White Knuckled & Worn

The five day embryo maturation process felt like the longest five days of my life. As I stated in my previous post, we had a confirmed 16 eggs gathered during the retrieval procedure and we were ecstatic - we couldn't be happier. When we got home from the procedure, I closed up the blinds in the spare room (Kay's nest, as she calls it) and made sure she had food, lots of water, Gatorade (hydration helps prevent OHSS (Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome), and her cell phone. Then I left her to watch "her Dean" on Supernatural and drift in and out of sleep over the course of the day. While Kay was resting I spent the day worrying about the daily phone calls we would get over the next five days. I also worried about her having side effects, about losing all our eggs, about the eggs not fertilizing, pretty much every bad thing I could think of happening. I was excited too though and these mixed emotions had me spinning.

Day 1
The next day we awaited our first dreaded phone call. On the day of retrieval, our eggs were graded in maturity and those that were mature enough to be fertilized, would be. Which means that day two they would be telling us how many of our 16 eggs were mature enough, and how many of those fertilized. The embryologist called Kay that morning and explained that of the 16 eggs that were retrieved, only seven were mature enough to move on to the fertilization process, but that of those seven, we had a 100% fertilization rate. It was a jagged pill to swallow that we had just spent two months, and basically all of our savings, to end up with seven embryos after the first day. We were heartbroken.

Day 2
It was so hard to not focus on the nine eggs that were not mature enough. We waited impatiently for our second call the next day, holding on tight and ready for anything, well almost anything. If they had told us that day that we lost half our embryos, I think we might have lost all hope, but they didn't. On day two the embryologist called and informed us that on a scale from grade 1 to 4 (one being the best and four being the opposite), we had five - class 2 and 3 embryos, one - class 4 embryo, and one embryo had been lost overnight when it turned abnormal. We had moved from 16, to 7, and now down to 6.

Day 3
We were now terrified that there wouldn't be any viable embryos left; they still had to make it to day five to be viable, and day three was the turning point for most people. We were told that a normal rate of attrition for embryos after day three was 25 to 40%! - in short, we were losing our shit. Kay shed many tears between our day two call and our day three call. We started planning for the worst - what would we do if we didn't have any viable embryos left over? Would we do another round of IVF? If so, how were we going to pay for it? All these thoughts were racing through my mind when I left for work that morning, and I waited for the call all morning. When Kay finally called, I picked up the phone and my hand was shaking. All I said was, "So?" Then I realized Kay was crying but before I could say anything she said "We still have 6!" - they all had made it, and Kay's tears, were tears of joy and relief. I was elated.

Day 4
Since we had already been through the toughest part of the maturation process I wasn't all that worried about day four. I breezed through day three and chose to focus on all the good things. I was really starting to get excited for transfer day; just thinking about it put a smile on my face. The thought of making that last trip to the clinic to finally meet our goal and potentially see our dreams come true was too exciting to ignore. That morning we got our day four call from the embryologist, Kay again called me at work to tell me we still had six total embryos! At this stage, we had four grade 2 embryos, one grade 3 embryo, and one embryo that was not yet mature enough to assign a grade to but was still developing.

The relief that we felt after day four and moving into day five was huge. I honestly felt like I'd been holding my breath for a week and I was finally able to relax. We didn't get as many embryos as we had expected, but we potentially did get enough to have as many children as we wanted. Although, depending on who you ask that number changes, I say I want five, Kay says she wants three, but everyone tells me I'll change my mind after the first one. During Kay's mini breakdown before day three I'm pretty sure I heard her mention that she didn't care how many embryos we ended up with, she would keep having kids as long as we had embryos left - maybe it was the hormones, but I'll hold on to hope that it wasn't.

How Would You Like Your Eggs?

I can't say enough about the resilience of my incredible wife; she has been a champ through this entire process. On top of dealing with this crap all on her own, she has had to deal with my insecurities as well. It's been difficult for me to push away this feeling of being a sperm donor being as my job is basically just to show up and make a deposit. Relinquishing the thought of making a baby the natural way has removed any feeling of a connection to the process for me. Kay has recognized the difficulty for me and has worked very hard to include me as closely as possible in the process.

