More about our ET…

We left MI this morning, as we planned to, at 8:00 a.m., giving us 2 hours and 45 minutes to arrive at our scheduled appointment time, or so we thought…

We got to the parking garage for the downtown office at about 10:00 a.m. and figured we had some time to kill. We considered going ahead to the office to check-in, even though we were early, but in the end since the office is located on pretty river walk, we chose to go for a short stroll, which I thought might help my constipation a bit and get things moving, which it did. It is/was a nice morning and it was cool to check out some of the boats docked at the marina along the river walk.

We headed into the office about 10 minutes before we thought we were due there and as I was filling out my check-in paperwork at the front desk, a staff member said they are ready for you, someone will be here momentarily to take you right back to your room! Usually we would be in the waiting room for at least a little while on the day of a procedure there, or at least that has been our experience. So it quickly became clear to us that we were being treated as if we were late. The staff weren’t being rude to us, they just seemed more concerned and a bit rushed.

I said to the nurse and others helping me to get ready for the procedure that the voicemail message I received yesterday clearly said to ARRIVE at 10:45 a.m. this morning, the woman on the message repeated that time for arrival twice and I listened to it twice. I did think it was odd she didn’t mention a time for the procedure, however figured that the arrival time was the more important piece of information.

As it turns out the woman leaving the message had accidentally told me the procedure time as the arrival time and technically we should have probably been told to get there closer to 9:45 a.m.! Even though I clearly had done nothing wrong, being the people pleaser that I am, I felt bad about the whole misunderstanding. They didn’t seem too upset and were more focused on getting things rolling for the procedure! As Bob pointed out, getting there late, even though we didn’t know we were, had some advantages, including not having to wait very long before the procedure!

Next one of the nurses went over paperwork and the details of what I am to do and not to do between now and the Beta blood test (to determine if our little miracle implants or not) on Friday, August 17. Then the RE came in to meet us and go over how our embryos were doing, especially the ones he was planning to transfer. And that wasn’t a typo, he told us that we had not one, but two 2bb grade embryos ready to go! Though we were very happy to learn that 2 of the 9 that had fertilized had developed so well, I quickly reminded him that our OB/GYN and our RE don’t think transferring more than one embryo, in light of my post-interstitial ectopic pregnancy removal uterus, is a good idea. As soon as I said that the RE said that he remembered reading about my uterus on my chart and apologized profusely for the confusion.

Then he reminded us that even though we would now only be putting back one 2bb embryo, that they would definitely freeze the other one and after reviewing notes from the embryologists about the remaining 4 or 5 he told us that were still developing that he predicted total that we might get to freeze as many as 2 – 3!!! :). We were so happy to hear his forecast, as after only getting one that was freezable last time, it was encouraging to hear there is a good chance we could get more than one! But, even just knowing we will have at least one frozen from this cycle, gives us hope that if this pregnancy doesn’t stick our next try would most likely be a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET)! Better yet, if our little embryo is able to stick around, so to speak, then we will have a better stock of potential brothers and/sisters for Sean and he or she in the future and maybe we wouldn’t ever need to do another fresh IVF cycle, which is a lot more involved and invasive then an FET!

Lastly, the u/s tech that we got for our ET today, was one I hadn’t had since my first two monitoring appointments at the downtown office, during our 1st IVF cycle. You may recall that at the time I described her as a bit of a stand up comedian, as she gives a running commentary while she does her job!

Anyway, she was a lot of fun today, and she along with the RE, a resident who was observing, the embryologist and attending nurse were all very positive and optimistic about the success of this cycle and our embryo being in it for the long haul, which we really appreciated! The u/s tech joked with us that watching the procedure on the u/s monitor would be like our own private “Nova” special! After the RE placed the embryo into my uterus with the catheter, the u/s tech said to us about our little miracle “it’s home!” I thought that was so sweet! After she printed out two u/s pictures (which I will post later this week, when we get home from MI) of our embryo in my uterus, she handed them to us saying “hopefully this will be the start of your (baby) album!”. Before she left the room she patted my tummy and told the baby to stick and wished us good luck!

The RE also had a wonderful bedside manner! He explained the whole procedure to us before he did it, even though we’d been through it before. He told me that he had actually been in my position before, but for a different reason, so he could sort of relate. But that in his case there were 30 people in the room! Not really sure what that meant, but it was a nice sentiment. 😉 He also shook my hand before he left the room and wished us good luck!

As with our last ET, I was overcome with emotion at the moment of the actual transferring of the embryo into my uterus. It was so amazing to watch on the monitor! Well, we couldn’t be happier about being PUPO!!! :). Please keep those positive thoughts, sticky vibes and prayers coming our way! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT!!! 🙂