Retrieval Day!

After Jen's appointment yesterday, they called to let us know that her retrieval would be at 5:30 am today, which meant that we needed to be in the office at 4:45 am, which meant that we need to leave the house at 3:45 am, which meant that we needed to be up at 3:15 am to shower (yes, they explicitly required us to shower, not like we'd skip out on it). Stacia and Samuel Simonsen came over yesterday afternoon to hang out with Jen and Mason while I was working and then they stayed the night to be with Mason while Jen and I spent the pre-dawn hours in Clear Lake.

Before putting Mason to bed I told him Mommy and I would be at the doctor's when he woke up and that we'd be back before lunch. After pulling it out of him, he finally agreed to be good for Stacia (I think he was more tired than anything from waking up so early with us the past week or so). We gave him a kiss and a hug and then put him in bed only to hear him screaming a few minutes later. I checked on him and his excuse was that he needed his stuffed rhino; he was smart enough to mention one of the few animals not on his bed. I picked up the rhino and gave it to him, kissed him, and left his room.

About one minute later he was screaming again! This time when I went in he was bawling and when I asked him what was wrong he said, "I don't want you to leave me!" Talk about tugging on the heartstrings! I held him and explained that we weren't leaving, that we'd be back soon after he woke up and that if he thought about it hard enough he could feel Mommy and Daddy in his heart because we love him so much. Being four years old, that didn't satisfy him. So I showed him how I could send him an email to the Wii, which he thought was pretty cool. I also told him I'd call him when we were done so he'd know we were on our way home.

After putting him back to bed, he was screaming again, tears pouring down his face, a minute later. I ended up lying next to him as he fell asleep, although he kept checking on me every couple of minutes to make sure I was still there. Finally he went to sleep and Jen and I got to bed around 10:15 pm - in time to get 5 hours of sleep if we sailed off to Neverland as soon as we hit the pillow (Jen can do it, I can't).

The ride across Houston that early (or that late, depending on how you look at it) was fairly quick. She took her Valium at 4:30 and we spent about 30 minutes waiting in the waiting area. Why did we get up so early? After they took us back, Jen changed into her fabulous hospital attire and they explained some things to us. Then we heard them mention that Woman #2 (Jen was Woman #3) was late so we had to wait for her as she had to go through the procedure first due to the timing of when they had the HCG shot. We waited until about 6:00 am before they took Jen to get ready and to retrieve her eggs, which is much more of an extraction since it sound more painful. Retrieval sounds far too painless and not at all invasive.

They left me in the room where Jen changed clothes, but apparently they were supposed to lead me to an inside waiting room where they'd call me back for my contribution to the process, much easier and less painful than what Jen has to go through. After 30 minutes, I found the nurse and she realized that I'd been hiding out and sent me packing to the right area. After making my deposit I was called back to see Jen.

It was obvious that she was in a lot of pain and very understandably so. In a previous post we mentioned how they suck the eggs out of the follicles, the part we didn't throw in there is that they insert a long needle into a catheter and insert that into Jen. Then they push that needle through the vaginal wall up to the bloated ovary and suction out the eggs from that side, then they move to the other. Thank goodness Jen was put under and didn't have to be awake during the procedure. Afterwards, she wakes up and they ask how she's feeling and if she needs anything. Of course she asked for pain killers but they can't give her any. First they fill her bladder up with two liters of saline, plus whatever Sprite she can drink. After emptying her bladder and some excess blood, they tell her after she starts keeping down soda crackers she can take Tylenol, that's it. Plus, no caffeine until after the pregnancy test. The nurse was amazed at how well Jen handled it all. I was amazed that she really had no side effects from the injections (except for some obvious pain from overstuffed ovaries) and no nausea from the anesthesia.

Before we could leave, we had to wait for the lab to give us the green light that my swimmers were fine and that I didn't need to make another donation. After getting approval, they took Jen to the car in a wheel chair and we made a stop at Wal-Mart to get the essentials for post-retrieval: protein drinks, protein bars, Gatorade, extra strength Tylenol, soda crackers, and Dr. Pepper & junk food for me. We also had to get gas on the way home. Luckily we've been taking my car so the multiple fill ups aren't affecting us as much as if we had been using the gas greedy Sequoia.

While in Wal-Mart I called Stacia to let her know were on our way and to talk with Mason. He didn't want to talk to me, which was actually a great sign that he was doing OK without us.

Jen is now taking a nap and trying to recover as best she can for another early morning tomorrow when we receive the study drug (progesterone) in either the gel or the ring. At 7 am, we'll also hear from the lab on how many of the 23 retrieved eggs (yes, almost two dozen...Jen is closest so far) were good and how many were fertilized. Transfer will be either Sunday or Tuesday. Getting closer!