Transfer Day

So, transfer day has come and gone and really could not have gone any better.  On Tuesday morning, we both woke up pretty early (sans alarm) because we were just so excited and, well, I haven't been sleeping more than 3 or so hours at a time lately anyway.  Jonathan decided to go get us bagels from our local bagel store and we sat in bed, watching television and eating bagels.  Finally I got up and got ready because I had to go to school at teach a bassoon lesson at 9.  It ended up being a good distraction.

Once I came home, I started to slowly hydrate myself, which was important because I had to have a full bladder for the transfer so that they could see my uterus well via ultrasound.  Jonathan and I hung out on the couch and watched some Scrubs on Netflix then got in the car to head down to the clinic.  When we were 15 minutes away from the office (it takes around 35 minutes to get there), I was instructed to drink 24 ounces of liquid (I chose apple juice!), and take a Valium.

Mmmm... Valium

Valium on the dashboard

Chugging away at my apple juice....

Once we got to the office it was a lot of hurry up and wait - which was making me C-R-A-Z-Y.  All I wanted to know what how our embryos were doing!  We waited in the main waiting room for a bit, then they put us in another waiting room, then we went into the locker room (site of that oh so attractive picture of me from the day of the retrieval in my hospital gown and socks). 

Once we were in the locker room, the embryologist came to see us.  She was really sweet and explained that we had two great quality blastocysts to transfer, but none to freeze.  That was totally fine by us!  Our clinic has really high criteria for freezing, and only 10 - 15% of couples have anything left to freeze at the end of a cycle, so we were expecting this.  We had beaten so many of the odds already with this cycle, and to have two high quality blasts to transfer far exceeded our wildest expectations, so we were pretty happy!  She gave us a picture of our blasts to take home, which is really cool.  If this all works out, that will be baby's first picture!

I had to undress from the waist down and put on a gown and my socks again (it's cold in there!), then we went into our little partition and read all of our post-transfer instructions.  We sat there... and sat there... and sat there.  It reality it probably wasn't that long, but I was really anxious to get everything underway.  Fortunately, "our" nurse just happened to show up and came back and went through everything with us.  She confirmed to us that the blasts looked really good, which definitely made us happy to hear. 

Finally, we got to go back to the OR - Jonathan decked out in scrubs (which was an adorable/hysterical sight!) and they got me situated up on the table.  Our RE does surgery on Tuesdays, so he was on for our transfer, which was awesome.  The whole process was pretty quick and he told me that it went really well and was basically as perfect of a transfer as they could hope for.  That was great news! They did a freeze frame on the ultrasound screen of the actual transfer so that they could show us what happened. The blasts are microscopic so it wasn't like we could see them or anything, but we could see where the catheter was inserted and where the liquid containing the blasts was released into the uterus.  It was pretty cool to see.

Before we went into the OR, our nurse told us that I had to make sure I didn't laugh at all during the procedure because they had to be precise with the placement of the catheter.  This was kind of difficult because of the valium, but even more difficult when we got into the OR and "Benny and the Jets" was playing on the radio.  For some reason, this song always makes me giggle, so I had to concentrate REALLY hard to keep from laughing during the transfer.  Poor Jonathan was having a hard time with it too.  Good thing I couldn't see him or we both would have been done for!

After they were done, they put me on a stretcher with my head lower than my legs and my knees up, and wheeled me back to our partition in the recovery room.  I had to stay like that for the next thirty minutes.  It wasn't particularly uncomfortable, but it wasn't very comfortable either!

Oh yeah, I look awesome!

After the thirty minutes was up, they let me empty my bladder, get dressed, and we were on our way!  We went straight to the acupuncturist's office for her to do post-transfer therapy on me, and then we went home and I took my place on the couch, only to get up to go to the bathroom for the rest of the day.  Jonathan had to leave for the airport around 5 (conference in Vegas that his boss fortunately let him be 2 days late to!) so he did my PIO shot early and left me with my DVDs of "Friends".

Hooray Amazon daily deals!  Got the whole series! :)

Our friend Paul came over to look after me about a half hour later, and Amy brought over an AWESOME quiche for dinner.  My mom arrived from Ohio a few hours later and she took over care of me.  We watched some more "Friends" and then I went to bed.

Since then, I've been taking it easy.  Not on bedrest like the day of transfer, but definitely limiting my activity.  I'm not allowed to exercise, lift anything over 10 pounds, or exert myself in any way.  That being said, it's just about bed time for me... trying to limit my activity and not overdo it is exhausting!