Recap of the last 36 hours:

Sorry…could not post yesterday…or walk…or carry on real-live conversation. Here’s what has happened the last 36 hours or so:

Late Sunday:

I don’t know if it was all the moving around I did Sunday afternoon, or the HCG kicking in…but Sunday night I was in a lot of pain. My stomach, which has been swollen up for the last week and a half, was even MORE bloated. I look about 3-4 months pregnant. If it weren’t for VERY low-rise pants, I would’ve had to go shopping in the heart-breaking maternity section.

Monday (Egg Harvesting Day):

Got up, showered and had to leave the hotel at 7am to go to the doc. On the way out we ended up on the elevator with another IVF couple. My harvesting was at 9am, hers at 11am…she looked just as terrified as I felt. They were on their way out to watch the sunrise on the beach before they got ready for their appointment.

Got to the doc around 8am…a half hour early. There’s nothing worse than arriving for something early when you’re terrified out of your mind. It just gives you even more time to freak out. Especially when the woman who went before you comes stumbling out into the waiting room cracked out of her brain and falls asleep waiting for her husband to pick her up. It was me, a woman in serious pain and 3 men waiting on their wives. Talk about a scenario that makes you think men are dirt: one guy’s playing on his computer, another is reading a Sports Illustrated and mine is playing with his new Blackberry – while all the women suffer. By the time they called me back I had filled up several tissues with tears. So stupid…I’ve done this before…

I get back to the operating room, get laid down on the table. I warn the IV dude that I am the biggest scaredy-cat in the world. He doesn’t need this warning as my doctor has already prepared him. Great…I have a reputation.

He gives me a local on my hand so it will numb me while he puts the IV in. For the first time in my entire life, the IV goes in without a hitch…doesn’t even hurt…I’m not prodded 15 times before he finds a vein. Of course I’ve got tears streaming down my face anyway. While this is going on, my stupid doc is going over a list of questions that I’ve already answered for the nurse: Are you allergic to latex? Are you allergic to anesthesia (um, isn’t that already dripping into my vein?). Meanwhile, Jason, my wonderful and fabulous anesthesiologist is interjecting hilarious questions between the real doctor questions:

Doc: Have you ever had a bad reaction to any anesthesia?
Jason: (leaning over and whispering in my ear): Have you done any crack this morning?
Me: No to both, but if you have any crack I’d love some.
Doc: Um…ok...? Is there the possibility you could be pregnant right now? (me: seriously?!)
Jason: (leaning over and whispering in my ear): Have you ever seen monkeys fly?
Me: No babies OR flying monkeys so far today.
Doc to Jason: Are you giving her the anesthesia already?
Jason to Doc: No, I swear I haven’t started the drip yet.
Doc to Me: Are you ok?
Jason to Me: Yeah, seriously…what’s your problem? [he winks and nudges me]
Me: [insert crazy laughter]…sorry, I always get this way when I’m about to have my ovaries sucked dry.
Doc: Um…alright…you sure you’re ok?
Me: Just knock me out doc…let’s get this over with.

I know the IV drip has started because I can feel a god-awful burning all the way down my left arm. I don’t know why, but anesthesia always burns the shit out of me when it starts. I try to grab my arm with my other hand, but it weighs a thousand pounds. Jason sees this and immediately grabs my left arm and starts massaging it. Instantly the burning stops. He says “Don’t worry, a lot of people experience the burning, this will help. It’ll stop in a minute.” I’m pretty sure I asked him to marry me. I try to ask him why it burns, but my question trails off into nonsense and suddenly I have to blink continuously to make the ceiling stop spinning. Jason says “Don’t worry, I gave you something stronger than you had last time…believe me, you won’t be fighting it this time, it’ll be over in just a second.” Oh god I love this man.