As you read in her previous post, the IVF process required 3-4 self-administered injections per day. Kay was at work for the first injection she had to give herself and in an effort to include me, she made me a video. It included a lot of focused breathing and counting to three several times over while she gathered the courage to stick herself in the belly with her needle full of hormones. I don't think I explained to her how much this video meant to me but it truly did wonders to shorten the distance I felt from Kay's journey.

She took this even further the day she allowed me to administer one of her injections. One of the medications she had to take needed to be mixed prior to use, caused a burning sensation, and had a larger needle. Understandably, she didn't let me administer that injection, but she did allow me to give her the "space needle", because all it required was twisting the controller knob to the correct dose, slowly sticking it into her skin, and pushing down the plunger with my thumb. The level of trust it must have taken for Kay to allow me to do this really confirms for me that we're meant to be together - especially since my hands are prone to shaking when I'm doing fine tasks that require a high level of dexterity.

When she couldn't take a video or let me participate, she would send me emails outlining her day leading up to and explaining her appointments in vivid detail. She would tell me what the doctors were like, how she felt going into the appointments, and the results of tests that she had taken. Communicating isn't a difficult thing to do but it's something that is easy to overlook and the care she took in making me a part of this whole process truly meant the world to me. Although my level of participation in the planning of my wedding might suggest otherwise, I am not a "tell me when to show up" kind of person; I want to be involved and included, and I want to make decisions. Any idiot can provide a sperm sample, it takes something more to be a father - and that's what Kay gave back to me.

After all the injections, and ultrasounds, and blood tests, and appointments, and discomfort, the time finally came for the egg retrieval. We were scheduled for retrieval on a Monday so I had to take that day off work because Kay wouldn't be able to drive due to Fentanyl sedation. She was a little nervous because of this, but I was confident she would breeze through it. We made the all too familiar drive to the downtown clinic and didn't say much for the whole ride. When we got there we sat patiently in the waiting room for the nurse to call us in. When she did, I asked if I should come too, and she said "Yes of course, you're an equally important part of the equation" which put a big smile on my face and definitely calmed my nerves a little bit.

We were led to a room at the far back part of the clinic and Kay was given a pile of clothes and directed to the change room. She came out wearing a gown, a housecoat, a hairnet and some slippers seriously looking like she was wearing a bed and could lay down and fall asleep anywhere. The nurse came in and took Kay's vitals and then the embryologist came in to tell us the process. She would take Kay in and then shortly after another nurse would come and get me so that I could provide my sample which would be used to fertilize the eggs retrieved. They took Kay away and then, as promised, another nurse came to escort me to Andrology. I turned in my last sample, hoping that all my healthy eating, no-booze, exercising, and ball-icing had paid off, and then returned to the waiting room.

I didn't have to wait too long before they came to tell me Kay was in recovery and I could come sit with her. When I got there I was reminded of my surgery that seemed to kick everything off, but in reverse. Kay was drifting in and out of sleep when I sat down beside her bed, she looked at me briefly and said very slowly, "I'm glad you're here, and I want to talk to you, but my words are very heavy." Then she fell asleep again. About a minute later she woke up and said with a very confused look on her face, "Am I wearing a hairnet?", I replied, "No" and she mumbled something about someone taking it off of her before drifting off to sleep again. I sat there for a while behind the curtain, feeling guilty again that she had to go through all of this, when she woke up and looked me straight in the face and said "Am I wearing a hairnet?". I couldn't help but laugh and she was a little put off, but eventually put together that she had asked me the same question about a minute earlier.

The embryologist came in and told us that she did extremely well; she managed to collect 16 eggs and the sperm sample I provided was the highest count yet (about 330K), definitely enough to use to fertilize all the eggs. She told us that she would call us the next day and let us know how many eggs had fertilized to become embryos, and that she would call every day after that  to let us know how many had lasted each day of the maturation process. Once Kay was fully awake we were told we could go. I helped Kay get dressed and escorted her to the car knowing full well that the next week was going to be a very difficult one.