We have Frosties!!!

After the test run of Clomid, and paying the required deposit, we ran full steam ahead with IVF. I wanted to make extra sure our child would be Jewish so I bought our medication from Israel ;-)  and I started the required injections of medication on June 15th. After a hilarious first injection (video will be posted eventually, pretty much anything that could have gone wrong went wrong, but we laughed through it all) the rest were smooth sailing and really didn't hurt as much as I thought.

Throughout the weeks that followed I had to do the very time sensitive injections in various places including the in-laws house, a bathroom stall at Nationals Baseball Stadium (picture to the left!) and a hotel in Philadelphia!

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I continued with them daily for 17 days (a total of 21 injections). I also drove over an hour to John Hopkins early in the morning every few days for blood work and ultrasounds to track my progress. The only real side effects I was having was extreme exhaustion and headaches. I even slept for 15 hours one night!!! So that's great, most women complain of various horrible side effects.

On July 3rd we went to the surgery center for the Egg Retrieval. I wore my Lucky socks and tried to stay as relaxed as possible. The procedure itself was quick, only about 15 minutes!!! Dr. Kolp was able to retrieve 5 eggs, Lee did his part ;-) and we left before rush hour traffic set in!

On the way home I persuaded Lee into getting me cheese danishes…the only thing I had been craving since I started “Eating Clean” in April. Oh boy were they delicious...and yes i ate them all!!!

I was very sore for several days afterwards and tried to take it easy over the long holiday weekend.

To be honest,  getting only 5 eggs isn't that great for my age.  Most women my age get at least 10, sometimes even 20!!  But the doctor was confident that QUALITY over QUANTITY is the way to go, and that with my age, (and all the supplements and old wives tales I followed) all my eggs retrieved should be great quality egg.

The embryologist called me each day to let me know the progress and we were amazed that ALL 5 eggs fertilized easily and continued to grow for 5 days!!

Below is an image to show you the growth progress of an embryo before it implants in the uterine lining and becomes a fetus. Our clinic prefers to let them grow to the blastocyst stage before freezing them. This is to "prove the strength" of an embryo, meaning if it makes it to this stage there is a good chance it is a viable embryo and increases the chance of a viable pregnancy.

Top Row:
fertilized egg • 8 cell (day 3) embryo • cell adhesion


Bottow Row: 
morula • blastocyst (day 5) • hatching embryo 

It was very nerve wrecking each morning, waiting for the call to see how they were doing especially when they were late calling 2 of the days. And having to wait the 5 days until they were safely frozen them was a test of our patience!

On Tuesday we got the call that ALL 5 made it to the blastocyst stage and are now safely frozen away for our use later...aka our Frosties!!! Dr. Kolp even called me "Secretly Fertile" since all were great quality. It's actually quite rare to have all eggs retrieved become fertilized and survive the 5 days, so yay us!

Time to EXHALE....now to find an Extreme Babysitter for one of them.....

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Are you going through IVF and want to know my stats, what meds I took when, for comparison etc?

Click here for a detailed document
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