Retrieval is coming up!

Things are progressing along and the shots are going well. I am getting more and more uncomfortable as my ovaries swell up with eggs. It gets to the place that I am tired and sore, and walking long distances is tough, so it is important to just hang out at home in my sweats. I also continue to be nauseous, but the sea bands are helping (the black wrist band things I posted about last time). I have been at the doctor every other day for ultrasounds and blood work to watch my progress. The exciting thing is that I am right on target to do egg retrieval on Monday. It is an outpatient surgical procedure where they will go in and collect all the eggs my body has released. Embryos will be created right away. Holy moly. Our next kiddo will exist! I am really excited for that part, and it is hard to imagine.

The procedure is quite painful from what I remember, so I am bracing myself for it. Also, this is when it got emotionally difficult last time. We will start with so many embryos, and we will have to sit by and watch helplessly as they will begin to peter out. Some will be sick. Some won’t survive the process. Last time, the entire hopes of our family was riding on how many embryos came out of that situation. We wanted multiple children and weren’t sure we would be able to afford to do IVF again, so this had to work where we had extras for down the road. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how it ended up. Aaron was the only surviving one. Going through that process before, I remember what that felt like as we lost embryo after embryo. Hope drained away for the family we dreamed of. It was also on the heels of losing Noah, so losing embryos every day felt like more losses of children in a way. I am hopeful that since this is our last time around at having kids (and that decision feels good to us – it isn’t because of the hefty cost of IVF) that really, we only need one to make it, and the ethics of having a freezer full of embryos we don’t plan to use is kind of overwhelming, so maybe this won’t be as bad this time. We will just see what we get.

Once retrieval is over, I will have a few weeks to recover before we start talking about implantation. They will biopsy a cell off of the embryos for the genetic testing, and then they will be frozen until we are ready. The process of preparing for egg retrieval sure does make a mess of your body, so I am glad I have time to get back to normal first. But, I am eager to be pregnant again, and hope that sometime in February we can do this. Again, it is up to God and mother nature to heal me up first and that happens when it happens.

Wow, this baby will exist after Monday! Smiling just thinking of it, and can’t wait to meet this little person, even just as a little lima bean in my belly.