Transfer Report

Wow, what a day!

There is so much to write, and I'm finally getting to it. Today was really amazing!

Our appointment was scheduled for 12:30 at the fertility clinic, so I scheduled acupuncture at 11:30. The acupuncture office is less than a block away, so super convenient.

I couldn't sleep so I got up really early and got a lot of work done. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to do today. (pretty much none, until about an hour ago, so I'm glad I did that. I did a ton of laundry and re-read my day of transfer instructions.

We got the call from RGI about 9:00 am. She gave us all the results of the PGD testing - We already knew they tested one cell from 14 embryos. (I don't think I wrote about how we got from 17 to 14, but we did.)

Anyway, I have all the stats, but basically, she told us that we had 8 embryos that they were recommending for transfer.. which is GREAT NEWS! Of course, we didn't know at that point how many of those would look good or still be dividing.

So... of the 14, 6 either were affected with CF or aneuploidy or only had one chromosome. We had one with Klinefleter's as well. (That's XXY on the sex chromosome.
It was all very very interesting, and she told us we would have the full report at the doctor's office. We were glad we did the anueploidy testing, even though we would not have done it if we weren't already doing PGD. Of course, we probably wouldn't be doing IVF at all, if we weren't doing PGD.

I didn't expect the embryologist to call (usually you just get all the news when you get there) but she did about an hour later and shared that they talked to RGI. One of the eight had arrested (stopped growing). So, we had 7 to choose from.

I went to acupuncture, and it was great and relaxing and nice to see the Dr. that we have gotten to know over the past several weeks - he was very encouraging.

I had been drinking my protein shake all morning, and I couldn't help it, when I got to the doctor's office 10 minutes early, I went to the bathroom. You have to have a full bladder for the transfer, and they had told me to start drinking 10 minutes before I got to the doctor's office, so I figured if I went now, then I could start drinking again. I knew the process of discussing the embryo options and transfer process chat with the doctor would be an hour or so, and I didn't want to be doing the potty dance the whole time.

So, we ended up waiting in the waiting room for like thiry minutes, i'm sipping my water the whole time. They brought be back for blood pressure check and bladder check. I said don't even bother - it's not full yet. Then i decided, why not, just check. I was so happy when she said, oh, you're good. You can stop drinking. I had visions of having this totally full bladder and being so uncomfortable and that was not the case at all.

So, we went and talked to the Doctor and looked at the pictures and asked all kinds of questions. He was so patient with all our questions.

We had great embryos, and ended up picking two to transfer. We picked one that was 6AA and one that was 3AA. The doctor told us they rarely give A grades to embryos. And I told the doctor that we were pretty used to getting As when they were rarely given. (Just kidding.) The first number refers to how far along in hatching the embryos. The 6 was fully hatched, and the 3 was hatching.

We just picked the two we liked the best.. but it does happen to be one boy and one girl. (Carlos was pleased that the boy was a little farther along.)

After we talked to the doctor, we were led to the transfer room by my favorite nurse.

The transfer experience was beautiful.

There were two Lindt Lindor chocolates on the bed - which I thought was a really nice touch. Carlos put in the CD he created for the occasion, and I just relaxed, thanks to the Valium I had taken 10 minutes earlier, and really just a general good, hopeful feeling.

It was just a lovely expereince. The whole thing took 10 minutes -- the nurse had my uterus on the ultrasound, the doctor put the catheter in.. It didn't hurt at all. Then my favorite embryologist comes in and brings the embryos in the inner catheter, which got inserted to the catheter which was already there.. The embryos were released into my uterus. A flash of light appeared on the screen, and it was done.

I rested right there for about 15 minutes, listened to more tracks on the Embryo Transfer CD, got dressed, and went to acupuncture again. By this time it was 3:30. I wasn't starving but was very pleased that Carlos had gone to get me some yummy lunch while i was at acunpuncture. I ate that in the car, while Carlos stopped at Blockbuster to get me two movies. He got Flash of Genius and Bride Wars. I had been wanting to see Flash of Genius and couldn't think of another one, but there was a Bride Wars poster, so I asked for that. I just wanted him to get them quickly so we could get home.

I pretty much slept all afternoon.

What a fantastic day and what a great experience this has been.

Thanks for reading - this was a long one.

Oh yeah, and we froze two today, and we'll see how many we have to freeze tomorrow.

I'll update on that and then also post photos of the embryos!