PUPO: The unofficial term used by IVFers for your status after embryo transfer - Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise.
Today was the BIG DAY! And before I get to details, let me just say, it went PERFECTLY!!!!! And how amazing are these shirts???? Mine says "Keep Calm and Implant That Embryo" and Kyle's says "Keep Calm it's Transfer Day." The picture is awful cause we were rushing to get out the door this morning and my broken phone sucks, but there's a better one below :)
I got to sleep in a little this morning since our appointment was later :) I was instructed to empty my bladder at 8am (75 minutes before transfer time) and then drink 16-20oz of water in the next 15 minutes. We left at 8 right after I peed, so I brought my water bottle in the car and timed myself with my phone. Naturally I'm not a very thirsty person and don't drink much, plus I'm already bloated from my ovaries and the hormones I've been on, so this was not fun. 270 traffic was AWFUL but luckily we still got to SGF on time. For some reason unknown to me, they tell you to be there 30 minutes before your transfer time, which apparently was pointless cause we just sat in the waiting room until 9:05. My guess is they want to make sure you're there and ready before they touch your embryos, but I'm not sure. So, we sat and I was in agony cause I had to pee SO BAD and was super nervous. After Day 2, they don't check on your embryos or give growth reports because they like to let them be, so today was the first time they were looked at since the 4 cell stage a few days ago. I've heard horror stories of women who have literally shown up to their embryo transfer, were waiting in the waiting room, and then they come out and say "sorry, none of your embryos made it" ...ugh I can't IMAGINE.
Finally they called us back, had us take off our shoes, checked our IDs, put on our identifying wrist bands, and led us to our room. At this point I was in pain I had to pee so bad - flash backs to Saturday when I had a bladder full of blood! Just kidding, not that bad. The doctor and ultrasound tech came in and went over paperwork with us (they literally do a million checks of your name, birth date and social security number to make sure they don't give you someone else's embryo lol). We found out that 2 of our 4 embryos weren't developing great and had a low chance of surviving, 1 was doing pretty good and had a chance to make it to the blastocyst stage for freezing by tomorrow, and our 1 for transfer was PERFECT! Literally they said it was "beautiful," "textbook" and the "highest quality possible" EEEK!
They waited until the embryologist was ready (they had a speaker that she talked through to the room!) and then the fun really started! And I'm not being sarcastic when I say "fun" - it really was fun!!!! They got me all set up in the right position, stirrups, as per usual, and set up the abdominal ultrasound (yay for no vaginal ultrasound for once!). They had a giant TV on the wall in the room that they could push the ultrasound to so we could see it. Also! The embryologist and our embryo was right on the other side of the wall! Jeanette (our embryologist) put the embryo under the microscope and we got to see it on the TV screen!!! SO COOL!
The doctor inserted the catheter into my uterus and we could see it on the screen. As soon as everything was ready, he said over the speaker "ok we're ready" and Jeanette put the little embryo into a pipette, brought it into the room, they did one FINAL check on names, and then pushed it through the catheter into my uterus! The tech video taped it on the ultrasound and we have video seeing the little blip as it went in! I'm telling you this was the coolest thing ever. Jeanette went back out to look at the pipette and catheter under a microscope - they like to make sure the little embryo was successfully transferred!
The whole process only took about 5 minutes! Afterwards, I had to lay down for 5 minutes, but Jeanette came in and gave us the CUTEST little keepsake from this day with a picture of our embryo. I mean how cute is this?! And how many parents have a picture of their 5 day old embryo??
Everyone LOVED our shirts. They actually had other nurses come in to see them. Jeanette loved us and said we were her favorite couple ever and kept raving about our embryo. I mean it could have been all show, but it was exciting and I was totally soaking it in. I finally got to pee before we left - whew. And we got the nurse to take our picture with our embryo photo! First family pic?? Haha!
So now we wait!! I'm just praying praying praying that this little thing implants and we end up successful! We won't be back at SGF till April 5 for my test! I still plan to update here over the next two weeks if I start feeling any symptoms or if I need a distraction from the wait. Thank you to everyone who checked in and cheered us on over the last month!!! We are so thankful and so excited!!