Embryo Transfer Day

     Today was embryo transfer day. John and I agreed that it felt like deja-vu: didn't we just do this? Change into scrubs. Put on surgical hairnets and booties. Bring camera for silly pictures.  :-)
     The lab had six frozen embryos and the plan was to thaw the first three to see if any were viable. They were not. So Dr. Awadalla had them thaw the other set of three, and those looked good. He said that transferring two would be his recommendation; using all three would be 'aggressive' in his opinion. We had conflicting emotions, since the third embryo could not be refrozen and it was a use-it-or-lose-it situation. John and I talked about it and decided to go transfer the two 'best' embryos.
      Dr. Awadalla did our transfer today. He had to make several attempts to get the transfer catheter in place because he said my cervix was 'extremely tight'. Although the catheter was, in reality, very soft and flexible, I felt like he was trying to use a McDonald's drinking straw. I felt a lot of painful jabs and pokes, but he still wasn't making any progress. He tried different sizes of catheter, repostitioned the speculum several times, and used some sort of instrument to attempt to realign my cervix. Nothing worked.
     He finally told me that he was going to give me some medication to help with pain and to relax me. Although I wasn't in terrible pain, I was very uncomfortable and sore and ready to try anything to get the transfer done successfully. So the nurse gave me a shot of Demerol (narcotic pain med) and Phenergan (anti-nausea med often mixed with Demerol) in my butt and we waited about 1/2 hour for it to kick in. During this time, John and I got bored and I started taking pictures of our surroundings. Brace yourself: they were SO exciting:

My view from the table. I did like the sky and clouds on the ceiling. At least for the first hour.Then I wished there was an in-flight movie.

That little door in the wall connected us to the lab. Every few minutes, someone would poke their head thru there to check on us. I resisted the urge to yell 'PEEK-A-BOO!' to scare them since they (literally) had our childrens' lives in their hands.

Ultrasound machine.

Demerol is kicking in. Feeling goooooooood. 

Yes, we really were that bored.

After the meds had time to kick in, Dr. A came back and started the process again. He still had some trouble with the catheter, and it was still quite uncomfortable for me,  but he was able to get the embryos transferred. 

Here we are with our now-empty embryo dish and a photo of the three embryos:

Dr. A did tell us that if I have to have a transfer again (ie- this doesn't take), I would need to be put under general anesthesia due to my tight cervix. He said that he has never had this much trouble with a transfer in all of his years of experience. Leave it to me to be the medical anomaly!
  I slept most of the day while my amazing hubby cleaned the house and took care of Ryan (after Granddad picked him up from preschool and took him to McDonalds for a Happy Meal).  I'm a lucky girl!
 I'm very sore tonight but otherwise feel pretty good.  It will be interesting to read this blog later, when I'm not still high on Demerol. I keep dozing off while waiting for photos to load, so Lord only knows what I'm writing!