IVF 1: Day 16 – Transfer Day

Transfer went smoothly. Embryo (blastocyst?) was in good condition – I forget the grading but they said it was good. And baby embryo here looks like any other blastocyst picture I’ve seen so I’m taking that as a good sign. 🙂

Three more were frozen today. The remaining two are growing slowly but still alive so we’ll see tomorrow whether they caught up and can be frozen.

Oddly enough I wasn’t that emotional about the transfer. I think more of me was relieved that we were able to freeze that many. It was kinda funny being able to watch my uterus on the ultrasound – poof some whooshes of air and supposedly the embryo was stuck to the lining. Mostly I’m relived that everything went well – good lining, good embryo, good transfer overall. *touch wood*

After the worst of the shots/procedures, you know what my take is on the IVF whole process – it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Sure it’s not fun to give shots but we got used to it and it wasn’t that painful. Sure my ovaries started to get sore and heavy but it was bearable discomfort. Even the egg retrieval. I was totally freaked out and panicked about it before the procedure but in the end, it wasn’t bad. Well, it helps that I don’t remember anything. Coming out of anesthesia wasn’t as bad as I expected – mostly grogginess. Though one (to me unexpected) symptom was shivering afterwards when I stood up. Even afterwards, I had mega bad cramps. But unlike my worst menstrual cramps, it didn’t consume me. Rather, I was me and cheerful and fine (until I moved). It was a more disconnected pain if that makes any sense. Even the PIO shots – the big scary needle isn’t so bad. Well, ok it helps that I never see it and Hubby is the one giving those.

A lot of me is amazed and in awe at so much of nature and science in this process. Starting with even the fact that science understands the hormone cycles at this level of detail. Anesthesia – how is it that they so perfectly calibrated it so I didn’t feel pain and didn’t remember anything but exactly for that duration? How was it so smooth going to sleep? How did they figure out the culture medium for these precious fragile little embryos to grow? Even the microscopy that’s needed to view things at the cell and then 2- or 4- cell level is built on decades of work. And looking at the embryo today – it astounds me that all of us started out as that little clump of cells.