Sep 7

Sep 7 Our Next Mountain: First Round of Egg Retrieval This Summer

We’ve been back from our egg retrieval trip for about a month now. A lot has happened since then as it relates to our journey. What we thought was the plan, has changed. Although ‘shifted’ might be a better word. The long and winding path has revealed new routes that we weren’t prepared for but we are now getting settled and acquainted with them. It wasn’t easy arriving here and I want to share some of the twists and turns in this post, along with some information about how I prepared for retrieval, what happens in the egg retrieval process, and what has happened post-retrieval.

We traveled to Denver in the last of July, about a week after my fortieth birthday. Full disclosure: I had a pretty hard time getting through this one. The pressure of father time has been hovering over our entire journey. I honestly didn’t care about turning over a new decade as long as I had my babies. But facing that number with empty arms was excruciating. Is it too late? Will it ever happen? How much time do I have left? It’s also extremely hard to face big milestones in life without your mom. Nothing against dads. But moms are the celebrators, the gift givers, the cheerleaders. And this was HARD. I decided to have an easy at-home brunch celebration with close friends, tried to joke and wouldn’t allow the “F” word (Forty), and bought myself the prettiest and most delicious brunch themed cake. It was gluten-free and dairy-free and my present to myself, so I indulged! One layer was red velvet with dairy-free cream cheese filling, and the other lemon chiffon with raspberry filling. I also made homemade (and dairy-free!) strawberry ice cream with the ice cream maker my mom got me; it is my last birthday present from her and a tradition of mine to use it every year. See the recipe here, so good! I tried to enjoy myself, keep my sights set on a successful egg retrieval, and not focus on what the number meant in fertile years. We began injections just days after my birthday and hit the road to Colorado not long after that.

We looked forward to getting out of the steamy Oklahoma heat into cooler (and dryer!) mountain temps. We planned a few day trips and mapped out a few foodie places to try in effort to make the trip somewhat enjoyable and help us focus on the positive. It was a lot to coordinate anticipating a 9-12 day stay away from home. Luckily we had lots of help from friends and family to assist with two dogs, a 19 year old cat, and forgotten injection needles and vials of medicine left in the fridge. That last one was a fun phone call to make! “Hi, we left early this morning, are halfway through Kansas, and have realized a very important syringe is sitting in the fridge along with the last of some (very expensive) medicine. You don’t mind handling and overnighting our needles, do you?” THAT is friendship, folks. She didn’t even blink and just made it happen. Needless to say, she got a present from Colorado and we will be checking every drawer in the fridge next time we go (some vials are kept cold for those that are wondering). We had to rely on a small army to assure everything was still kicking at home and we don’t know how we would survive this process with them!

Remaining hopeful and positive was challenging but we did our best. We had daily doctor appointments for blood work and ultrasounds. One afternoon the clinic called with good news; everything looked like it was staying on track so we had a day off from doctor appointments to do whatever we wanted! We rented a fun white JEEP (husband was pretty excited about this one) and took a small road trip to Estes Park. This was my favorite place as a child when my family vacationed in Colorado one summer between 5th and 6th grade. And it’s still just as beautiful as I remembered. While it made me miss my mom like crazy with all of the reminiscing it was amazing to share a new memory there with Derick. This was two days after arriving and cycle day 12 - I’m telling you what, as much as I tried to hang I barely made it. I had to take breaks on benches outside of the shops. I drug from one stop to the next. I felt terrible and even worse that it seemed I was ruining our free day. We had to stop on the side of a mountain on the way home to give my evening shots in the stomach (note to self: don’t wear overalls next time so you don’t have to completely strip down in the car). I was so tired I slept almost the whole way back to our hotel. Over the next few days until our retrieval the next week we decided to stay in the hotel and rest. Which Derick didn’t seem to mind at all and welcomed some much needed naps for himself.

Preparing for our egg retrieval

I really didn’t change much before this retrieval that I wasn’t already doing. I stayed off gluten, dairy, soy, caffeine, alcohol, and processed foods; stuck to non-gmo. grass-fed, and organic as much as possible; avoided fragrance, sulfates, phthalates, and aluminum. I allowed myself decaf coffee and only drank water or naturally flavored sparkling water. I also stayed away from sugar, but didn’t list it above because I’m pretty sure I ate the rest of my birthday cake by myself for a week following my brunch with friends. At the time I wasn’t sorry but if you’ve been through this process you know the guilt that followed. I decided to cut myself off and took the left-overs to Mrs. Fowler, my sweet little neighbor next door and honorary Mammaw. Other than that, I stayed pretty strict to the lifestyle that has become my normal. Continued regular acupuncture and chiropractic appointments. I had started running again for exercise but had to stop once we started stimulation. Overall, I aimed to be as healthy as possible but allowed myself a few small nuggets here and there. In the past I discovered that holding myself too strict only produced a level and stress and anxiety which only resulted in an adverse effect.

Stimulation medications and injections for one round of egg retrieval. Injections needles not shown but the blue “pen” in front is the one that flew solo via next day air.

So what is egg retrieval?

