retrieval
My retrieval was this morning and I'm just so upset now.
Get there very early & wait around for a while. Fine - everyone in the waiting room is friendly and there are plenty of magazines. Put on my stylish PJs.
A couple hours later I finally go back to the procedure room. I let the anesthesiologist know that I was a bit nauseous (RE there said it might be from elevated E2) and he says that he'll put something in my IV for that. Cool. About two seconds later I feel myself getting groggy. Guess they knocked me out before doing any of the prep which I didn't mind at all. In the past I've had it done while I was awake and it was a little weird having everyone in the room checking out your crotch. So I'm OK to sleep through that.
Next thing I know I'm in the recovery room and starting to come to. DH comes in and I give him my list of questions so I won't need to ask them 100x - how many eggs, what was my final E2, and confirm that they're doing co-culture (for some reason they had PGD listed on my chart earlier and I wanted to make sure there still wasn't any confusion). I wake up a little more and experience more pain than previous ERs. Nick checks with the nurse and they already did give me 1000mg of Tylenol when I first got to the recovery room. I push and push and eventually they give me codeine. Thanks. Overall though I didn't have the nice feeling that I normally do coming out of sedation. Darn - I was really looking forward to a nice relaxing nap.
Then the nurse has no idea how many eggs they got. They should know right away so what is the deal? Did something go wrong and they don't want to tell me yet? I hear the woman next to me rolled in and they tell her the number of eggs right away.
And then the embyrologist comes in and says that he strongly recommends that we do ICSI. This is a big surprise to us because for our last IVF cycle we had 100% fertilization rate without ICSI. He says that DH's count was significantly lower than in the past -- last time was ~70 million. For one of our IUIs last year it was even 96 million post-wash. This time it was only 2.5 million! And he also says that they aren't progressing well. This has never been a problem in the past. One time DH's SA came back with borderline morphology, but never an issue with progression. So we agree to the ICSI. But WTF is wrong with DH's sperm?!? I did have him taking some antioxidants - was it that? And they also had him take antibiotics for this cycle - could that have affected his quality?
Anyway, this is all very upsetting to me. What is the underlying issue that is causing all of this? How do we know that the sperm that they pick for ISCI are really any good? In our first IVF cycle we did half-ICSI and the embryos that were ICSIed did not do that well.
So when I was explaining to DH why I was so upset over this he just downplayed it. And then at one point he even said "I guess it's going to be a looong day." So now I'm pissed at him for not taking the situation or, more importantly, my feelings about it seriously.
Turns out we did get 13 eggs - hopefully some of his f'ed up sperm can fertilize them and then not die before transfer. :(
Oh - and we get to lug all of our stuff over to Times Square in a couple of hours. That should be fun. I'm just really ready to go home right now. :(
5 comments:
Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry. DHs just don't get it sometimes.
It's weird, my ER at the same place you are was also more painful than the other ones, they had to give me morphine when I woke up. I wonder if they're more aggressive or rougher than other clinics.
Please try to rest up and I hope that you have beautiful embryos for Monday.
Hey Spark
Listen don't worry about ICSI. My count last time was 3 million and they managed to fert 10 eggs. ICSI is nothing to be frightened of. I'm sure that the embryologists are super skilled and will get the the right soldiers for the job.
Take care, I hope you get some rest.
Mr & Mrs Blue sky x
13 eggs is great! Yay. As long as your DH has 13 spermies, you're good. I know, it sucks when you do everything you can on your part only to have the sperm side look not too good. We did 1/2 and 1/2 ICSI on our first cycle and the ICSI'd ones did much better. You're at a top notch clinic and so the lab is probably very good at doing ICSI and picking out good swimmers. Hoping to hear a good fertilization report from you soon!
It's always something, isn't it? Very frustrating. I do think you should talk to your RE about it - maybe he can explain what happened. However, ICSI is not a bad thing, and the lab is very good at this procedure. The main thing is to get those eggs fertilized and growing! Hope you are feeling better and fingers crossed!
ugh, I'm sorry that the ER was stressful and that the sperm weren't all they could have been.
Try not to worry too much about the sperm count, as long as you have 13 good ones in there they can ICSI them. We have to do ICSI every time with our cycles because DH is packing less than 1 million in every s/a and last time we had a 90% fertilization rate, so you have a good chance at getting good results.
Try and rest up tonight and congrats on the 13 eggs, that is great news!
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