The bun is in the oven

I mean - it's IN there but we don't know yet if it'll stay!  No positive pregnancy test yet...not for another week, in fact.  But our transfer was yesterday morning so there is technically a little, itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny, microscopic bun in my oven and we just hope it stays there for 9 healthy months!

Please bake for a full 9 months little bun!!!

Relatively speaking the transfer was a piece of cake.  If you think about what we've gone through to get to this point it was almost shocking how easy it was.  Hubby kept needing clarification that I was not going to be under anesthesia again and even asked if I'd be "wheeled from acupuncture to the transfer"!!  (more on the acupuncture, shortly.)  But thankfully Hubby was wrong.  Easy-peasy and really at the end of the day, quite relaxing!

We were full steam ahead after my lining/blood check (a week ago today).  I'd been continuing the meds and supplements and feeling great overall.  I had my days planned full of activities right up until the day before transfer; full of meeting friends and parties and hiking.  I was feeling great overall.

When I was in for my initial consult with Dr. A (about 3 weeks ago) somehow acupuncture came up while we were chatting and she said that it has been shown to improve implantation success and infertility overall.  Since I knew my insurance covered it, I kinda figured why not go ahead and add it in?  A lot of fertility clinics have in-house acupuncture these days, and fortunately one of the higher rated infertility acupuncture businesses in our area is located out of the same fertility clinic where we did our retrievals and transfer!  No brainer!

I set up an acupuncture consult and my first session within the last week.  Eastern medicine is totally new to me and I can't lie that I've always been a little skeptical, but when it comes to the numbers they told me (65% additional success rate above what Dr. A had already given us for transfer, and an overall higher % success for the fertility clinic overall since they first brought in acupuncture), I'd say it's definitely worth a try.  Doing acupuncture at the fertility clinic makes transfer day super convenient since they want to do a session before and after the transfer and it's all there in the same location.

So here's how the day went:

In order to do an embryo transfer, the doctor needs your bladder full.  Not like SO-uncomfortable-OMG-I'm-gonna-pee-on-my-doctor full (yes, I've heard of that happening), but just full.  Like you don't quite feel like you need to pee, but you certainly could go.  They showed me on the ultrasound later how when the bladder is full you can see it (and therefore the doctor knows where exactly in the uterus the embryo should be placed - near the top).  If the bladder was not full, you would not see the bladder on the ultrasound.

The embryo goes near the top of the uterus

So I was required to drink 2 8-ounce glasses of water within 2 hours of my transfer.  I measured it into my water bottle that morning and started in on it with my morning meds.  Then I continued sipping on it throughout the morning until we left for the clinic.

Hubby and I got a check-in time (from Dr. A) of 10:45, with transfer at 11am.  So knowing that, I scheduled my acupuncture, which takes about half an hour, at 10am.  Like I mentioned, it's all in the same facility - just down different hallways - so it was super convenient.  Doing acupuncture beforehand was not only good for my internal body, but also greatly helped to calm my nerves.  It was, after all, a very exciting day, and I was pretty anxious!  After acupuncture I took a valium with a few more sips of my water.  They want you super relaxed during the procedure because adrenaline can cause the uterus to contract.

As we waited for them to usher us back from the waiting room I finished up the last of my water.  I was worried I'd FEEL like I needed to pee during the whole procedure, but that's not the case.  In fact I felt great - very relaxed after the valium and acupuncture.

We were taken to a very small room with one of those "comfortable" looking reclining medical chairs with the massive stirrups in front.  There was a a tiny table/tray for Dr. A, an ultrasound machine next to the chair, and then a door to the embryology lab literally a few feet from the machine.  I seriously think the room was no larger than a handicapped bathroom stall.

But it was not uncomfortable and it was small because it didn't need to be large - everyone was there to...well, honestly... work on me!

Before we got started, Dr. A handed us our (hopefully) first baby picture!!:

Our 5AA blast was just hatching out of its shell

Beautiful, isn't it?  Our little one looked so good, Dr. A has been giving us a 90% chance of pregnancy success for this transfer.  Gosh, I hope so...

And then we got started.

First, a nurse used the ultrasound (on my abdomen, not transvaginal) to check how full my bladder was.  She deemed me "good enough" and we called Dr. A into the room.  Dr. A inserted a speculum (the thing your Dr. inserts when you get a pap smear) to have visibility/access to my cervix.  After a quick cleaning with a warm solution, she inserted a catheter through my cervix (totally not painful) and got it in place in my uterus.  Then she pressed a doorbell next to the door to the embryology lab (I told you the room was small: she could still reach it!)  The only slightly awkward or perhaps even comical part was now: while we were waiting for the embryologist.  It takes them a few minutes because they're double, triple, and quadruple checking that the embryo we wanted transferred is the one they have in their straw to deliver.  So while we waited, with the nurse holding the ultrasound on my abdomen, Dr. A holding the catheter in my uterus, and Hubby and I both watching the ultrasound screen - we started some small talk... current TV shows, the weather's really been getting a lot nicer - do you have allergies?  yah...I do too, it's awful... OH thank God, the embryologist is back!

