OD15 - The Party's Over.

So, the Retrieval Day was today. I will start from CD 12 which was Tuesday. That day I took Antagon in the AM and 150 of Gonal F in the PM. Dutifully taken, no problems.

When I went in on Wednesday, CD 13, I was told later that day when the nurse called, my HCG trigger would be that night at 10:30 PM. No more Anatgon. No more Gonal F.

At about 9:30, I started getting ready. I took frozen veggies on a bag and prepared my medications and needles and alcohol swipes. I tried to see if the veggies would be cold enough to freeze my butt area. By 10 PM, the veggies were not doing the trick. I got out a frozen pot pie. That worked better. Better surface area. Since I was at my parents for Thanksgiving, my brother was luckily around. Since he worked in a vet's office, I got super lucky. He was able to give intramuscular shots to any thing and anyone. He agreed to shoot me up.

I mixed the drugs starting 10:15 PM....it took 15 minutes to do it because i was super careful. I went line by line of the instructions that I found on a website that I mentioned in a previous entry. I then prepared a heating pad on my bed and my brother and I went back and forth as to where the right outter quadrent of my ass was. It was hysterical.

With my pants partly down (no whoha showing), my brother and I watched the clock on the computer. At exactly 10:30, he started counting "1, 2...." and then he said he was done.....I was like "HUH". He said he shot it in my ass at the count of 1. I didn't even feel it. It's good I don't have a size 2 ass.

The rest of the night was 100% uneventful. I rubbed the area a bit because I didn't want lumps. The rest of the night....No swelling, no pain, no nothing.

I was a bit scared to be honest and so was my brother. he thought he screwed up. I thought he screwed up. My parents even thought he might have. I would go in the next day to NYU to know whether it was screwed night. Nervous, I went to bed and waited.

The next morning, I went into NYU promptly at 7 AM and only had to do blood tests. I was back in Brooklyn. What a relief not to be done with sonograms and blood tests. At 2:45, I had not heard from NYU so I called to see if the HCG trigger worked. They said it did and advised me that they only call if it did not work. Thank goodness.

This morning, at 730, I left the house for my scheduled arrival time of 8:30. At about 9 AM, I was called in, donned a robe or 2 and got my medical history taken along with blood pressure and temperature. Everyone was super nice.

At about 915 AM, I met the anesthesiologist and he took me in to the OR. I got on the table, a warming blanket was placed on me, placed into stirrups, and given the run-down of the anesthesiology by the anesthesiologist. I met the biologist who made me sign a form and was told the drugs would work in 20 seconds. I wanted to see if I could force myself to stay up but no luck.

The weirdest thing about the surgery was I never met the doctor who performed it. Odd, right? I saw her later in the recovery room but she never spoke with me.

At about 10:15, I was awakened in the recovery room. Again, the nurses were nice, telling me to take a nap but I felt 100% fine. I thought that was very odd. I was hooked up to a blood pressure machine and IV/saline solution drip was still in me. I never took out my contacts (no one asked but I never told - though you are supposed to take them out) so I saw everything. I asked what what my egg retrieval number was and I was told that they retrieved 23. Awesome. I was very excited considering the last number I heard was 12.

At 10:30, I asked the nurse to pee because I felt some slight abdominal pressure and I assumed it was the massive amounts of saline in me. That helped some but not much. It truly was not that bad...about a 2/10 in discomfort, if that. I was given apple juice and graham crackers some time around then and at 10:45 AM, placed in a chair, sitting up. My blood pressure was taken again, I was handed a blue sheet of discharge instructions and was told around 10:50 that I could go. By 10:55 PM, I was in the car with my brother going home.

The discharge instructions listed the number of eggs retrieved was 23 and my estrogen level for yesterday, a staggering 4484. I can only assume that is HSS aka hyper-stimulation syndrome. The nurse did say she was surprised I did so well considering the estrogen levels and my egg count. I was told that tomorrow, I would be called with the number of eggs that were frozen ( and sadly the number of eggs that passed on or didn't make the cut).

I must say, surprisingly, I feel perfectly fine. I took the doxycycline and some gatorade (recommended by one of the nurses) and have napped a bit but otherwise, I am hungry and feel like nothing happened. A let down almost.

I will also add that I took my unopened Gonal F (3 boxes) and unopened Antagon (4 boxes) to the Center. They give them to needy cancer patients. I felt good about that. Otherwise, it would have been well over $3K wasted.

More tomorrow with the exciting freeze results!