Another Dozen

Something about getting 12 eggs on 1.22.12 seems lucky to me. I'm always looking for patterns in numbers. I'm liking all the one and twos.

So, retrieval went just fine. The IV has been the worst part of it for me in the past. I barely felt this one. It was kind of awesome. I think it hurt less than a blood draw.

And then of course, there is the fact that we got 12 eggs, when I only had 10 follicles measured on Friday. We don't know how many are mature yet, but I will take it! I was preparing myself for less than 10, given my low estrogen number of 700 on Friday.

I asked the nurse her opinion of my estrogen. She agreed that it seemed a little low, but assured me that the follicles looked great, and I was meeting criteria for trigger. The criteria basically consists of E2 of 600, an and at least 4 follicles, at least two measuring 18 or greater. She said that typically, a mature egg produces 100-250 E2, and that my lower number could indicate that some of my follicles were empty. You can see why I was pleasantly surprised to wake up an hear 12!

I remember being barely conscious, and hearing 12, and then asking hubby two or three times later as the fog lifted. Did they really say 12?

One thing that is different for me this time is the amount of pain I am feeling after the fact. I was feeling better with tylenol and an IV pain med before we left the hospital. But the pain started to come back a lot in the car. I took percoset and a nap when got home, and have only made it up the half flight of stairs to the bathroom once so far. I was also visibly bleeding, which didn't happen the first two times. I'm guessing that has something to do with the extra pain. Maybe they had to work extra hard for those last two eggs?

Another interesting tidbit. Transfer will definitely be a 3 day on Wednesday. My clinic does not do 5 days as their research has shown there is no difference in success rates between 3 and 5. Last fall, when we were doing our second cycle, they were actually doing 2 day transfers. The thinking was that if the response was poor, and there were fewer embryos then would have been recommended to put back, maybe it was better to put those back earlier. I asked today if they were still doing 2 days, and apparently, they have determined that this did not help. They are back to 3 days only. I guess it's nice to see that they are constantly looking for ways to improve their process. Although, we were relieved that we were not one of the guinea pigs this past fall.

And, now we watch a lot of football (it's much too stressful, but a good distraction!), and wait for the fert report tomorrow. If we get more than 5 embies, I am going to be beyond thrilled!