Cole's Story part 3 (sorry it has taken so long...)

Soooo, where did I leave off??? It has been forever since I have even blogged... Sorry... So, the doctors had gotten 19 eggs!! That was a huge success! After the retrieval they told me to drink lots of gatorade and take it easy. I had only asked off for this one day because I didn’t think the procedure would be too bad, this is what they had told me after all. Boy, was I wrong. On the way home we got Chick fil a, which I could barely eat because my mouth was SO dry. I had no saliva whatsoever because of one of medications they had given me. It was so strange, it took me about 3 hours to eat my chicken biscuit.... We also stopped and got gatorade. I got home and got comfortable, the pain wasn’t too bad...yet... I went to sleep and really didn’t adhere to their whole drink gatorade nonstop thing, I mea, how serious could this be? The procedure was super easy. I woke up from my nap, ate some ramen for lunch and then felt VERY strange. Almost panic attack strange: ringing in my ears, weird vision, sick to my stomach. I thought I needed to go to the bathroom so I got up pretty quickly. I felt very wobbly and the ringing in my ears got worse. Before I got to my bedroom I stopped in the doorway, Jon said he was talking to me and that I was swaying really bad, but I never heard him and my vision had gone completely black. I had passed out. Jon had gotten up just in time to catch me before I fell, thank goodness. One of the scariest moments in my life, Jon’s too. I came to and Jon was beside me yelling for me to wake up and he was very upset. We didn’t know what was going on. He called the doctors office and they said drink Gatorade!!!! So I chugged it, and threw it all up and most of my lunch...all over the carpet. Gross I know, but it was all part of my experience. We were both so shaken that I called my mom and she came down to spend the night. The rest of the day I stayed in bed and Jon walked with me whenever I got up. By that night my abdomen hurt so bad!! That night I slept in our chair since I could not get comfortable in bed. The next day I hurt even worse! Jon called in to work for me to tell my boss I was in no shape to come in to work. We called the doctor back and made an appointment to be seen that morning. I was in bad shape and they had told me it wouldn’t be that bad, they said I would have “minor” cramping. Mom drove us downtown to the hospital and the doctor did an ultrasound. Everything looked good, just my ovaries were VERY swollen (like Softballs!!!) and it would take weeks for them to go back to normal. I mean, I had produced 19 eggs!! What did I expect?!?! I could barely walk and now I could barely eat. My ovaries were so swollen, I didn’t have any room to put food in my stomach!! When I did finally eat I was full after about 2 bites of food...and if you know me you know I LOVE to eat! I stayed out of work all week... I was in pain ALL week!! It is still one of the worst pains I have ever known, even worse than my c-section, I promise!

May 22, 2010 was my scheduled transfer. It was a Saturday morning. The instructions were to empty my bladder an hour before my appointment then drink 16 ounces of fluid and hold it... I am no good at this! I always have to pee!!! By the time I got there I was in pain!! My appointment was at 8:15 and they called me back at 8:30. I couldn’t hold it anymore! I told the nurse we needed to do something quick because I was in pain! I put on my robe and the nurse checked my bladder for me on the ultrasound. It was FULL!!!! She told me to go to the bathroom and count to 8 and then come back. So, I emptied my bladder for 8 seconds, some relief but I still hurt...She checked me again, still full!!! So, this happened about 4 times and then we were good to go :) Jon left after this and the embryologist comes in, (it all takes place in a sterile room and Jon was not allowed in there). She tells me we have 3 morulas but no blastocysts (this is what they want for transfer). We had created 10 embryos and this was all that was left. Morulas are a day behind a blastocyst (day 4 versus day 5), I was upset and thought for sure that it wouldn’t work, but they seemed optimistic. They wanted to know if I wanted all three put back... Jon and I had discussed this and I was terrified if all 3 took!!! We had decided to do 2 no matter what. So, I told them to let one keep growing and put 2 of them back in. The 3rd morula ended up not growing anymore so we have no frozen embryos left, we have 9 frozen eggs though. During the transfer I was able to watch the whole thing on the ultrasound. I saw the 2 little cells being put back into my body. Little did I know then that my precious Cole was there right before my eyes, 5 days old :) Now just thinking about it it brings me to tears. Then after all of that was done I had to lay there for 30 minutes. Luckily the nurse was super sweet and we talked about babies and having kids and just general chit chat. We headed home after that to a day of bed rest for me. Now, if you know me this is not what I do. It was SOOOOOO hard for me!!!! Pretty much flat on my back all day! It was horrible!! I watched movies in the bedroom all day!!!! But I was so bored and so just wanted to get up and walk around. That night I moved onto the couch and Jon went and got us Longhorn for dinner. The next 2 weeks were the hardest yet, we had to wait until June 1for my blood test! I guess we all know where this is headed now...until next time :)