I blink and wake up in recovery. My new fiancé, Jason, and the doc are gone. And I’m staring at the recovery nurse – Martha. I know this because it’s embroidered on her shirt. But I’m calling her Cathy. I can’t help it, she looks like a Cathy. She says something kind, or at least I THINK it’s kind because she’s smiling, but I’ve lost the ability to understand English. I try to ask her if it’s over, but it comes out like “asdf lknwe vbas fdni voiv2w deve?” She seems to understand my version of Anesthesia English and answers: “Don’t worry honey, it’s all over, just lay here and rest. You tell me when you’re ready and I’ll help you get dressed.” I’m pretty sure I fell asleep again. But somewhere in there she helps me sit up and put my clothes on. I’ve only got snippets, but the doc came in at some point and instead of me asking him the important question (How many eggs did you get?), I’m asking him if it’s still raining outside (I had a sudden urge to go the beach). Finally it occurs to me to ask the egg question. He says that they just got everything to the lab and the embryologist hasn’t had time to count yet. He then tells me that I talk in my sleep. Oh great. He said the only words he could fish out of the nonsense were “Randy” and “Russell”. Even on mass amounts of drugs I am WAY too embarrassed to tell him that Jeffrey’s nickname of his “manly part” is “Russell the Love Muscle”…and we had been joking around that morning about how he was going to have to be feeling “Randy” to get revved up for his “deposit”. I make the doc swear on his life he won’t mention this to Jeffrey. He leaves and I crack up laughing. The nurse looks concerned.

Jeffrey, or somebody that looks just like him, walks in. I immediately tell him about the “Randy / Russell” conversation (in front of the nurse). What can I say…drugs make me stupid. Luckily he thinks this is hilarious. Between him and the nurse they half carry me, half drag me into the doc office. My legs refuse to work. I plop down into the chair and somewhere in the distance I hear the doctor suck air in through his teeth as if to say: my god, that must’ve hurt. I feel nothing. Glorious, glorious nothing.

The nurse, the doc, the embryologist and my husband are all in the room. Gary, the embryologist announces that they got 12 eggs. I scream “ WHAT? ONLY 12 EGGS? My ultrasound showed closer to 30 the other day…what happened?” Only I realize I still can’t form words and it was just me THINKING that I said it. Jeffrey, who CAN speak English asks the question for me: “But…I thought we had a LOT of eggs…what happened to them?” Doc says that since I only did half of the Novarel shot on Saturday night, I lost a lot of them. But the good news is he expects them to be good, mature eggs, and since that’s all they got, he thinks I might be out of serious hyperstimulation danger. Then he emphasizes that I should be prepared just in case – it could still happen anyway. I lost 2/3’s of my eggs and I’m still a hyperstim candidate. I should be pissed, but I can’t help myself, drugs are good. I can’t stop laughing.

Jeffrey and the doc have a long conversation about what meds I have to start – antibiotics to fend off any possible infection, medrol to help get rid of all the water I’ve already retained from the early throes of hyperstim, prometrium (progesterone to thicken my uterus), crinone (another form of progesterone), prenatal pills, baby aspirin (will thin my uterus making it easier for the embryos to implant). I keep nodding off, waking up and asking: Wait, WHAT drugs do I need to take? I can’t comprehend any of it. Luckily they’ve written all this down and given it to Jeffrey…The Keeper of the Meds. Gary, the embryologist holds my hand (he’s a very fatherly-type, I love him). I tell him to make us some babies. He says he’ll work like crazy to make it happen. I believe him. I think I asked him to marry me too.

By the way, I should add at this juncture (yes, I said “juncture”) that I suddenly find myself having an out of body experience and I’m sitting here thinking…did I accidentally pop a Tylenol PM? It took me a few minutes to realize it’s the progesterone pill I took about an hour ago. Makes me VERY faint and dizzy....I had forgotten how stupid it makes me feel. Should pass shortly. So if I go off on a tangent or suddenly have really bad spelling…that’s why. Or if I’ve already done it…that should explain it. I feel absolutely non-functional right now.

Anyway…Jeffrey and I leave the hospital and head back to the hotel. I am feeling NO pain. I took some Tylenol PM the second we got in the car so I can sleep when we get back. Then I decide I need to call both my parents and my grandparents to tell them what’s going on. I have absolutely no recollection of this. Thankfully I got my dad and grandparent’s answering machine…I left long rambling messages that they couldn’t understand…another small miracle. My mother, however, actually answered her phone and now knows that my husband’s penis is called “Russell The Love Muscle”. Awesome…can’t wait to relive THAT story at every family gathering for the rest of my life.

Got back to the hotel, took my new drug regimen and crashed. Hard. Woke up every hour on the hour to pee. That Medrol is flushing all the water weight out of me. Only it’s giving me major cotton-mouth…and peeing hurts…and I’m so sleepy….

