Michelle Britton

Our Three Embryo's

The phone rang this morning, it was the clinic to discuss how our thaw went. My heart goes to my throat ‘oh shit none made it’ rushes through my head. They tell me they thawed four and got three good ones. I am shocked and excited at the same time. They finish up by saying one looks like it has never been frozen. I don’t know what that means – but hell, it sounds good to me. They end the call by reminding me to have four glasses of water one hour before we arrive.

We get to the clinic late, or at least we think. We are actually 30 minutes early so we sit in the waiting room watching HGTV and flipping through magazines. Every few minutes I am asked how my bladder is holding up – each time I reply, ‘fine’. They put us in the procedure room where we wait for 30 minutes while they prep.  Holy Shit, I now need to pee, so I send Dirk out to find someone as it is getting tense.

The ultra sound reveals I have too much in my bladder so they hand me a cup and tell me only to let out enough to fill it. These people are nuts – there is no way I can measure my urine output like pouring milk. Once the tap is open, I am not sure I can get it closed in time.

I comment that I hope they are letting me go to the bathroom and not make me do it in the room. After a few laughs I walk down to the washroom – here goes nothing – or in my case one cup of pee. It went okay. I was able to stop the flow with only minimal spillage.  I empty the cup and stand there wondering if they recycle – I mean it is a plastic cup after all. The answer is clearly no, but I make the doctor laugh for asking.

Back in the room they look at my bladder again – shit – still to full. They hand me a dixie cup this time – ‘One and half fills please’ they tell me.  They are killing me – but off I go again. When I return the comment is made that they are impressed with my kegel ability. I did not know I even had it.

Now that I am comfortable and the doctor is satisfied at my bladder size, transfer begins. They display our three embryos on the screen for us to see, it is truly amazing. Once the transfer is complete, they administer another IV of inter-lipid to help with decreasing my immune system.

Three hours after we arrive, we are able to leave, buns in the oven. The twelve day wait begins.

To do a Frozen Embryo Transfer, one first needs to have ideal conditions, that is, the oven has to be completely preheated prior to any baking. For us, the preparation started back on October 15th. This was 21 days after my last period plus after I had ovulated. We started with a single shot a day to suppress any further egg making process.  Then, four days after my period started, I began to take Estrace tablets twice daily for two weeks. This was easy, and as I stated in my prior post, sometimes too easy that we forgot we were doing anything.

Today, I received my next steps for our preparation for transfer on Wednesday. It is insane and I can not remember half the time what the hell I need to do and when. After deciphering the clinical coordinators notes and coming up with the timetable, I read this out to Dirk, he started to glaze over;

My process now starts at 6 am with a shot of Heparin (blood thinner), Estrace tablets (estrogen) and Prometrium tablets (progesterone). This is closely followed by a baby aspirin, prenatal vitamin, antibiotics, Vitamin D (2 tablets), and Calcium (3 tablets). At 2 pm I need to take Estrace and Prometrium. At 6 pm Heparin and Prometrium. At dinner another antibiotic and prenatal vitamin. Finally, at 10 pm my last daily dose of Estrace and Prometrium.

We need to create a daily schedule or we will miss something. Now, we have alarms set and each time it rings we look at the schedule and cross off what drugs we are to administer. I feel like a pill monster.

It is a beautiful Saturday morning – I get up early to run to the clinic before going to pick up my friend Renata for a trip to Costco. As most of my close friends know, I am not a morning person, so while standing on me front porch locking the door – it takes a moment to sink in what I am starring at.

Where the fuck did my fence go!!

I walk back in the house and yell to Dirk upstairs;

M: “Dirk, the fence is gone.”
D: “What do you mean gone?”
M: “As in not there anymore.”

I then walk over to investigate – it is hanging in the neighbours yard – the metal post is bent in half – it took a lot of force to pull this over. First, the gate was ripped off the hinges a few months back – now this. I am still in WTF mode.

Update: It is now Thursday morning and I am lying in bed listening to a repetitive dull thumping. I am usually at work, so these sounds of people working away are new to me. Wait – what are they working on? I peek out the window – two men are replacing the fence – cool!! Wait – are they just banging back on the broken piece of shit that fell off? Yes they are. I am torn – do we tell them we’d rather have a nice new fence or let them continue to do all the work fixing the old. We are sticking with the old fence for now.

We are in the midst of our FET protocol and it really does not feel like a real IVF round. I know that sounds lame – but we were going to the clinic almost daily, had a gamut of injections and pills to take, plus a surgical procedure to recover from.

This time we are only doing one shot each evening to suppress ovulation. I have to admit – we keep forgetting about the shot – the other night I was laying in bed – sat up and exclaimed ‘Shit the shot!’

I feel guilty about not being more attentive: is it because I am less stressed – less caring – even expecting it to work. If this is the roller coaster of feelings I am having now, I am afraid for Dirk when I am actually pregnant.