A Happy Harvest

Today we had our donor egg retrieval...also called an egg harvest because the eggs are delicately (with a huge needle) sucked out of the ovaries to get every last one just like a farmer would plow his field of crop to get every last corn stalk, grain, bean, and whatever else farmers plant.

It has been a very long day! After minimal sleep (2-3 hours), my sister, my husband, and myself woke up around 4:15am to get ready for the most important day of our entire cycle...so far. We were on the road by 4:55am to make the two hour drive to our fertility clinic. We made it to the clinic in record time, getting there almost 15 minutes earlier than we needed to be. At 6:45am we were greeted by a friendly nurse who took all of us back to the pre-op room to get my sister prepped for her surgery, the egg retrieval. Here's a few of our pictures as we all prepared to take the biggest step in our lives (obviously it was early):

I am so impressed with the staff at Bethesda Fertility Center who were involved in my sister's surgery. From the nurses who got her hooked up to her IV and got some of the medications started to the anesthesiologist who helped my sister get relaxed and fall asleep with his special "joy juice" as he called it to Dr. Hofmann who performed the retrieval.....everyone was so great and made the retrieval a huge success! It was such a different experience from my own egg retrieval back in March when we were going to a different fertility clinic. My retrieval was not under sedation, it was not done in a sterile room, it was not done by the doctor we had been working with our entire cycle....it was an awful awful experience and I would have never put my sister through that so I am beyond pleased with the experience that we all had today!

While my sister was in surgery, my husband and I waited anxiously but confidently in the doctor's office lobby. Here's a few pictures of us passing the time:

While we were waiting on my sister's retrieval to be completed, Alex had read a news article about a semi-trailer accident that occurred that morning and had shut down the highway that we had to take to get to the fertility center. The highway reopened at 5:00am just after we had left our house today. At that moment I just felt like all the stars had aligned for us today and the retrieval was going to be better than we expected. For an extra bit of good luck I wore a piece of our past and a piece of our present on me (my origami owl over-the-heart necklace with two lockets-one with my angels' birthstones, angel wings, and an "in memory of" heart, and one with a cross, a "hope" charm, and a rainbow). I also wore the rainbow stripped socks that I bought just for our egg retrieval and embryo transfer, hoping they would give us the good luck that we need to conceive our Rainbow Baby. Here's my pretty socks:

Just after 8:00am Dr. Hofmann came to the lobby to get me and my husband and to give us the final count on my sister's eggs. He was able to retrieve TWENTY-THREE EGGS!!! 23!!!!!!!!! This is more than he expected to get, and definitely more than I expected he would get! A huge sense of relief and excitement and pride came over me in the moment. And then the nurse came out to say that my sister had already waken up from the anesthesia and was asking for us to come back. As we were walking out of the lobby to head down to the recovery room the nurse also said the first thing my sister said when she woke up was "I hope they are proud of me." Holy tear jerker moment! I busted in tears...so has NO IDEA how proud we are of her! Not just because they were able to get 23 eggs. I would be just as proud if they had gotten 10 eggs. But I am most proud of her for stepping up to this challenge, for being so selfless and offering to do this for us to help us create our family, for taking every last shot with commitment to this process, and for being such a huge inspiration to other people who have never had to experience infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss themselves. As I walked with my husband back to the recovery room to see my sister, I tried to contain the tears-I didn't want to make her cry. Once we got to see her I gave her a hug and kiss, and told her how many eggs they got from her (although the nurse had told her several times already lol...she kept asking and couldn't remember because of the sedation), and then I had to leave her with my husband so I could go to our other fertility doctor's office about 15 minutes away to have my uterine lining ultrasound to make sure my uterus is going to be ready to grow a baby. The good news kept coming....my lining needed to be at 7 millimeters and it was at 9 millimeters. After the ultrasound I met with the nurse to go over how to properly have my husband give me my Progesterone in Oil injections which start tomorrow morning...whoo-hooo for butt shots!! (just kidding...but #doingitforbabymonnier). Once I got back to the fertility clinic where my sister and husband were, they were ready to go. My husband gave his semen sample and got a "thumbs up" from the nurse....I guess that means it looked like a good sample?!? We got in the car and head to Bob Evans for breakfast because we were all starvin' marvin's!

Since getting home from the retrieval I have been spending time with my sister and niece. A huge shout out to our parents who took care of my sister's daughter last night and got her to and from preschool today. My niece has been ornery as ever today but only needed a few reminders not to jump all over her mommy. My sister is doing well physically, just a little crampy and some ovarian pressure which is normal after having a huge needle poking around in there.

Tomorrow we will get a call from the nurse with a fertilization report. They will let us know how many eggs out of the 23 were mature enough for fertilization and how many out of those actually fertilized. We are hoping for a number in the teens tomorrow. Then we won't get another update until Saturday when the embryologist will call us to let us know how our babies are growing in the lab. Right now the doctor is anticipating my embryo transfer to be at 8:30am on Tuesday morning next week, but this could be moved up to Monday depending on what the embryologist tells us Saturday. We plan to transfer two embryos if we can, and we would LOVE to have some other good ones we can freeze for the future. Right now we just need to be patient and pray that we continue to get good news as the week progresses. I will update tomorrow evening with the fertilization report:)

Thank you for all the amazing support and God bless all of you that are in the two week wait with us!