2 Heart Attacks

I received a phone call from the clinic at 10:30 this morning. My heart jumped into my throat. They aren't supposed to call the morning of the transfer unless the transfer has been cancelled because the embryos have arrested.

Me: Hello?!!!
Clinic: Is this Denise?
Me: Yes! Is something wrong, you're making me VERY nervous!
Clinic: No, everything's fine. Are you on your way? You are signed up for acupuncture at 10:00am!
Me: Uh, no. My transfer isn't until 2.
Clinic: Really. Well, we had to move some patients around and so the schedule got changed.
Me: But my transfer isn't until 2.
Clinic: Hang on one second...well, sorry about that. Obviously no one told you that they moved you up.
Me: Uh, no.
Clinic: Are you on your way?
Me: No, we weren't going to leave for another hour.
Clinic: Okay, no big deal. That's okay.
Me: We can leave now if you want us to.
Clinic: Sure. Go ahead and come in now.

Heart attack number 1 averted.

We got to the clinic and were told to go directly up to the surgery center and they would do the ultrasound and blood draw up there. We were called back almost immediately by the acupuncturist. She was all ready to get started and I had to tell her that I needed an ultrasound first. What's the point of paying $225 for acupuncture if they cancel the transfer? Luckily, the nurse had already given me the valium, so I got the benefit of that no matter what.

Two ultrasound techs came in to do an abdominal ultrasound to check for fluid. And there it was. My friend the fluid. Still hangin around. They thought it was slightly less than Saturday's level, but didn't sound too positive. I couldn't get a good read from them as to whether or not it was too much. One tried to calm my fears by saying that it really depended on how I was feeling and since I'm feeling pretty good today, we'll see. They left us alone for a bit and my mind was racing. All I kept thinking was "I'm NOT going to cry. NOT going to cry."

Next thing I know, the acupuncturist came back in to say the doctor had given us the go ahead. Phew!!! Second heart attack averted.

Dr. G was working today and did my transfer. Jen is right, he is awesome. He came in to go over the status of the lucky 13. We are amazed by our embryos. Out of the 13, 11 of them were graded 4AA, the highest grade our clinic gives. Dr. G said the embryologist who did the grading is quite conservative, so for 11 to be graded this high says a lot and he has never seen anyone have this many with the highest grade. He said he even double checked with the embryologist. How cool is that?

We talked about transferring 1 or 2 and decided on 2. Dr. G said our chances of success if we transfer 2 would be 75% versus 50% if we only transfer 1. Chances of twins for transferring 2 would be about 30%, so we were willing to risk those odds. Of course, these are just statistics and I don't think they really take into account my lining, our prior failures, or the quality of the embryos.

B asked if he was concerned about the fluid and Dr. G said he wasn't, that it was really just a sliver of fluid. That made me feel much better. He did tell me to keep up the fluid intake through the pregnancy test. Enough that I'm peeing every hour. He also encouraged me to continue with the sodium intake for another couple of days. Then we got down to business.

The embryologist came in and showed us our 2 embies on the screen. First time I ever got to see any of our embryos, so it was really cool! She said one was compacting and one was "pulsing." I asked her what pulsing meant and she said something like "first they compact and then they start expanding. I assume that's a good thing? Dr. G had a bit of trouble getting the catheter in and had to switch to a different one. I really don't understand why this stuff isn't in my chart. I mean I had multiple IUI's there where they had to switch catheters and two transfers, the first one being difficult as well. The last transfer went pretty smoothly and I think it is probably because it was the second one that Dr. S did and so he knew which catheter to use and how to thread it through my roller coaster of a cervix. Oh well. Dr. G managed after a bit and the embryos were transferred in. The embryologist checked the catheter and gave us the "all clear."

Another session of acupuncture and I had to remind them that they were supposed to draw blood. Things were pretty disorganized today. After the blood draw, we were on our way home.

The embryologist told us that they were freezing the other 9 4AA embryos today and they would check the other two tomorrow. One had already arrested and the other was about 24 hours behind where it should be, so it doesn't seem likely those two will make it freeze. But that's alright. We know we'll have at least 9 more buns in the freezer again! And this time we know they are really high quality.