Bringing home our "embabies"!!!

Monday night I became so anxious and ready for my ET I could barely stand it. I was nervous to hear how our embyos were doing in their petri dishes up in Akron. Its so weird to think that your babies are growing in dishes in incubator up in a lab 2 hours away from where you are. Its weird to wonder how they are doing, how many survive each day and keep growing, what quality they are. Its all very surreal.

Starting on monday morning the front of my hip and groin region on my left side was hurting. That afternoon I asked Justin to look really close and see if he saw anything (bruise etc.) and there was nothing. When I got read for bed I looked and there was a bloody bruise and the whole area was a long raised lump and it was extremely painful. I freaked out a little bit and wondered if I should call the emergency on-call doctor but decided to wait until morning. I couldnt even sleep on my left side that night because it hurt so bad.

I didnt sleep well at all, party because of this lump and partly because I was so excited to transfer. I had to get up at 6:45am to get in the shower and be leaving the house to go to acupuncture. I cannot tell you how much I have come to love acupuncture. It is so relaxing and centering. Justin drove me down to my appointment and came in to see what this was all about while Hannah put the points in.

After acupuncture we were off for Akron. Its a 2 hour drive and it feels so long when you are going there for something so important. I had my bag packed; penguin pillow pet, IVF folder, lucky penguin socks, lucky necklace on, my valium, and other things I needed for superstitious reasons. We were off to get bring out embabies home. At 11am I took my Valium and drank 32 ounces of fluids as ordered.

Upon arriving at RGI I asked if I could see the IVF nurse before out appointment because I had some questions, in reality I wanted to ask her about this lump and bruise! She took me back and I showed it to her and she was as stumped as I was. She went and asked the doctor who did my retrieval last week if maybe he had to apply crazy amounts of pressure to that side because of lefty being a pain but he said that he did not. He wanted to see me. So I went in an exam room and he checked it out. He seemed to think it was thir spaced fluid but that the bruise didnt really fit into that scenario so he said to keep a close eye on it and that we had much better things to worry about today, OUR TRANSFER!

They took us to a small conference room where we waited for the embryologist. I was SO excited to hear from him how our embryos had been doing. He brought us pictures (yay!) and told us all about them. First he told us about the "12th one" that didt fertilize normally. He showed us that one of the big cells in it had 3 nuclei which made it abnormal. On the same sheet there were two other embryos that had stopped developing at some point and were not viable. Here is that sheet:

( The 3 nucleus embryo is on the top right and the other two are the ones that quit growing.)
Then he showed us the first embryo that we were going to be transferring. He said that it is a 4AA. AA being the best quality and 4 meaning that it had begun to hatch (a good thing). Without further ado here is embaby #1:

Then he showed us the second embryo that we were going to be transferring. This one is a 3AA. Again, the best quality but the 3 means that it has not begun to hatch yet but the zona polsa (the "shell" around the outside) was nice and thin. Here is #2:

Here is the whole "good" page: (I will explain each one below)

Top Row (left to right): Embryo we got to freeze, another embryo we got to freeze that was a 3AA, one that stopped growing and didnt make it (notice the VERY thick zona polusa).
Middle Row (left to right): An embryo that stopped progressing also and didnt make it, another embryo that they froze, and another embryo that they froze.
Bottom Row (left to right): Embaby #1, one that they froze, Embaby #2!
So, all in all we were transferring 2 and freezing 5 embryos.

Now it was time to go get prepped. They had Justin get in an awesome "Michelin Man" suit, shoe covers, head hairnet thing, etc.


I had to get in a hospital gown, hairnet, and my lucky socks! (please excuse me looking huge... you can see how bloated my abdomen is in this pic)

Then it was off to the OR. When I got in there we did a trial transfer since this was not my normal doctor doing the transfer and they want to make the actual transfer go as smoothly as possible. Then we got to watch on a tv as the embryologist when back into the embryo lab to get our embabies!!!! They showed our name on the dishes, then they showed him move the embryos around, then he picked them up in a catheter and moved them in and out of it so that we could see both of them were in there, then he sucked them up one last time and came into the OR. He asked me my name and social security number then showed me the catheter. Now it was time to transfer!!!!! The embryologist actually held the external ultrasound on me while the doctor inserted the catheter and once they had it perfectly placed they put our embabies back where they belong <3
Here is a picture of my uterus on the ultrasound. The large black area at the top is my full bladder that they required me to have. Below that is my uterus and where you see the bright white spots is the fluid that they embryos was in right at the top on my uterus. Wont that be fun for the baby book? haha

They then transferred me to a gurney and wheeled me to the recovery room. I had to lay there for 30 minutes before I was allowed to get up.
and here are my lucky socks:

The proud embabies' parents:



After laying there for 30 minutes they told me I could get up and go to the bathroom and get dressed. They then wheeled me out to the car in a wheelchair, all the way to the car door. I laid the car seat all the way back we we carefully drove home. Now its 3 days of strict bedrest for me.

Dear embabies, please please please be my sticky babies and stay in there for the next 9 months. Love, your mother.