Waiting on IVF eggs...

submitted by Kriste

I am in my first (and only) 2ww. I underwent an IVF transfer on Tuesday. I can only afford to do this once, so to be honest, I am almost dreading the blood test next week. It could be a wonderful day, or it might be devastating. In any case, good luck to you! It is so hard to be in limbo like this. I'll be thinking of you.

For anyone who is interested in the experience of my last few days, you are welcome to read on . . .

My younger sister is my egg donor. The egg retrieval came sooner than we expected. It was on Saturday morning, and it didn't go as well as we had hoped. The doctors were not able to reach one of her ovaries at all, so there were only 6 oocytes retrieved. We were very disappointed; no one had told us that this could happen, but they had told us that were at least 12 ready to retrieve. Since this is the only retrieval I was planning on subjecting my dear sister to, we were really counting on those 12 (I was hoping to cryopreserve at least 2 embryos for another try, in case this time didn't work). We were both pretty crushed on Saturday. I was even more so because I knew my sister was upset, and that alone broke my heart.

On Sunday, the embryologist called to say that only 3 of the eggs had fertilized. I spent all of Sunday and Monday terribly depressed and worried about further attrition. I had not contemplated the possibility of coming *this* far and then maybe not having anything to transfer.

The transfer was on Tuesday morning. There was only one really good embryo that had made it to the 8 cell division. One was 5 cells with fragments and the other was only 4 cells. The doctors said that it was possible those last 2 embryos would develop further if they were in the womb, but that they probably wouldn't do as well in the lab, and they probably would not survive cryopreservation. Considering that this was my one and only chance, the doctors felt that it was okay to transfer all 3, even though the limit at this clinic is 2. I was okay with that, since I was not feeling very optimistic.

In summary, I have been alternately freaked out or depressed since Friday (that was the day I started the evil progesterone shots), but yesterday I started to feel a little more positive. I've decided to concentrate very hard on the "now". Right "now", I have three tiny embryos floating around in my uterus- three potential beings! I was diagnosed with POF at age 14 and never in my life thought that this would be possible, so that itself is worth celebrating, right? (Oh, I have pictures of them too- isn't that so weird? Imagine having pics of yourself as an embryo in your baby book!) Hopefully this weekend at least one of them will implant . . .

In the meantime, I am ready to burst into tears at the slightest provocation.