Today was egg retrieval two. Thankfully, we stayed in a hotel and the drive wasn’t the worst. I was taken back pretty swiftly and was with nurse Rita again. I forgot the keys in my purse and had to have Rita bring them to B. B forgot to leave the keys for the other car for my Mom and had to drive those back. I was the last procedure for the day. Pre-op was popping as they were celebrating Katie, the anesthesiologist, birthday. Shania was another nurse that helped me today. She tried to get my IV in a less tender spot today. Though unfortunately we did “exposure” therapy as it took three tries to get my IV going.

I feel they run behind frequently as I didn’t go to the OR until nearly 11:20am when I was slated for 10:15am. Two for two for being late for these scheduled procedures. The doctor was hopeful I would get 6-8 eggs from this retrieval. I think I’m the only one disappointed that only 5 were retrieved. I estimate maybe 2-3 will be mature. The initial response I had is why does my body hate me? Why can’t it just do what it’s meant to do? I thought my body responded well this cycle and we saw three times more follicles than last time to be left with the same result.

I was emotional and tearful the rest of the day. It really is an emotional and mental experience just not physical. It nice that many people I know are pregnant right now but it sucks to be in this position where I can’t even get 6 eggs retrieved in one cycle. No journey is the same so one shouldn’t compare but it’s just internally disappointing. I guess now to wait probably until tomorrow to find out about the mature eggs.. if any. Is my body to blame? The clinic running behind? Or both? I understand it’s not the end of the world but IVF is truly a numbers game and the numbers are definitely not where I want them to be.

At 5:48pm I got the call from the embryologist. Out of the five, three are mature. So to date we have 7 eggs. I was definitely hopeful for more but as B likes to keep reminding me, we only need one. Crazy to think we were contemplating fertilizing this cycle with the numbers we saw. Thankfully we didn’t as we wouldn’t even had had close to enough to probably make it through fertilization.

Now to wait and heal for our last round. Hopefully I do not develop OHSS. I can’t wait to review with the doctors to see if there is anything we should be doing differently for this last cycle. We will continue to hold onto hope.

-A