In a couple of hours, I leave for the egg retrieval. Today they will put me under IV sedation, place a catheter with a small needle on the end into my ovaries and remove all of the eggs from each follicle that I have been taking medication to grow for the past few weeks. Each follicle that I've developed should have one egg in it. At last count (on Saturday), I had 23-25 follicles total. In theory, that means that they would retrieve that many eggs. However, not all of the eggs will be fully mature and usable for the IVF process. In fact, some may have matured too much to be usable for fertilization.
After the procedure today, I will be told the number of eggs that they were able to get, but not the quality. They won't know that until they get them into the embryology lab. Also, they will fertilize the eggs today with my husband's sperm to create embryos. Tomorrow, we will find out what the quality of the eggs was and how many fertilized. Then, we wait and watch them to see which develop the best and, after three or five days, they will put them back in.
There has been a lot of "hurry up and wait" in this process. I've been pushing through the medication and injections now for weeks in preparation for the egg retrieval. Now that it's here, I'm extremely nervous about it. On top of general nervousness for undergoing a surgical procedure, I worry that the results won't be exactly what we wanted. We could get bad news at any juncture. We could end up with very few eggs, we could get lots of eggs, but very few of them be mature, we could get good quality eggs and have very few or none fertilize, they may not grow healthy and strong after they are fertilized, they may decide not to implant after they are put back inside me, and, probably most heartbreaking of all, everything could go right and then a miscarriage could happen in the future. I'm not trying to be a negative Nancy, but I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that these concerns are going through my head.
At this point, I would say that I am cautiously optimistic. So far, almost everything has gone according to plan. I've done everything that I am supposed to do and have responded very well to the medications. Also, in our circumstance, the infertility appears to be male factor rather than female. This also gives us a good prognosis for the procedure. All we can do at this point is wait and pray.
I am a firm believer in the "everything happens for a reason" philosophy. If this doesn't work for us, there is a reason for that. Maybe it wasn't our time and we will have our own child in the future, or maybe there is another child out there in the world that is meant to be ours. We will know what the reason is in time. But I do know some of the reasons why we are going through this process. Since we've opened up about our situation, we have learned of so many others that are struggling with infertility. We have been able to be sounding boards and guides for those people and it is a blessing that we have been able to fill those roles.
Another thing that this process has allowed us to do is to be firm on our decision to have a family together. This is more for me than Ryan; he always wanted children. In fact, when I first met him he told me he wanted four and I almost broke it off on the spot. For many years, I was convinced that I wanted my career and my freedom over a family of my own. I wasn't interested in marriage unless I could find someone who, without a shadow of a doubt, was exactly who I wanted to marry. I dated many kind, wonderful people and did not want to marry them, so I assumed for a long time I wouldn't even get married. Then I met Ryan and everything changed. Not only did I find myself wanting to make a life with him, but, eventually, I wanted nothing more than to raise a family with him.
I assumed that creating a family would be the easy fun part. Not so much. But, as we fight for a family of our own, I realize how important it has become to me. I am solid in my resolve. This is very good for me. I know that if a child had been thrust upon me, I would have had trouble accepting it as what I really wanted out of life. Now I know that it is what I want, and when we have a family, it will be so much sweeter.
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