthy and rested…and I proceeded to watch 3 movies on the couch. I also had to take a pregnancy test and call into the clinic to tell them that it was positive because that should be a result of the trigger shot. Also, one thing that you have to do as mama-to-be in IVF is give yourself a douche cleanse (I seriously don’t even know how to say that ha!) the night before and morning of the egg retrieval. I called your dad who was at a church meeting on Saturday morning and said, “if you don’t feel comfortable getting them for me, I totally understand and I’ll get myself to the store.” He said, “nope, I can do that for you!” Okay. AMAZING husband award!! I would even be embarrassed to buy it. I looked in my cabinet, however and realized that I still had two left over from my last time I did the egg retrieval so I texted him to tell him that he didn’t need to. Welp, about 30 minutes later he comes walking in the door with some douches. He said he didn’t see my text and couldn’t find them so he had to ask the pharmacist, “I am looking for a feminine product called “the douche.”I starting crying laughing when he told me this. He said he still couldn’t find it after the pharmacist directed him to where it was at so he had to walk around the counter and help him get it. Oh my gosh. The best part is that he didn’t even explain himself! If I were him, I would have said something like, “my wife is doing IVF and she needs this.” Nope! Ha ha ha I seriously love him SO MUCH. What a real man, huh? Helping a wife out when a wife is in need!

I took a quick shower at about 5 pm, then my sweet friends brought over some delicious food to put in the fridge for after retrieval the next day. We went over to Grammy and Popsy’s to watch the BYU football game. Popsy made smoked brisket and turkey, corn bread and the Skalla’s (Aunt Rachel’s mom and dad) brought the most delicious cookies. Your grandma and grandpa (my parent’s) came over too.

On Sunday morning, we did the “collection” at home (I think that’s all that needs to be said there!) and got to the clinic at 9:30 am. They took the collection to be prepared for the eggs that would soon be retrieved, and we went back in to the procedure room. I changed and the anesthesiologist came in and started getting me ready. He put a needle into my wrist to numb it up, then put in the needles that would stay in to make sure I stayed asleep. It took about 30 minutes and then they moved me into the recovery room. When the doctor came in, he said that he had retrieved 41 eggs!!! That is a LOT!

Your dad stopped by at Walgreens on the way home to pick up my antibiotic and also the same heating pad that they put on me after the procedure. It felt really good. We ate the food that my friends had brought the night before and then he put me into bed with my heating pad and I slept for 3 hours. I woke up briefly because a fly was flying around my room and buzzing too much, so I called your dad on the phone and he came to kill it. What a relief. Aunt Jocelyn came over to make us dinner that night (Aunt Katelyn couldn’t come because she had a cold and didn’t want to get me sick) and my grandpa Dex came too. She made salmon, asparagus and salad and then we watched tv for a bit before they left. I couldn’t sit up for very long. We got a knock on the door with beautiful flowers from my friend Jen. She wrote in the card, “The will of God will never take you where the grace of God will not protect you.” I loved this!

I got up late and went to work on Monday because I was starting to get a bit of cabin fever and my friends at work were so kind to do things like fill up my water bottle and plug in my heating pad because I couldn’t bend over. I got a call from the fertility center lab while I was at work and they said out of the 41 eggs that were retrieved, 38 were mature and 30 fertilized! Yay!! They will call again on Wednesday to give an update on how many embryos are still growing. It will definitely go down, but even if we get half of that and are able to freeze some, it will be amazing and provide a lot of relief for the future knowing that we have embryos that are waiting for us when we want to try to have another baby. They did a process called ICSI where they inject each sperm into each egg to aid the process along further. In some cases they will put the eggs and sperm together and allow them to fertilize themselves, but this process ensures more success.

Egg Retrieval Recovery:

Oh man…it has been ROUGH!!! Like for real. I woke up the first night and my back was absolutely killing me. I woke up at 3:45 am last night and couldn’t sleep because my back and tummy were hurting so bad. Your dad got me Tylenol and helped me get the heating pad turned back on and put it under my back because it had fallen off the bed. After the Tylenol kicked in and I was able to walk, I ate some cereal downstairs. Then I went back upstairs and laid in bed awake and in pain. My abdomen is VERY sore and bloated. I’m walking around a bit hunched over because it hurts to stretch out too much. I think my situation is a bit worse than normal because I had soooo many eggs which means the needle had to pierce through more follicles than if I had less. I’m grateful that I had so many eggs, though. I just hope I start to recover soon!

What meds am I on now? A Z-pack antibiotic for 5 days, Medrol for 4 days which is a steroid that prevents inflammation (I can only imagine how inflamed I would if I wasn’t taking that since I’m so bloated already, and I have to insert Endometrin into you-know-where 3 times a day which is 100 mg of progesterone. Progesterone is a natural hormone that is often used to help your
uterine lining receive and nourish a fertilized egg. In a US IVF trial with over 1200 patients, Endometrin was
clinically proven to help achieve high pregnancy and birth rates (I got that stat from their Web site). The only down side is that it…well…leaks out during the day. It’s a real treat. I think I need to suck it up and just start wearing a diaper already. You better be really cute, kid.

Your dad has officially named me the BWE (Best Wife Ever, of course), so that prestigious award has helped me get through the day to day stuff.


I’m now to the point where I’m officially sick of thinking about myself. I feel like my world is revolved around me and my IVF cycle. I guess we all go through different phases at different points in our lives. It sure would be nice to focus on someone else at this point, but I will get there in the near future. One of the things that has been hardest for me is wanting to do things (like cleaning up the clothes in my messy room), and not being able to physically do it because my body is in pain and I need to rest. It has given me an empathy for those people who struggle with chronic pain or physical issues. I’m very grateful that I don’t feel like this all of the time.

You’re worth it! (or at least you better be…okay fine…you totally are).

xo

Mom