This procedure comes after a long process of preparation. Each protocol varies but I have detailed out how this process looked for us this time around (because it even varied from our previous IVFs):

After your menstrual cycle you are instructed to start some sort of protocol. In the past this has been birth control. This time, we were instructed to begin ovulation tests and begin an estrogen-based medicine on a particular day following a positive ovulation test. You may have another cycle in between but soon after you will start stimulation a.k.a. injections a.k.a. shots a.k.a. not my favorite and the part I dread.
Injections continue and until your ovaries are replaced with a bunch of 50 lb. grapes. Well, it feels that way. Regular ultrasounds are performed to measure the follicles (containing the eggs) until they are mature. This is typically between 15-22mm in order to retrieve mature eggs, so roughly 3/4”. This round I had about fifteen total follicles used for retrieval so that is fifteen 3/4” rocks you are carrying around that weren’t there a week ago. You turn into a sloth. Your brain takes a vacation and doesn’t answer its phone. You are emotional and tired and sore and hungry and nauseous. Blood work is also checked regularly to monitor hormone levels so that everything is coordinated to determine when you trigger.
This round, our trigger shots were divided up into three separate doses and times. The trigger shot is an injection of hormones that signals your body to mature and release eggs. It contains HCG and basically kick-starts the process of an egg maturing to help it become capable of fertilization. And this time, the new crew of hormones that crashed the party were a bunch of rednecks ready to fight. Trigger shot day was a tough one. I was a roller-coaster of emotions and, even though it’s foggy, I’m 90% sure I tried to end my husband that day. I’m not proud of it. And that’s all I have to say about that.
The day before you are excited, anxious, nervous, worried, elated and tired. This is one of the biggest milestones in the IVF journey and should not to be taken lightly. It is a surgical procedure, and for us it was also in the middle of a pandemic. It is the moment you no longer have any control (it seems) and no matter how healthy you eat or how much sleep you get your little eggs will soon be outside of your body and in a lab away from you. Just like any surgical procedure you can’t eat or drink anything that night which always gives me anxiety because I wake up hungry every day of my life, and that’s no joke. I was missing my mom too and wishing I could call home and talk to her.
Retrieval day is here and you wear your lucky socks, otherwise you will be left with the double-sided non-skid atrocities that the clinic supplies. Plus, how can those be lucky for anything?! No makeup, no contacts; just fresh faced (and I’m usually broke out from all of the hormones) and blind. But you don’t seem to care because you are so ready to have the boulders removed from your insides. You go in and get a new hat and gown. A bunch of people come in and out introducing themselves; poking you and starting IVs. You kiss your husband goodbye…and the next thing you know you sitting up, eating Cheez-its, and drinking Sprite. But after that, someone comes in to tell you the news and you hold your breath in anticipation. We were told we only had 8 eggs retrieved out of the 15+ follicles extracted from. That’s about half of “normal.” My heart sank a little and we went back to the hotel where I rested and napped the rest of the day. During the procedure you are poked in each follicle with a very long needle to retrieve the eggs. In my case I was waking up with about 15 punctures so a 3-4 hour nap seemed appropriate. Not like I had anything else to do. Plus you have to shake off that anesthesia. Derick ordered our FAVORITE Giordano’s Pizza from downtown Denver and for dinner and I enjoyed some much deserved gluten and dairy that evening!

We received a call from the lab the next day. Here are our stats:

We had 8 eggs retrieved
7 were mature
5 fertilized through ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection)
We then waited a week to hear back on how those 5 developed and later learned that only 2 developed to Day 6 Blastocysts. We were excited since we have always transferred Day 3 embryos, but nervous because we weren’t out of the woods just yet.

We chose the extra testing and our two sweet little embryos (blastocysts actually) were biopsied and tested for numerous chromosomal abnormalities. About a month later, we found out that only one of them came back “normal” where the other was missing chromosomes and was not viable. We mourned him/her and began to look forward to being reconnected with the other. We started to look forward to transfer day, receiving new rounds of injections in the mail soon and beginning on this new path. But that plan changed quickly after talking with our doctor. And here we are now with a new plan, and shaken faith if I’m being honest. This was without a doubt the hardest decision of our journey. This is where all of the positive vibes we had going in celebration of our one were dumped out on the floor in front of us.

We are now going back for another round for retrieval. As it was this hard to get one healthy and normal embryo we were left with this decision: If we are okay chancing our one, having no back-ups, and not having any siblings, then we could move forward with transfer. However, if we would like a backup in the case he/she doesn’t stick or if we do transfer successfully, get pregnant, and want a sibling for this one - we would need to come back immediately for another round. It is not an option to try this again in a short time. Financially and physiologically. We may need 5-6 rounds at that time to end up with one normal embryo and we will never be able to afford that. We have given everything up but our house, which we did consider, and we have nothing left financially to invest. We felt as if we were playing God with our unborn children. We kept hearing “This is a personal decision” followed by “let me know if you have any questions.” Oh we have questions. Why is this happening to us; Why can’t we finally move on with our lives; What is the decision that will lead us to holding our child soon...to name a few. We were completely unprepared and lost. Our insurance doesn’t cover embryo banking and besides that it has already ran out – the insurance we were so happy to get this in January has already ran out. So, this option would be completely out of pocket. We are literally spent and “buying” a brand new Ford Focus doesn’t come easy after you already have four of them sitting in an imaginary garage somewhere.

We are tired. The thought of starting over is debilitating. While part of us is so ready to move on to transfer and be that much closer to holding our child we had to muster up the strength to look at the hard facts. No one should ever have to make these type of decisions about their family. But here we were.

God is sneaky. He knew we were weary and didn’t know how to ask. He silently guided us until we found ourselves solving the problem and coming up with resources to be able to call the clinic and move forward with another round. We are reminding ourselves of our perfect little snowflake, peacefully taking a frozen nap in Denver until we come for them. We have never had any make it to Day 6 Blastocyst, and we should be celebrating. We will start medications and injections within the month and travel back to the mountains soon in hopes to gain one more (or two?! fingers crossed) normal embabies to continue this journey with. Our journey might not look like others’, and it might not be over yet. But we will find what’s left of our faith, be it shredded and thin, and hold on to it with all our strength because He will sustain us.