Friday, February 4, 2011

Ok,  here the description of what happens with the embryo transfer.  Hopefully this post will be shorter :P

Embryo transfer is done on a full bladder so it can get quite uncomfortable.  Again,  we were to show up to the clinic ahead of time.  First thing that happens is they do bloodwork since they want to check that the progesterone is nice and high and that the estrogen has not dropped too much since egg retrieval (though they don't draw blood on retrieval day,  I assume they use trigger day to compare ?)

Nurse then calls you into the recovery room and we get to gown up again just like for the egg retrieval.  We then go back to those comfy lazyboys where vitals are checked again and ID arm bands are once again given (again they check these all the time,  it's pretty important that the right embryos are transfered to the right people)

After that we are led to a room to talk to the doctor.  The doctor goes over the status of the embryos at that point and discuss how many / which ones to put back (this time we only had one so no decision to make really but we got to see how many cells/ quality it was)

We then go back to recovery and wait a bit until they are ready for the procedure (meanwhile the bladder is filling up the whole time and is super uncomfortable.  Since we show up at the clinic one hour ahead of time, all the water has to be drunk before then so lots of time to really fill up!

Finnally it's time to do the transfer.  We go into the procedure room (same one as for the egg retrieval).  Thankfully for the second transfer I got to wait to put my legs in the stirups until the doctor started scrubbing in.  This table faces the door the doctor comes in.  Last time I was in the stirups uncovered for a good 5 minutes while people were going in and out that door.  Umm,  hello, not everyone needs to see that show!

The doctor then gets everything ready,  speculum goes in,  washes out everything and then puts in a catheder through the cervix (no worse than a pap really). 

The embryologist then takes the embryo out of the incubator and puts it under the microscope for us to see on a screen before they transfer it.  The embryologist then puts the embryo into some tube thingy (the part that threads into the catheder)

Ultra sound tech does an external ultra sound so the doctor can guide the catheder to the right place in the uterus (top) and then the embryo is transfered.  We see a flash of bubbles on the screen when this happens plus they take a pic of it for us to take home.  The doctor then waits 30 seconds to give a chance for the embryo to float away from the catheder and everything is taken out and checked by the embryologist under a microscope to ensure the embryo is gone. (If it's still there,  they repeat the process,  apparantly that doesn't hurt the chances of success,  glad it hasn't happened to me)

Once the ok is given from the embryologist the doc removes the speculum and we're done.  On the way out of the room I finally get to pee and then we sit and rest for half an hour in recovery while waiting for the bloodtest results.  If the progesterone is too low they switch you to progesterone shots (mine has been fine) and if the estrogen drops too much they put you on Estrace (which happened to me this time). 

And that's it!

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