My Egg Retrieval | IVF Journey

Its been a minuet since I have spoken about my IVF journey with my husband! I did made an intial blog post about it but I highky encourage you to also watch my first YouTube video which is more in depth and we answer all of your questions!

So here we are! I had my egg retrieval done and WOW. That was a tough procedure. The same day I got my eggs retrieved, my husband had his sperm manually retrieved as well due to his infertility. The weeks leading up to our retrievals were mentally challenging and somewhat phsyically challening for me. I HIGHLY suggest you watch my egg retrieval video as I journal each day and the meds I took to prep for the big day.

So there are two parts of our IVF journey-the egg and sperm retrieval AND the transfer of the embryo. Now at first, the plan was to do a fresh tranfer. In IVF, you either have a fresh or frozen embryonic transfer. The fresh would have taken place 5 days after retrieval. Sadly, we did not get what we wanted (as I explain in my YouTube video) because my Estradiol levels got too high and thus I had to take a Lupron trigger shot which prevented us from doing fresh. BUT the good thing about frozen embryo transfers or FETs is that they have a 10-15% higher success rate! SO that is one plus. I was upset for about a day and quickly got over it.

Over the course of 11 days or so, I took about 20 shots in my stomach to prep for my egg retrieval. I took Gonal F and Menopur (which are basically LH and FSH hormones) to make my follicles grow fast and large. I then took Ganirellix to prevent me from ovulating. I allowed my husband to give my shots so that he could be a part of the process. Some hurt, some did not. I did blood work and vaginal ultrasounds nearly DAILY as each day could mean a HUGE difference and BOY IT DID. When my follicles were big enough, I was told to take the trigger shot and then a couple days later, they took my goods. Well, our goods.

The results? 20 sperm from my husband.15 eggs total. 14 matured. 13 fertilized. So we were left with 13 embryos as they began growing in a petri dish daily for 5 days. Each day, we were called and told how our babies to be were doing. Every day, they would let us know how many we still had and gave us a “grade” for them. They grade embryos based on quality. By day 5/6, we had 8 biopsied and frozen. We did have 13 left, but not all were perfect quality so we only chose the best/highest quality eggs to store away and freeze. At the end of the day, I did not want too many on our hands because we want only two more children and I gave consent to donate any extras to couples in need.

His extra sperm (I guess 7 left) were frozen as well so he would not have to go through his procedure again. His was pretty gnarly as his scrotum was cut open via a MESA procedure to be able to get to his sperm. Ah. These future kids better know that they are loved.

So the next part of our journey is the embryo transfer. Well.. about that… our embryos are in Alabama and most of you know now thanks to a natioanl uproar that the Alabama Supreme Court deemed embryos as “children.” In the light of all this, the clinic paused its services indfinitely.

Your trainer and friend,