Putting all of our eggs in one basket (or petri dish...)

July 28, 2011: Captain's Log - Going where no man has gone before. Today is aspiration day. Sounds like a big ol' snot removing procedure, but no, it is a ridiculously important day for us. Today is the day that we remove the eggs that may one day become our baby. Or babies. Yea, there's still that chance.

So, today, we leave work a little early to go to the doctor's and have this procedure done. The doctor and embryologist are there and Heidi isn't. I mean, she's there, but she's jacked up on Demerol and in her own happy place. It's just as well though...it's not the funnest procedure one can endure. The doctor is playing baby lullabies in the background...amazingly apropos. There are a lot of machines in the room so it's cold at first (as Heidi announces while she's drugged up...asking for socks) but all of the machines make it warmer. Just a little "How cute is my wife" aside...she has an IV of demerol in and apparently, it bothers her. Through barely opened eyes, she has made it her mission to move the IV. She tries to pick it up, she tries to move her hand. Generally, she forgets what she's doing right in the middle of doing it and several times just froze where she was...her hand on her mouth, hovering over the IV, just hanging there in the air. Again, how cute is my wife? :)

Here's the 411 on a little game we like to call "Find the eggs". So, the doctor is at the helm (you know, right between Heidi's knees, usually my place of preference, but well, you know...I don't know how to retrieve eggs). He has a long needle that seems to serve three purposes...one to burst the follicle, which holds the egg; two, to suck it out and three, to wash the inside of the follicle out again to make sure the little egg was captured. The magic potion, or all the stuff in the follicle, is then sucked out and goes into what? A test tube! Who knew! It brings new meaning to test tube baby! Then, Dr. Clark, our embryologist is right behind the "helm" with a huge incubator with a microscope. Everytime a test tube fills up, he puts it into a petri dish and lets Dr. Weldon know if there's an egg or not. He does a little "shout out" to the helmsman..."we have a mature egg", "nothing here", "another mature egg"...it was like playing the egg lottery! Dr. Weldon would pop a folly and say that this one was small and we probably wouldn't find anything and then unexpectedly...a mature egg (that, my friends, is my over-achiever wife at her prime!).

After the eggs were in a dish, the embryologist would let me look through the microscope to see the egg. He gave the very technical explanation (using all words that were completely outside my vernacular) but super cool, none the less. I want you to stop and think about this, about the gravity of this. I am seeing an egg from my wife's ovaries. An egg in the most smallest, premature state. Yet, I could potentially be staring at what could become our child. That is amazing to me in a way that words cannot express. I mean, who gets to do that??? Who gets to see that part the baby making process? I was just awestruck.

Anyway, so, in all, my little tiny 95 lb. wife who is the epitome of an overachiever, created twelve eggs. A frigging dozen!!! Which is a good thing, our fertility doctor is a little particular about always ending up with an even number...I tremble to think what would have happened if he only found eleven!

OK...for the faint at heart, maybe you want to skip to the next paragraph. This one gets a little gross. Remember that three purpose needle? I may have forgotten to mention that it's extremely sharp. While the doctor is putting it into the cervix and guiding it up to the ovaries, it has the potential to "poke" stuff it isn't supposed to poke. We had an ultrasound, but that was aimed primarily at the ovaries, not the path up. So, yea, on the way back in for one of the eggs, it "poked" the inside of her vagina. Not just that, but it poked a vein or artery. What happens when you poke a vein or artery with a really big needle? It bleeds. And this one did. A LOT. I was back by the embryologist looking at the eggsters and when I look up, I see Heidi spread-eagle (hehehe!) but not in a good way. There was blood everywhere. I had a slight moment of internal panic as I muttered, "is this normal?" Really? That was my question? Of course it wasn't normal...apparently I'm not that great in a moment of panic. The embryologist advised I could look away if it was difficult, but yea, that wasn't going to happen. I did not spend years and years honing myself by watching gory and scary movies only to look away at the puddle of blood forming under my wife. Perhaps I should have looked away...anyway, the doctor told me what happened, stuffed a bunch of gauze up there and stopped the bleeding. He tested her blood pressure several times to make sure she didn't loose too much blood and all was right with the world again. Except it was amazingly horrific to see. My poor little Heidi and her vagina. [Insert inappropriate joke here about a little prick in her vagina...LMAO].

So, after the aspiration, Heidi lay still slightly drunk from Demerol while the embryologist takes the eggs to his special egg fertilizing lair (which is really just a special room that's mostly dark and very laboratory-like). Heidi continues to work hard to wake up (she's horrible with any kind of anesthesia...it takes her forever to wake up and she always gets sick). I get instructions from the nurse (I also invite her to my 40th birthday party...it's a multi-tasking kind of day). We shake Heidi a little more...talk a little more about our next appointment. Again, try to wake Heidi up...I told you, she really takes to anesthesia. Finally, the nurse and I slide her panties and pants on over her sleeping legs and stand her up into them. She still has no recollection of this...she also has no recollection of the three times the doctor, nurse and I told her how the procedure went, no recollection of the conversation we had with the nurses in the lobby, maybe a slight recollection of the chocolate shake I bought her on the way home...probably not though.

So, the first huge day was done. Twelve eggs...all that's left is insperminating them (baby daddy is in a vial at in the fertilizing lair). The countdown is on...we need fertilization, no fragmentation, healthy eggs...and we have five days for all of that to happen. I'm pretty sure this will be the longest five days ever...next step: embryo transfer! Fingers crossed, prayers being said, come on babies, you can do it...I saw you! You're strong, you're already loved and we are waiting for you...come on, come on, we know you're ready to have two mommies to love you incredibly!