Collection day, August 29! They asked us to be there for 7:30am and by 8:00am they were already getting us prepped. They connected me to an IV and went over the procedure while DH did his part in the “boom-boom-room” (my new term for it).
All week long I had been told it would be another doctor doing collections that day but in the distance we could hear Dr. D! I thought he just stopped in to check up on something so I asked the nurse and she confirmed that he had switched days with the other doctor. I have yet to confirm this, but I would like to believe he did this knowing I would be there. We had seen each other a couple of days prior and he has known all along that my case would be difficult and that he was the only person I had 100% faith in. My left ovary is kind of hiding behind my uterus and this was why they couldn’t collect from it last time. He had previously promised me that he could get to it and that he would do my collection, at the clinic, no matter what. I would like to think he honored that at the hospital. In either case, I was ecstatic.
They kicked DH out of the waiting area and the anesthesiologist came over to talk to me. He asked me if I had any questions and I said no. He asked me if I was scared and I said not at all. And then he asked me if I had anything to add. Ha! Well, there was one small thing I needed to tell him. I have had 4 or 5 surgeries previously and the last time, about 15 years ago when I had my gallbladder removed, I sort of woke up early and pulled my own IV out and took the oxygen mask off. He laughed and reassured me that he wouldn’t let something like that happen this time. Phew! As soon as he walked away the nurse came over and brought me into the operating room. I told Dr. D how happy I was to see him and a huge grin appeared across his face. He asked me the standard questions like my full name and what are we were doing that day to be sure I understood and told the team he was ready. As the anesthesiologists started to hook me up he came over and told me that if I had any dreams about winning lottery numbers I had to share them with the team and told me everything would be alright. Less than a minute later I was knocked out!
And this is when things turn a little… scary…
This is generally an in and out, 15 minute procedure. You sit around for a bit afterwards, go home and take some Tylenol for a couple of days and you’re done. But that was too simple for me! I woke up about 2.5 hours after they knocked me out. I know that because I looked at the clock on the way in and it’s the first thing I saw when I woke up… in a hospital bed with about 3-4 IV drips going on me, those sticky heart rate monitor pads all over my chest, an oxygen mask and my nurse for the day hovering over me. She asked me if I was still nauseous and I shook my head, confused. I didn’t know that I had been; I guess I had previously woken up and not remembered. I looked around and didn’t see DH so I asked the other nurse that was now hovering if she could go find him. She did, and the first thing he did was look me up and down and say “Hi… how are you?” sounding a little concerned. All I could say was “I think I did something bad again” and my nurse smiled. She came over and explained that Dr. D had managed to get everything, as promised, but I had bled A LOT more than anyone had expected. My blood pressure dropped, my heart rate had slowed down, my breathing had become shallow, etc… you get the picture. I found out later on that I had also had a plasma transfusion because of the serious blood loss.
Now that I was more awake every single nurse was passing by, the doctors from the operating room came to check on me, and then Dr. D walked in to make sure I was ok. I told him that I was in a lot of pain and he said they would take care of that. (Note: Just to give you an idea, I was in so much pain I had bit my lower lip so badly in my sleep that still, one week later, I don’t have full feeling back yet.) Then I asked him how it went, aside from the obvious. Earlier during the week a nurse had called me a chicken because of all the eggs I was carrying around, but I proved her wrong; I wasn’t a chicken, I was the whole hen house! Dr. D managed to collect 41 eggs from me! 41! And over half of them were fully mature! Hurray! I asked another doctor if I had broken a record and he said he wasn’t sure if I had but I was certainly way up there!
As usual, the first pain medication they decided to try was codeine, despite my objection, and I was throwing up like clockwork. I hate that stuff. They decided to prescribe me oxycodone instead along with an antibiotic. They also had to give me something else to help with the OHSS and, because of this, told me that all embryos that came from this would have to be frozen for further use as my body was not in a state to transfer anything right now. They let me go home on the condition we went back the next morning for some blood tests and we agreed. Dr. D was there the next morning and stopped to chat in the hallway. He said he had checked in on our soccer-team-in-a-petri-dish, as I have been calling them, and was pleased to announce (to the whole hallway almost) that 16 of the 26 mature eggs had fertilized perfectly and in a few days they should be freezing all of them. Fantastic! Immature eggs are not used in IVF for those of you who are not aware, unless I only had a couple of good mature ones to work with and then they would have used my former IVM treatment on the others I was told. I had signed off earlier that anything unused would go to research so that is probably where they are.
I spent the next few days at home on oxycodone because the pain was just too much, but then I decided that the strong side effects were not worth it anymore; sleeping all day, constantly nauseous and no appetite. Not fun, so I changed to Tylenol and stayed home for a couple more days after the long weekend to recoup. A week later I felt almost back to my old self again.
