What a Day!

Per doctor’s orders, I am resting at home today. I feel great, though. And excited and anxious and hopeful! Yesterday was the embryo transfer and it went beautifully.

Considering that we had to drive into the city and traffic was heavy we left quite early and arrived quite early. That was fine with me, though. We decided to take a little walk along the river just to kill time and relax a little before it was time for the procedure. I had to have a full bladder for the procedure so this is when I started to drink my water, as well.

When it was time to go in, we waited in the waiting room for only about 5 minutes before we were called to the back.  The nurse led us to a room that was exactly like the one that I recovered in for the egg retrieval. She explained to us what would be happening and said that the embryologist would be in to talk to us, as well as the doctor and the ultrasound technician.

First up: embryologist. She came in and said she currently didn’t have any to freeze. We were a little surprised by this since the other day, 6 of the 7 were doing wonderfully. She said that it was possible for the other ones to become freezable, but they weren’t ready as of yet. Then she said “Okay so I have one perfect embryo at a AA and one that is at a BB.” Embryo grading is exactly like the grades we receive in school: A (or AA) is the best with F being the “worst”.  Then she said something along the lines of “So, we’ll go ahead and put these two in…”. I assumed the doctor must have ordered the two to go in, but just to clarify I asked, “Oh, so we’re definitely putting in two?” Good thing I asked, because it turns out she had just assumed we wanted to go with two embryos. Then came the hard part…

When the embryologist realized we weren’t quite prepared to make this decision, she left the room so we could talk. I’m the intuitive/feeling thinker while my husband is much more the logical/reasoning thinker. It was a difficult decision. I was very emotional and that guilt feeling kept creeping in.  Initially, I felt as though I had to put in the two embryos. But, then we talked it through. Ultimately, it came down to these factors:  since the embryologist only had one to freeze at the time, if this doesn’t work, we’d have to start from square one, again, if she put in both embryos… meds, egg retrieval, etc. Also, we thought about how we had one absolutely perfect, 100% ready-to-go embryo and one ALMOST ready-to-go embryo. We felt as though this embryo was telling us we should pick him or her! Another major factor was that our chances do not increase by putting two embryos in, but our chance for multiples certainly increases! After about a half hour of weighing out all of our options and possible outcomes, we decided to go with one embryo. The ultra sound technician (who was absolutely WONDERFUL) and the embryologist made us feel very confident about our decision.

We met the doctor and then prepared for the transfer. In the room with us was the nurse, doctor, embryologist, ultra sound tech and our little embryo! Before we got to see the little embryo on the flat screen tv above my bed, the embryologist said “One embryo for Elisabeth Sheppard and boy is it beautiful.” My heart was so full and anxious and then, there it was on the screen. Our little mass of cells squirming around and ready for the “homecoming”, as the ultrasound tech kept calling it. Soon it was gone from the screen and being transferred into my uterus. On the ultrasound monitor, we could see a little flash of light and that was it. That was our embryo coming home. We even have an ultrasound picture to remember that moment for the rest of our lives…. Not that we’d ever forget.

We left happy and positive. What an incredible day. I hope our little embryo makes itself at home and is perfectly comfortable where it is for the next nine months. We’ll find out soon.

I couldn’t have made it this far on our journey without the love and support of my husband, family, and friends. They’ve been absolutely amazing and I could never, ever thank them enough for making this process a little easier.