15 Eggs, and 3 Old Maids

Weight: 157.4 lbs
Mood: I'm in pain yet pleased
Medications: Doxycylcline twice per day

Egg retrival was this morning. I slept in until 6:45 am, showered, picked up the kitchen and tried to distract myself from my early morning hunger with gum. I wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything since midnight, but I know how easily I get dehydrated so I sipped water here and there to prevent that headache. I still had to take the antibiotic this morning. It has big red stickers...Take with 8oz water and take with meals. Of course I can't, so first 45 minutes after it hits my stomach are miserable. I thought I was gonna loose my cookies right there.

We waited until the last second for dh to produce his sample, hopped in the car and drove up to GR. I was driving and was too out of it being sick over the antibiotics to care that we where stuck behind a truck going 45 mph. We got there in plenty of time and got the parking spot closest to the door. I didn't want to have to navigate more than the one flight of stairs necessary to get out of RE's office. By the time we got there the worst of the antibiotic upset was over.

Going in there at 9:30 am is much more sedate than the 8:00 am rush. Nurse #2 got us squared away with urine samples, dh's blood sample, and the final consent to surgical procedure paperwork. They had me in a hospital gown and hooked up to heart rate moniter and blood pressure cuff while they where processing dh. I got to play a little with biofeedback on the moniters. My sitting heart rate was between 48-58 which set off the alarms when it dropped below 50. My blood pressure was in the 105/75 area.

My RE pops in, puts on his little surgical booties, hat & mask and proceeds to start my IV. He serenaded me with the little ditty "You're so vein, you probably think this needle is for you, you're so vein...." I musta been out of it, cause he was on the second refrain before I got the pun.

Dh gets to watch all garbed up in the corner. Nurse #1 joins us and fires up the good drugs. I assume the normal position and the drugs kick in. I know I was in pain. I can remember trying to resist it and stay relaxed. I remember both "excursions" into the ovaries, but I cannot remember any conversations going on around me. Dh says my face grimaced up and occasionally I would moan.

I don't really remember coming out of it. My first real memory is of Nurse #2 asking me if I'd like to sit up and Nurse #1 bringing in a juice box. Food! I wanted that juice box something fierce. They let me recover for a while. Sometime in there someone I asked what we got and Nurse #2 said 18 total eggs, 15 mature and 3 atretic (too old). Pretty good for the 17 follicles we found on Monday.

Nurse handed me some wash rags and a maxi pad. Now I expected blood, but geeze I left a mess on the table. I guess I assumed that follicles where full of clear liquid, dh assures me I was wrong. I was mobile at the point but still drugged enough to shuffle about and get dressed without assistance. Dh helped me down to the car and we where off in the bright morning sun, 2 hours after we arrived.

As we drove home and the drugs wore off the pain got bad. I had to eventually lie down. At first I wanted to stop in GR for lunch, then looking at the time I thought we could hold out for Hastings, by the time we got to the M-6 I just wanted to go home and sleep it felt so bad. I almost collapsed twice it was so bad walking into the house, but dh got me installed on the couch with an afgan and a Vicodin. An hour later I was fine and looking for decaf coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. Confort foods extrodinare! Even now it's like very, very bad constipation.

We'll go to the Walldorff tonight and since I'm doing a 5 day transfer I'm thinking beer, bbq, and dessert!