We lucked out! Our egg retrieval fell on a Friday, which in turn meant that I would spend the next 4 days in bed--better it fell over the weekend for work related purposes.
Previously I had been going to the fertility clinic every few days to see how I was "progressing," which meant they wanted to do multiple ultrasounds to determine how many follicles I produced and their size. The nurse described to us that they wanted to see at least 2 follicles over 2 cm and 5 over 1.50 in order to do the retrevial. During one of these appointments, the nurse came in to do the ultrasound and she indicated, "I usually stand up to do this but there are so many follicles to measure that I need to get a chair!"
By April 11th I met the sucessful egg size quota, plus more!
The day of the retrieval was upon us. I was very unaware as to what to expect during this appointment. I'll admit that I was nervous to be put under general anesthesia. Logan was able to be in the room while the nurse anesthetist started my IV. When the Dr. entered the room, Logan had to leave (Booo!). Dr. Foulk asked me if I was ready for this. I replied, "Are you ready?!?" Kind of a dumb thing to say at the time, but I had my ever so delicate reproductive organs in this mans hands! What do you expect from a highly, drugged up emotional woman? The last thing I remember is Dr. Foulk telling me that he liked my orange toenails (I just had them done). He told me something about orange being the color of fertility! Must have been a sign!
Then, I was out.
I slowly woke up and had to walk myself to the recovery room, with assistance of course. Logan came in shortly after that as well as Dr. Foulk. He indicated that everything went very well. Additionally, he said that the lab was still counting my eggs because there were so many. The longer I laid there the better I felt. Finally I was stable enough to leave.
We were told weeks prior that they hope for approximately 20 eggs to develop and be retrieved. The medical asssisant entered the room and told me they were able to retrive all 50 of mine! WooooHoooooo! It was a little awkward knowing that I was leaving the office with 50 of my prized possestions in a strangers hands. After all, I did a lot of work to get those suckers here! Anyway, the lab guy indicated to me that he would call me everyday to let me know the status of their growth and maturity after they do a procedure called ICSI where they inject the sperm into the egg.
And he did. The next day I received a phone call indicating the number of healthy embryos we had, the number of embryos that did not mature, the amount that had good length tails, etc. They were very happy with our result. I was too.
And at that point, I knew they were in good hands, literally.
