Skip to main content

Egg retrieval surgery and then after

I have come to work today, exactly a week after my egg retrieval surgery.

After we pulled the trigger shot at 1 AM on Jan 20, exactly 36 hours after that the eggs had to be retrieved. It was nothing different than any surgery under general anesthesia. The problem was I couldn't wrap my head around what was wrong with me. I mean unlike my previous surgeries, I actually had no ailment this time. It was not like my wisdom teeth were bothering me, or the salivary gland stone was hurting. Anyway, I guess this is the first lesson in "this is not just about me".

At the clinic, I was put on IV fluids and then taken to the Operation Room in a weird hospital gown (I still don't understand the use of them). I joked with the doctors and nurse as usual. Arnab and I had placed a bet on how many eggs would be retrieved. He had said less than 13, while I said more than 13. The range was 5-19. After talking to the anesthesiologist about my general health, allergies, if I have any problems with anesthesia, I was put on IV fluids. Then they started the anesthesia and of course I remember nothing afterwards.

When I woke up, I was in the recovery room and they told me they retrieved 28 eggs. Later from the lab they confirmed it was 31 (including immature ones). Out of those 16 were mature and they were attempted to be fertilized (with fresh sperm that Arnab had to give while I was undergoing surgery). 13 out of those actually got fertilized. However, problem with having PCOS is the eggs, even though are a lot in quantity, are not of good quality. That is the reason we had to go with IVF anyway! So of those 13, what they do in the lab is to see how they are growing. Most fertilized eggs do not reach the blastocyst stage, which is past day 5. 

If we did a fresh embryo transfer, like people did earlier, they would attempt to transfer eggs after day 3. But nowadays people are doing frozen embryo transfers. I will get into the details of it later. So for me, they found that 4 embryos finally passed the blastocyst stage. Now comes the main part of finding the "good embryos". These ones are at around 128 cells at this time. They start from one cell and divide everyday. The embryologist would take a few, like 3 or 4 cells out from the part that would in future form the placenta and send it for genetic testing. At the lab they found 2 embryos were healthy with all the right chromosomes at the right places, no trisomy, monosomy, etc. I know nothing of biology so I should stop here. Those embryos got frozen for future use. One was graded BB and the other CB. I could have opted to know their gender, but we decided against it. "We should have no bias and we need to give them equal opportunity" Arnab reminded me. I am a proponent of women in tech, so I understand equal opportunity should start from before birth.

That's the long story of the process. Now how did I feel? I was bloated. That is the one and only discomfort I had and whatever I did failed to ease that. I had minimum cramps, almost negligible, no bleeding, no spotting, nothing, just bloating. I felt like if I fell in a swimming pool at that time, I'd just float. I had to take rest for a few days, and being in bed with very little movement didn't do well for my appetite. But after 3-5 days I was normal once again. A positive mentality plays a huge role. It helps to heal faster when you keep your spirits up :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Preparing for the embryo transfer

Now we are approaching the most physically painful part of the process - the progesterone shots. On March 3, I went through a baseline check ultrasound to see how thick the uterine lining was. At this time, as I was on Nuvaring, my lining measured 4 mm which is pretty thin. From March 7, my Delestrogen shots started. They are basically the hormone estrogen that thickens our uterine lining in preparation for a cozy spot for the embryo to snuggle up to. For an embryo transfer, they expect the lining to be around 8-13 mm thick. The way to do that is by the estrogen shots. These intramuscular shots go in the butt and if you were one of those people who was taking the subcutaneous ones by yourself, now you would need someone to give you these ones. These are water soluble injections, so they are not that heavy. Also, I had to give them twice a week.  On March 23, I had another ultrasound to check how my uterine lining has thickened up. In the mean time, I ate normal healthy food...
Post a Comment
Read more

February - a month of rest

After the egg retrieval surgery happened and my embryos got frozen, February was my month of resting. I went back to my normal life with no restrictions, I started yoga and went back to swimming. My work life also came to a stable ground with me not taking too much sick time off. There was nothing to do related to the IVF process, and my body got time to heal. Here's where I will discuss the frozen embryo transfer process and compare that with the fresh embryo transfer. There are different medical reasons to choose the frozen process, but from a layman's perspective, and also as one undergoing it, I also prefer the frozen process.  1. The body gets time to heal. If I had to do a fresh transfer, that would be 3 days after my egg retrieval. That means my ovaries were sore, still healing from the process, and I was still EXTREMELY bloated. I could barely walk to the bathroom. Going through another process at that time, that is so much taxing on the uterus and my general ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How does IVF work?

From when I started the IVF process, I have found quite a lot of well meaning people saying some pretty strange things. At first I was getting annoyed, especially to things like "just relax, and it will happen" but then I figured out it is mainly because of ignorance that people are saying such stuff. As infertility and general reproduction issues are never discussed in a manner they should, no one really knows what is going on at this front. I decided to shine some light. Why does someone need IVF? A person can decide to go through IVF for many reasons. Generally, if a couple tries to get pregnant but even after trying for a year, they do not, then they are advised to see a doctor. For a woman over 35, it is six months. The Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) doctor would advise a lot of tests to figure out if they have any issues which is causing them to not have babies or delaying the process. For certain cases in women like Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), damag...
Post a Comment
Read more