"do you have allergies with this nice weather?..."

The embryologist confirmed my name and which embryo we were transferring (it happened to be #2 from our second retrieval).  And we were ready to move forward again.  The embryologist had our embryo in a pipette/thin straw which I *think* she then placed through the catheter while Dr. A positioned.  To be honest, I wasn't watching what these women were doing because I was watching the screen.  We could totally see when the little tiny ball of fluid (containing our embryo) was deposited in its spot.  Amazing.  Dr. A even got a picture of it for us:

And that was it!!  The little bun was in the oven.  It took maybe 15 minutes.

I was asked to recline there for another 5 minutes - Dr. A stayed to answer any questions we had.  Then they had me get up to use the restroom and finally empty that bladder (but honestly, I hadn't even been noticing it.)

I returned to the acupuncture offices for another half hour of acupuncture and then we were on our way home!

Dr. A wanted me to take it easy for a couple days so Hubby and I both took yesterday and today off work.  He'll return to the office tomorrow and I'll continue working from home for the week.  SO LUCKY I can work with my manager to have this flexibility.

Hubby has been AMAZING.  We have reasonably traditional gender roles around our house (with me handling all the cooking, most of the laundry, bills, grocery shopping, even taking the garbage out) but he took over with gusto and has been wonderful about making sure I'm comfortable.

This is what yesterday (and most of today) looked like - literally.

Part of my "Eastern Medicine" instructions included eating the core of a pineapple, on an empty stomach, over the first 4 days after transfer (including the day of the transfer).  What I've read is that the core of the pineapple (not the meat) contains bromelain, an enzyme which can aid in implantation by acting as a blood thinner/anticoagulant and also acting as an anti-inflammatory agent.  My acupuncture Dr. said to slice a pineapple widthwise into 4 even segments, then use a cookie cutter to cut the core of the pineapple out and not to eat the meat (JUST the core - I cheated and ate a little meat too though cuz it was so yummy!)  I ate my first portion yesterday, after I came home from the transfer, had some this morning and will continue the next 2 days.  Don't eat any more pineapple after this...just the core for the first four days.  Supposedly it helps implantation!  Hey I love pineapple and if this can help - no brainer!

Yummy pineapple...core.

So far I can't say I'm feeling any different than usual overall.  I probably shouldn't have had beans for lunch yesterday cuz I started wondering if the gassy feeling I've had the last couple days has anything to do with our little embryo... *dumb move*  I was EXHAUSTED last night and slept for about 10 hours (rare for me, especially lately) but I HAD taken a valium yesterday too.  So I'm trying really hard not to get obsessive about these body quirks.

I found this article online about what happens in the body after a 3 day or 5 day embryo transfer.  I'll paste the 5-day version here:

Days Past 5-day Transfer	Embryo Development
one	The blastocyst begins to hatch out of its shell
two	The blastocyst continues to hatch out of its shell and begins to attach itself to the uterus
three	The blastocyst attaches deeper into the uterine lining, beginning implantation
four	Implantation continues
five	Implantation is complete, cells that will eventually become the placenta and fetus have begun to develop
six	Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) starts to enter the blood stream
seven	Fetal development continues and hCG continues to be secreted
eight	Fetal development continues and hCG continues to be secreted
nine	Levels of hCG are now high enough to detect a pregnancy

It seems a lot of IVF blogs reference this, so hopefully it's accurate.  Since our pregnancy blood test is scheduled for 8 days past transfer and I know our blastocyst was already hatching out of its shell when we transferred it, I believe I'm about a day ahead of this schedule.

I'll try to update more over the next few days.  Especially if I notice anything odd going on with my body.  Since I wasn't having any side effects from the Crinone (progesterone) before the transfer, I wouldn't expect to have any now - so any odd feelings I have before blood test day, may be worth sharing.  I might "break the rules" and do a home pregnancy test near the end of the weekend (the first day Dr. A thought my urine MIGHT (might) detect hCG to get a positive).  But we'll see if I can just remain patient enough...  In the meantime I've downloaded a couple nonfiction books to my Kindle to try and keep my mind off IVF, FET, hCG etc.  Hopefully they're good enough that I'll get absorbed in them and not constantly Google "what to expect 3dp5dt, 4dp5dt, 6dp5dt"...

Stick little bun! Stick!!