DAY 15 & DAY 16: THE RESULTS ARE IN…

PREVIOUSLY on the last episode of ‘Style & Life by Susana’:

It was 5.28PM and at the time I was typing up the last post, the lab hadn’t rung yet and as the saying goes, “no news is good news”. Every time, I looked at the time, my face pretty much looked like this one of Joey Tribbiani’s (character from Friends):

DAY FIFTEEN

the results are in

The embryologist rang me earlier this morning and some of it was good news and some of it was unfortunately sad.

If you have been following my journey and remember on my last post, I had three eggs collected. Once they collected my eggs, they immediately injected my husband’s sperm into all three of my eggs. Some couples have the option of having the sperm swim around the egg, with the millions of mini-mini sperm blokes fighting against each other  to find its way into the egg but unfortunately many people like me, need to have the best sperm injected into the egg for numerous of reasons but mainly because of the quality of the eggs or because of the age of the person. With me, it’s because of my age. So over the next 24 hours, the embryologist monitors the eggs and see’s if all eggs become fertilised.

If no eggs become fertilised, they then ring and let you know the very next day after egg collection so that you aren’t left hanging for another day stressing and losing sleep over and wondering how your potential babies are coming along. So fortunately, we are very blessed that we had one egg fertilise but still, it doesn’t take away the disappointment and the feeling that you think your body has let you down, and you letting down your partner too.

So trying to continue on thinking positive (as best as I can) and putting out beautiful loving energy out to the universe so it reaches my little warrior (nickname I have given it), here is a photo of my pre-baby’s first photo! The lab emailed me a photo of it today, I somehow was able to persuaded them to do this for me.

Today is Day Two for my little warrior and the amazing news is that it’s at 5 cells! 5 cells!!! Embryos should be between 2 to 4 cells at Day Two after egg collection and preferably about 7 to 10 cells by Day Three.

The day after egg collection, I was told by the embryologist and the head nurse that I had to start the crinone that night.

What is crinone?

Well, crinone is this progesterone gel that your insert into your vagina and you squeeze the tip of it, so it releases this white cream gel straight into you. What this does is that it helps to prepare the lining of your uterus so its ready to receive and nourish your little warrior (.i.e. embryo). Now depending on your doctor and clinic, everyone has their own rules of how many times you apply this product. In my case, I have to do it twice a day, at the same exact time, night and day. Don’t ever let your crinone be more than twelve hours as this can actually bring on your period because your body begins to think, ‘OK there’s no baby, bring on the bitch!’. And we don’t want that! So again my times are 7.00AM and 7.00PM. Once you’ve inserted it, you need to get up and move around for at least 30 minutes so it helps to ‘distribute’t through your system.

WARNING! This following section may gross you out!

The awful thing that I hate about crinone is that after a day of using it, white cottage cheese like bits come out onto your underwear. However the most awful DISGUSTING thing I hate about crinone is that you have to ‘clean out’ your vagina (yes, with your fingers) every couple of days because the crinone builds up deep inside. You do have another option which is to just let your body do the ‘cleaning’ itself. After a few days, your body will slowly push the built up crinone out through your vagina. The other awful disgusting part about this, is if you just happen to be walking around minding your own business, doing a bit of window shopping la la la la la, and all of a sudden you feel this pressure like thing moving out of your vagina. Obviously when this happens you have to make a mad rush to the toilet. Basically, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, however you deal with the cleaning out of the crinone. BAH!

There are side affects with crinone and for every woman, its different. I really don’t get many side effects just the irritation from it. Until embryo transfer I have to keep applying the crinone, day and night (cue in the massive eye roll).

DAY SIXTEEN 

So the embryologist rung me at 9.43AM and in that moment, I seriously literally stopped breathing.

The stress never leaves once you’ve conquered one aspect of IVF. Its never ending. It just moves onto the next part of your journey. Right now, the stress continues on in waves when you’re in the daily motion of how the embryo is progressing along. Once you receive the news you do forget about it until the next morning when you wake up and pray that your little warrior is coming along as it should be.

The embryologist just asked me the usual questions that they have to every time they rign, just to make sure that they are speaking with you and no one else (full name, date of birth and address). Then the next part came:

“Today is day 3 of your embryo and its coming along as it should. Everything looks really good.”

I’m listening very closely, my heart is racing and doing double, triple beats and then I ask, “so what cells is it at?” 

She reply’s and says, “It’s at eight cells and that”s really good for day 3

Next time the embryologist will ring me will be on Day 5. I asked if I could ring up tomorrow just to see how my little one is going and she said of course I can. And of course, I will. As soon as the telephone call ended, I was finally able to breathe again.

Relief, and happiness; that is until tomorrow morning when I wake up again and the stress re-continues. However right now, this is exactly how I feel:

COMING UP ON THE NEXT EPISODE: ‘grow little warrior, grow!