I wake up around 4:30pm. I can tell the drugs starting to wear off. Not because I’m feeling pain, but because suddenly words are making sense. In fact, the pain has kind of subsided. I already feel less bloated. J makes me stay in bed – I want to go play Putt-Putt, but instead we watch movies. By 6 I’m feeling so good I want to go for a walk around the hotel, but J won’t let me. By 9 the pain kicks in. And I mean pain. I am acutely aware of every organ in my body, my stomach has started swelling up again. I’m hurting. I pop 2 more Tylenol PM’s and I’m out. Somewhere during the night J sneaks out and buys me Salt & Vinegar potato chips. My fav. I’d ask him to marry me, but we already did that.

Tuesday:

So that brings me to this morning. I wake up, the pain has gone from acute, to just a general uncomfortable-ness that extends from just below (but includes) my breasts, all the way down to my upper thighs. I’m very sore, I’m very, very bloated (early signs of what I hope will be MILD hyperstim) and since I slept in the exact same position all night, I’m super stiff. I needed help sitting up. Once I got moving around, I felt a little better. Got in the shower, got dressed, got J up and we headed downstairs for breakfast.

While we’re sitting at breakfast, J’s phone rings. It’s the doc office calling to see how I’m feeling. “On a scale of 0-10, what is your pain level?” Well, last night, probably an 8…right now, I’m about a 4. I’m eating like a pig…I think I’ll live. I haven’t taken any pain relievers so far today. You know me…I hate popping pills. Oh…except for the 5 I took this morning that were prescribed. Jeffrey’s talking to her and asks about the embryos. He hangs up the phone and says (mustering all his happiness and excitement):

“Six eggs fertilized.”

I can tell he already knows my reaction and he’s mortified that I’m about to explode in a very public place. He’s right. I do:

SIX? ONLY FUCKING SIX EGGS FERTILIZED? ARE YOU BEING FUCKING SERIOUS? SIX???? I GO FROM HAVING 30+ EGGS, TO THEM GETTING ONLY 12, TO ONLY SSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIXXXXXXXXXXXXXX FERTILIZING??? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?????

I’m facing hyperstimulation for SIX FUCKING embryos…and according to statistics only about a quarter will become 8+ cells embryos and therefore be considered implantable, and then there's only a 40% chance they'll survive? WHAT!?!??!?! I just went through a month of putting my body through hell…stronger drugs, no insurance coverage and this is EXACTLY what happened last time. EXACTLY. They got 11 eggs out of me last time, 6 fertilized, only 2 became very slow growing 8-cell embryos and (obviously), neither survived. I don’t understand how this can be happening again. I had so many eggs. I was so sure that even if this cycle didn’t work, we’d have enough left over to freeze for later and I wouldn't have to go through this again. There’s no way that will happen now. The numbers are so low that now I’m sitting here worrying that we might not have enough to even implant.

It’s been a few hours since breakfast, so I’ve had a little while to compose myself. But I’m still just sitting here baffled. All I can think is long-term…IVF doesn’t work for us. I mean we went from one extreme to the other. The first cycle, I was on mild drugs and my eggs didn’t mature correctly. This cycle, I’m on some of the strongest drugs out there, I had TOO many mature and we somehow ended up with the exact amount of fertilized eggs. It just doesn’t work. For some reason our eggs and sperms do NOT like each other. And if it doesn’t work…it’s such a waste to do this all again. If there had been EIGHT eggs that fertilized…and it didn’t work…maybe I’d consider doing it again. But six? The exact same results as last time?!? Why would I do it again? I can’t keep doing this to my body for no reason.

Jeffrey – the eternal optimist - keeps saying that yes, we only have 6, but this time all six could become 8+ cell embryos…we won’t know that until Thursday, so I can’t write it off. I mean he’s right…it COULD happen. In all likelihood it won’t, but it could. I shouldn’t be losing it now until I know the final outcome in 2 days. But I can’t help but be furious. Realistically, we’re looking at the exact same ending as last time. And I’m ANGRY as hell. ANGRY. ANGRY. ANGRY.

J drove into Jacksonville a little bit ago. His company has an office there, so he’s working this afternoon. I’m glad to have a little time by myself to collect my thoughts. I think I’m going to walk down to the beach, do a few ohms, burn some incense, do a little praying to the agnostic gods, have a good long talk with Karma and Buddha, and have a little chat with my Indian ancestors. Maybe they can pull some strings for me. Maybe if I can shake off this dark cloud, a little ray of sunshine will shine through and give us a miracle.

The implantation will more than likely happen on Thursday – should all 6 of them hit that 8+ cell marker, then we’ll do it on Saturday. I hope, I hope. God I want this more than anything in the world….