The big day... Transfer!!

I now have one little embryo inside me.

It's so cool.

It's so surreal.

What am I now? Pregnant? Almost pregnant? An embryo carrier? A substitute petri dish? I don't know! :)

Arrived at the hospital this morning for our embryo transfer. Unfortunately, DH was back at work today, and being a Monday, there was no way he could skip. So we met each other there. He went to work for a couple of hours prior, and then had to go back again afterwards.

Got admitted pretty promptly, got my labels on again (they get checked about a bizillion times) and then we waited. Seems like we waited there for ages, for the embryologist to come see us. Cos yesterday was Sunday, we didn't get an update on the embabies, so I was keen to find out how they were doing.

Turns out, we had one beautiful blastocyst, and that was the chosen one for transfer. She showed us a photo (so exciting!) and pointed out the nice 'core' in it, and the 'fluffy' cells around the outside, which are apparently the features they look for when selecting a blastocyst. We have another one that's almost as good, but it's core isn't quite as nice. That will probably be our only snow baby!! A couple of others who didn't progress overnight, will be checked again this afternoon to see if they catch up to freezer-worthy status. So that might be it! (btw, this photo is not my photo, but that's what mine looked like)

Then we sat and waited some more. DH was holding my hand, cos I was feeling nervous. After a while longer, a nurse came (another one that's looked after me before) and took us to the "Transfer Room".

OK it's a small room, with a little curtain near the door. There's the world's most uncomfortable looking chair in the centre (I guess I was the star of the day after all), a tiny ultrasound machine next to the chair, attached to a laptop. A small chair for DH on my other side. That's about it. My chair was of course height adjustable, slightly reclined, with gorgeous stirrups at the end (optional velcro straps to 'tie' you down) and a moveable lamp thing by the right stirrup. Woo, what a joy ride!!

After stripping my bottom half and covering up with a blanket, again we sat and waited. My palms were sweating a little, but I was generally okay I gotta say. There is an option to take sedatives prior to transfer, but I've been told that it's better not to, and to be honest I really didn't need them anyway.

Check out my transfer toes!! :) I went with purple, then added some 'Diamond Shine.' In the end, I was wishing I'd worn socks. Even though it was warm outside, my feet actually got quite cold sitting around waiting for Dr W! I made DH hold them for a sec to warm them up a bit :)

Finally Dr W came into the room, and I gave my permission for a student doctor to come in as well (hey the more the merrier in the tiny room, right? hehehe Actually, I know they have to learn somehow, so whatever). Dr W said that we'd learned some things during this cycle. He said that even though we had a great number of eggs (27) we really didn't have a great number of them fertilise. 10 did nothing at all. (9 were too immature, they were excused). Dr W said that although sometimes egg and sperm don't like each other very much in the lab, it was still a low number. So if we have to stim and collect again (please God no) then he is going to do ICSI to improve the fertilisation results.

Dr W almost yelled at the student doctor, who had started to close the door. Dr W said, everyone feels a need to close the door when things are happening vaginally. (Thank God for the curtain!) But when someone is bringing an embryo from the lab, you don't want them to have to take a hand off your embryo to worry about opening the door. Fair point I guess!

Then on with business. Another nurse that I know from previous admissions in the hospital held the ultrasound probe on my tummy. She was fabulous! She showed us all the landmarks that we were looking at on the screens. Showed me where my bladder was, where my uterus was. Dr W put the speculum in (fairly gently actually!) and then passed the guide catheter, and you could see the end of that on the screen as well. When everything was in position, they rang the lab and asked them to bring the embryo. (I know this is long, sorry! I want to have a record of it for myself)

On the screen, you could see where they passed the catheter through the guide catheter, and stopped about 1cm from the uterine wall (apparently that gives you the best chance of pregnancy). Then we could see the fluid passing through the catheter, and then there was a white blob on the ultrasound screen. That's where the fluid, and my little embaby were! Again, it was really surreal to think that the miracle of life was happening right there, inside me and on the tv screen!!

I had to stay in the same position while the lady went back to the lab to ensure that the embryo hadn't gotten stuck in the catheter. Once we got the all clear, the room cleared out. After all the waiting, it happened so fast!! I couldn't believe it was already finished! Dr W said "Hopefully that will be the only IVF you ever need." I kinda hope he's right!! He said that we had a 75% chance of getting pregnant from this cycle, cos there's a 50% shot with each of our 2 beautiful blastocysts. So we're certainly trying to stay positive and "glass half full" about it, and hope that this is the one!

Unfortunately DH had to go straight back to work, which was such a bugger cos I wanted to go and celebrate. So I met up with my mum and my sister, we went to my favourite Chinese restaurant, and had a banquet for lunch. It was nice!

My blood test is going to be next Friday 20th Feb. I'm wondering which day I will POAS, might depend how long I can last for. Right now I'm feeling calm about it, but I wonder how long that will last. I've certainly heard that this 2ww is tough.

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In other, not so exciting news, our state is in crisis. Saturday was the hottest day Melbourne's had since records began. It was the hottest day any capital city in Australia has ever had. In Melbourne, the mercury hit almost 47 degress celcius. And there were winds of up to 100km/hr. Consequently, there were an unprecedented number of bushfires, all over the state. Some are still burning out of control today. So far the death toll stands at 130. Several towns have been wiped off the map completely. Around 1000 people are homeless. We are blessed not to have been in any danger, although we could smell the smoke and there was a horrible smoke haze all over the sky. It's our state's worst disaster in history.