Details: I left the house at about 7:30, dropped off the girls at my mom's house, and drove to Houston. Rick had planned to come with me, but on Monday, he found out he had to work an overtime shift, so so much for that plan. I rolled in at about 10:30 and met M at the house. Then we headed out in time for my 11:15 acupuncture appointment.
I checked in at the clinic, since I was supposed to have my bloodwork done first. It took quite a while to get called back. M went to go sign consent forms (he was heading to work before the transfer itself). Once the blood draw was complete, they walked me over to the acupuncture suite. And I downed two bottles of water, to fill up my bladder for transfer. I hugged M goodbye and told him I'd see him when I was pregnant.
I'd already filled out the paperwork while I was waiting for the blood draw, so the acupuncturist took me straight back and started the treatment. This wasn't my first acupuncture rodeo, so everything was pretty familiar. There were needles in the top of my head (in my hair), on my hands, on my feet and legs, and in my belly. Also in my ears. She left me for 20 minutes with relaxing music/the sounds of water playing. Then she came back and replaced the ear needles with permanent ones I would wear until Saturday (little sticky patches). There are two on each ear and they don't bother me much, though the upper ones are annoying/a little painful if I touch them. I didn't take pictures of the needles, but here's the little acupuncture figure. Imagine it's me.
After acupuncture was done, the nurse walked me back to the surgical suite to get changed. And Gayle showed up! So good to see her! I kept my shirt on and had a gown on in front and another in back. That's also when the nurse had me take the Valium. Blech. When I tried to open it, it broke in half and got all powdery. Double blech.
The nurse walked Gayle and I back to the transfer room and we waited a bit for N to show up (she was coming from work). In the meantime, they did a quick abdominal ultrasound to see if my bladder was full enough and decided to have me drink another bottle of water (which put me at 51 ounces, rather than the 20 instructed-- I always knew my bladder was an overachiever). And then N showed up-- we were in business!
Things moved quickly from there. They wheeled in the incubator with the embryos. That's N seeing her babies!
Dr. Hickman came into the room and it was time to get down to business. He checked the ultrasound and said "is that her abdominal wall?" and the nurse said it was. He said "Wow, you're so thin, this is really easy to visualize. Really good visability." First time I've been accused of being "so thin." Ha!
We were transferring two embryos-- the ones that had been the 11 and 9-cell embryos at day 3. Now they were a stage 2 blastocyst and a morula (more on stages later). Here's the process from my perspective:
He ran a small tube into the cervix and then injected the embryos through there, into my "fluffy" uterus.
All smiles afterward:
Me on the table, embryos on board:
After the transfer, the acupuncturist came back in the room for my post-transfer treatment. I think I was probably supposed to be quiet and meditative, but we were talking and happy. Oops. :) Here's a shot of the room, as we were leaving.
Gayle and I met N out in the waiting area, where she was talking to Barb about the embryology results. She had printouts from this transfer and the last one, so that gave me plenty of data to obsess over later.
These are the embryos we transferred:
I think the one on the left is the morula and the one on the right is the blastocyst. Ideally, they expect the embryos to be blastocycts on day 5. We just had one make it that far. Blastocysts are graded on a developmental scale of 1-6, with 6 being the most advanced. This blast is a 2, which means the blastocoel cavity is more than half the volume of the embryo. A morula is more typical of what is expected on day 4, so this guy is a little slower growing. That doesn't necessarily mean anything other than that it's slower growing than average. Morulas still have a good pregnancy success rate, just not as good as blastocysts.
We hugged Gayle and Barb goodbye and went out to lunch at Pappadeux. After my last transfer, I had salmon, so I gave into tradition/superstition and had it again-- it was delicious. Just as my entree came, I felt the valium working for the first time (I'm convinced it did nothing for the actual transfer), and I started fighting the sleepiness. After lunch, we went back to N and M's house and I sacked out for 2-3 hours.
I woke up right before M came home from work. And, true to form, they totally outdid themselves for dinner. Salad, asparagus, mashed potatoes, mushrooms, steak, pistachio pudding, and two kinds of cake. Oof! It was so, so good! By 10:00, we were all exhausted and went to bed.
Oh! Worth noting. Houston IVF did not require me to do any bedrest. Just basic "take it easy" instructions. So that was great. I was afraid they were going to chain me down.
In the morning, I got up, had some pineapple, and talked a bit before heading back home. M was pacing in the kitchen, talking about when I'd be able to test and let them know-- funny. I had an easy drive home, picked up my kids, and went back to regular life.
This morning, they still haven't heard whether any of the three embryos left in culture on Wednesday made it to freeze. I hope so!
In any case, I'll start testing on Sunday morning. That's likely too early to see anything, but I'm a fan of "early and often" for home pregnancy tests. We should have a positive test by Wednesday, I would think. And the blood test will be Friday. Grow, grow, grow little embryos! Stick around. It's worth it!
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