OPU and other stories

So yesterday was OPU. We arrived at Bethesda Hospital to be shown to our own little room where I was advised to strip off, change into a gorgeous little gown and weigh myself. I had weighed myself before we left in the morning at 105kg so was a little hesitant about hopping on the scales, so imagine my suprise when the scales came up as 100kg on the dot! That added a lot of positivity into my day, according to Murray I couldn't stop smiling afterwards.

It was freezing in my room so they brought me some heated blankets to relax. The anaesthetist came and saw me and said that although usually OPU patients only have a light sedation, that he would give me a general anaesthetic because the procedure was going to take longer than usual due to IVM. Fine by me, the less I have to think about it better. On the way to theatre, I think the nurses could sense my nervousness, I was almost in tears so they aimlessly chattered away about random stuff to distract me, which worked wonders. When we finally got into theatre, seeing a whole heap of people scared the crap out of me, but out of the blue I saw Doreen (my FS) jump in front of me and give me a big smile and ask how I was. Steve (embryologist) was also there, it was so helpful to have familiar people there to settle my nerves.

Then I totally zonked out, next thing I remember I was in recovery and the first thing I asked was how many eggs I got. The nurse told me, and literally two minutes later I had to apologise to her and say that I had completely forgotten what number she told me! She said that was completely normal and told me that I had 13 eggs. 13 EGGS! Even though in my head I knew that number was above average, I was happy but not overly thrlled.

Once I got back to my room I started feeling really nauseous from the medication, but there was no doctor around to prescirbe me maxalon, so once I discharged myself from the day ward, we went downstairs to the clinic to chat to the nurses and Steve.

Steve told me that they went into a lot of follicles (hence all the pain I was in!) but most didn't have eggs in them, so 13 was a good result for us. He also outlined the next steps for us, overnight the eggs would mature, then Murray needs to come in tomorrow (today) and give his sample which we would use to fertilise the eggs. From there we will try and grow the eggs to the blastocyst stage and then we will have the transfer done on Monday.

The nurse went through what medication to take and when - Progynova (Estrogen) 8-hourly, Crinone (progestrone) 12-hourly, and not to take any anti-inflammatory drugs like nurofen. After all that, we went home and I pretty much slept through until this morning.

Murray went into the clinic this morning to give his sample and had an unfortunate experience by cutting himself on the jar- ouch! He freaked out a bit but apparently Steve came out and talked to him and calmed him down a bit.

Steve also gave him the news of how our eggs did overnight - not well unfortunately. At this point only 5 of our 13 eggs have matured. He did say that it's a possibility that more eggs will mature during the day today, but right now we only have five eggs.

Ever since I heard that I have been freaking out. I honestly don't know how many EPU I can go through. I built all the other parts of the process up - the big bleed, trigger injection, and they were all fine, but the EPU which I thought wouldn't be all that difficult has been the hardest thing so far. I really just want this to work, and to have spares that we can freeze in case it doesn't.

This post has turned into just a myriad of words, I hope it all makes sense. I'm too out of it right now to really go through it again.

Love to you all xxx