ER and Fert Report

Sorry for no update yesterday (I know ya'll are just on the edge of your seats!), but I was exhausted after ER.  I woke up early due to nervous anticipation, and we were able to head home immediately afterward.  So, needless to say, after 6 hours in the car, all I wanted was some food and my pillow!

ER went exceptionally smoothly.  The Awesome Clinic (DallasIVF, for anyone in/near Texas) continues to impress me.  I checked in at 7:45 and within 10 minutes they had me in the back in a gown, watching TV and reading magazines with Mo.  The nurse came in and introduced herself, started my IV, and made friendly chit-chat.  (I learned she also has two white labs, and we showed off pictures of our furbabies!).  Interestingly enough, she was familiar with The Clinic From Hades as she just moved to TX from TN and worked at another nearby clinic.  She said they got a lot of patients from our town, and that no one was really impressed with the clinic here.

Anyway, I digress.  Anesthesiologist came in, asked a few standard questions, made me feel very comfortable.  The staff is just so caring and kind here.  They whisked me away for retrieval, and I was back in less than 20 minutes.  When I woke up I felt great!  No pain, but I was a little weepy.  I was just overwhelmed by how nice everyone was, and I think that (in my medicine fog) I kind of boo-hooed that to all the nurses.  I'm a little embarrassed now, but I really do think they're amazing.

They managed to get 18 eggs yesterday, and I spent the entire day marveling at that number.  That's almost double from our first retrieval!  Of the 18 (I learned this morning), 17 were mature and were fertilized using ICSI.  Today, 14 showed signs of fertilization.

Our next update won't be until Sunday, when they will call and schedule our Tuesday transfer.  I am so, so pleased to have 14 little embryos ...but I have to admit, I'm still nervous that none of them will make it to Day 5.  Last time, we transferred two at Day 3, and at Day 5, only 1 was ready to freeze.  It wasn't until months later that we learned that 3 more had caught up and that we were able to freeze those on Day 6.  Since that pregnancy ended in miscarriage, I have always wondered if those two embryos would have made it to Day 5, especially since that skews our blastocyst statistics.  Do we consider it a 60% survival rate, or 40%?  Or, just 10% since only 1 embryo was actually on track on Day 5?

I know, I know.  I am totally over-analyzing it.  I need to remember to breathe, and to keep myself hopeful.  I just really, really, really want this to be THE ONE.  I don't know how many more IVF's I have in me.

(On that note, we got a letter officially denying us the additional insurance coverage we applied for in May.  I wasn't surprised, but Mo was.  They denied me for infertility coverage because....wait for this....I have a history of infertility.  All of this in a supposedly "IVF-mandated" state.  Gotta love the loopholes the politicians make for themselves!)

Nothing left for me to do but wait...and analyze...and Google.  Come on, Tuesday!!!!!