IVF Embryo Transfer!!! – 11 DEC 2015

I don’t even know where to begin.  I’m still on such an emotional high and keep crying off and on after the most beautiful, most emotional procedure I’ve ever had in my life!

We arrived at the clinic at about 7:40 (after taking a few pics, of course) and were able to speak to my Doctor about where we stood on everything.  He said that our embryos looked very, VERY good and he was confident in our chances.  He also gave us the opportunity to elect out of the 2 embryo transfer since we had pretty good chances anyway.

Transfer 1 embryo: 40-45% chance of the embryo resulting in a successful pregnancy with a very slim chance of it splitting into identical twins (I can’t remember the exact number).

Transfer 2 embryos: 70-75% chance of the embryo resulting in a successful pregnancy with a 35-40% (pushing 45%) chance of twins if we stuck with the two.

We elected to still proceed with the two embryo transfer to better our chances and we really want twins anyway!  (Come on, Twins!!!!)

After that, Ryan gave me a good luck kiss and I was escorted back to the pre-op area (right outside their private O.R.) to get into my gown and ready for the transfer!  The embryos can’t be out of incubation for more than 3 minutes (MAX) so it’s important that I was set up and completely ready before the embabies were brought out.  Another perfect design of our doctor is that he built the embryology lab directly attached to the OR so it’s easy to bring them in and out.  I was put on the bed with my upper part of my body tilted down at a crazy angle and my favorite nurse checked me with an ultrasound (a normal abdominal one this time) to see if we were ready to proceed.  Next, my Doc came in and got everything in place for the transfer.  It’s all very specific exactly where the embryos go into the uterus and the catheter that’s used has to be in the exact right spot.  Finally he was able to bring in the embryos and get those embabies settled in there!!!!  My nurse was so great and she turned the screen to me so that I could see the little babies on the screen!!!! (They’re microscopic so you can only see a “flash” where the fluid is, but they were in there!)  My only wish was that Ryan could have experienced it with me, but I wore his green army socks (under my surgical booties) to have a piece of him with me and it’s safer for the OR/embryos to have as few people back there as possible.

The whole thing was so incredibly surreal!!!  I was officially/unofficially pregnant!!!!  To actually see something in there and know that there were two 5-day old babies ready to grow and make me a mommy was the most beautiful moment!!!  That moment alone made all of this worth it.  Every tear we cried, every doubt, every fear, every pain I felt when I saw someone else get pregnant or have a baby or get pregnant AGAIN in the time we were trying ALL became worth it!!!  To have this incredible joy and to experience the beautiful nature that is IVF and the science that God has given us is so incredible.  I’m so thankful that we understand the true value of this and just how incredibly precious life is!!!

I was officially pregnant at 9:50 am on 11 DEC 2015!  How cool is it that I know the exact moment that I got pregnant??!

As an added bonus, Doc took my phone back into the lab with the flash turned off and surprised us with pictures of the embryos before we got started!!!!   It was a total surprise that he did for us because he knew had badly I wanted one.

Once we were done I layed on the stretcher and chit chatted with my nurse until my 20 minutes were up and was able to get dressed and grab Ryan. 🙂 🙂  Once we got in the car, I surprised him with the picture of OUR BABIES!!!!!  He totally wasn’t expecting it and it was such a precious moment to share with him and watch his reaction!  A moment that i’ll never forget…and another blessing of doing a procedure like this.

Also, my two week wait cut down to 10 days was then cut to 8 to take my Beta blood test.  Then Doc said I could come back in in exactly one week to see if i’m officially pregnant!!!!  We’re so thankful that everything went great and are confident that this is going to work.  We love these sweet babies so much already…I can’t even believe it! 🙂 🙂  We hope and pray that they both get buried in there and make themselves comfortable to stick around for 9ish months!!!

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Embryo Report: Also, we already have 3 frosties (frozen embryos for the future) and 5 more waiting to see how they do so we might be able to freeze even more 🙂

UPDATE: We had one more embryo make it to freeze, so we’re hoping for future siblings! 🙂

~Hopeful mommy to be,

Melissa Grim