We did the PIO shot at about 8:10 this morning and hopped in the car to head to Montréal with me holding a warm magic bag to my derrière to ease the ache of the PIO injection. Although I despise those shots, the actual shot isn't so bad at all; it's really the ache afterward that bugs the heck outta me. And if I get lucky and I need to take that shot for the next 11 weeks or so, well, so be it. I'll do whatever I have to, whatever I can, to make this work!
We got to Montréal, checked in with the nurse's station and were soon ushered into a changing area. I slipped into my own hospital gown (the nurses keep telling me I ought to make them and sell them because my hospital gowns are so pretty!) and hubby slipped into one of their basic-blue gowns. I put on my pink fuzzy socks, and then we both put on the foot coverings for the OR and the hairnet things for sterility. To give a little levity to the situation, we took a few photos.
Footsies! My fuzzy pink socks
Waiting
A typical "Facebook" pic (we're TRYING not to laugh!)
And now for an "Emo Facebook" pic!
They called us into the OR and I got set up... even though I really couldn't relax until I got the embryo report. I was so nervous waiting for that. I guess it's like that for most of us, right? Just on edge as you worry and wait to find out whether the entire cycle is cancelled, or if the embryos are too poor to use, or whatever the case might be.
Anyway, I lay there on the table, and the embryologist came in to give us the report:
All six embryos continued to progress, however two of them showed too much fragmentation to freeze and their quality was 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the best (in a natural, non-IVF cycle) and 5 the worst. He advised not considering those two.
The best three embryos were, as they said, "perfect." Or as near to perfect as they could be. All three were 8-celled embryos, two of them had no fragmentation at all (he gave them a grade of 2), one had a minor touch fragmentation (a grade of 3) and according to the doctor, those three were all we needed. I had sort of hoped to transfer a fourth one, but because of its fragmentation and lower cell count, they advised against it.
As we all know, transferring higher numbers only gives you more of a chance to have multiples, not more of a chance to get a BFP. So in his professional opinion, backed by the embryologist, they advised to transfer the best three, and discard the other three (as they wouldn't survive a freeze/thaw cycle).
I held my husband's hand, I looked at the doc and embryologist and said, "This is my first IVF. I'm 38 years old. I want to give it the BEST shot we can. If you both, in your experience and knowledge, advise to transfer only three rather than four, we go with three."
Three it was. Three "perfect" embryos. Hubby took the above picture before they were loaded into the catheter. And the nurse said, "So the most important question is, do they look like you or your husband?" We giggled. I replied, "Two look like me, one looks like him!"
And so we proceeded.
Embryo Pickup
In the OR (the nurse is on the right, embryologist on the left, doc is barely visible!)
I don't know that I want to give the embryos a nickname for blogging purposes. I know lots of you call the embryos cute names like squirt, bean, peanut and the like. I debated giving them French names for the city in which they were created (Soleil, Noel) or music names (Peter, Paul and Mary), or latin names (Alpha, Beta, Gamma), or numbers (Un, Deux, Trois), or even names of my favourite writers (Shakespeare, Ronsard, Thoreau) ... but I'm not going to get attached. Just in case. So I might just call them MB (for embie) 1, MB 2 and MB 3.
So now we settle in for the wait. And the cryptic blog entry titles will begin in earnest! Here's hoping for a 2ww that is not stressful, full of fun and laughter, busy with Christmas preparations and joyous in the end.
Thank you all for the good vibes. I really appreciate the happy thoughts that you are sending me right now.
