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Monday, Nov. 12, 2001 - 6:37 p.m. - Egg Fertilization Update
We are proud ‘parents’ of 7 petri-dish darlings! Yup! That’s right! Of the 11 eggs retrieved only 7 had fertilized the day after the retrieval. Actually 8 fertilized, but one fertilized abnormally – Michael’s boys were a little too overzealous and two sperms fertilized one egg. So as of yesterday we knew that we had 7 fertilized eggs. This morning we got the news that all 7 eggs have started dividing cells, not all at the same rate (which is to be expected). Of the 7, 3 of them had divided to the 4-cell stage and 4 of them had divided to the 3-cell stage by this morning. They were expecting the division to continue throughout the day today and tomorrow we will get the final evaluation of our little embryos! Ideally we will have some embryos that have divided to the 8-cell stage, but we won’t expect all of them to get to that point by the time we transfer some back into me tomorrow. Before the transfer they will be ‘graded’ and we will have a meeting to discuss how many to put back in. It all depends on the quality of the embryos and some other factors such as my age and such. Michael and I are supposed to show up at the RE’s office at 12:30 pm. I am not supposed to empty my bladder and I am supposed to be drinking water while I’m there, so that I will have a full bladder for the transfer. This is essential, since they use ultrasound to guide the catheter into my uterus to place the embryos at just the right location. I’ve heard that you can even see the embryos entering the uterus from the catheter if you are lucky. That seems pretty wild to me. I must admit I’m pretty nervous, but I’ve read it is important to stay calm and relaxed since hormones react to stress and secrete adrenalin which can cause your uterus to cramp. Also, while this procedure is one of the easiest on the patient (not much different from an insemination), it is the most crucial procedure of the whole process, since a poorly executed transfer can damage the embryos or the endometrial lining causing implantation to be hindered. Perhaps due to the knowledge that I am going to be laid up for a few days (on bed rest for at least 48 hours following the procedure) and that I’m going to want to take it easy for the next two weeks until the pregnancy test, I’ve become a little Miss Homemaker today. I’ve been working like a busy bee changing the sheets on the bed, doing laundry, making applesauce and apple crisp with a bunch of apples that had to be used soon, etc. I want to be able to relax and know that most things have been taken care of. I probably won’t even check my email much over the next few days, but will try to send out some updates to family and friends to whom I’ve been sending email updates. I’ll also send an email update to my notify list (so you might want to join now if you want the scoop). Other than that, I’m looking forward to doing some reading, catching up on some journals I like to read (I’ll have access to the internet with our laptop, but don’t have my home email on that laptop, but I will have access to my yahoo account), working on some cross-stitch and some other small projects like that. And trying NOT to obsess about pregnancy symptoms. Michael and I are are trying hard to keep our sense of humor throughout this whole stressful process and I think we’ve done pretty well. (As witnessed by the egg carton incident on Saturday.) Yesterday when we were driving to meet my family for dinner and started talking about the 7 developing embryos in the Petri dish, Michael started musing about getting a tax write-off by claiming all 7 as dependents! Also, since we keep talking about feathering our nest and eggs and baby chicks, when I got pregnant last time, Michael started calling the ‘baby’ the “peep.” So then we started joking about having 7 “Peeps” in a “Peep-tri” dish. Silly I know, but still it made us laugh. I’m sure hoping one Peep manages to hang on and that two weeks from tomorrow we get some good news. Oh and tomorrow is my sister’s birthday, so hopefully that will bring us some luck. She’s putting in an order for a niece. :o)
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