A long-ass recap of our Seattle trip.

Ok.  I think it's about time to put our Seattle trip down in writing!

We left on Friday, November 22nd.  We of course, drove all day as it is like a 12 hour drive the Seattle from here.  But through Spokane, we came to a halt in traffic on the interstate!!  In all the times I have driven through Spokane, I've never had that happen.  I kept thinking, there is NO way this is rush hour.  We ended up in traffic for over an hour (which kind of sucks when you still have like 6 hours left in your drive.)  But anyway, turns out a grain truck spilled all over the road.  Crazy stuff!  Anyway, fast-forward to later that night, we finally get to my aunt's house in federal way.  My uncle was asleep on the couch, my aunt was up, and my cousin Jack had been asleep since like 7.  lol  G and I were pretty much toast so we went to bed immediately

The next morning, we had our appointment at SRM. They did a trial run of the transfer procedure to make sure there was no weird quirky things with my uterus.  That all went well.  Then they checked my follies.  At the point, I was soooo nervous because the last U/S I had, there was 60+ follies all around the same size.  But this U/S went well.  I had about 24 that had taken off and were about in the ripe stage.  They told us to trigger the next night.  I was pretty stoked because that put us 2 days ahead of schedule!  

After our appointment, we were through the roof because that meant at the very least, we would get to do the retrieval.  I was worried the whole cycle might get cancelled because of OHSS.  But at least the retrieval was going to happen.  So we went on some adventures after that appointment and did what any normal, mature couple trying to become parents would do:  Go to an arcade.  Garrett spent a good chunk of time doing that game where you use the hammer and hit the peg to see how tough you are.  Haha!  I spent most of my quarters on those claw machines.  I won 2 stuffed animals.  lol.  If I were to have a gambling problem, that would be it!!!

So we kind of just bummed around Seattle and Federal Way until Monday, our retrieval day.  I should probably mention the intramuscular hcg shot G had to give me didn't hurt AT ALL.  I was surprised.  I was dreading that shot as soon as I saw that needle in our IVF kit.  But he did a fabulous job!  Anyway, so we are getting ready to leave that Monday morning and my uncle knocks on our door to inform us we may want to leave a little early because Obama was in town getting ready to fly out.  Federal Way is like 20-ish miles from Seattle, so rather than risk being late to our retrieval, we decided to leave asap.  There was some traffic but no roads were shut down so it wasn't terrible.  We got there early and headed to our "usual" little coffee shop.  G got his dark hot chocolate and I got...well, nothing because I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything.  And I was so thirsty!!! 

 

Here's Garrett and I on the way to our retrieval!!!

 

SRM!

 

The lobby of the SRM building!

 

Getting ready for retrieval.  G had me laughing so hard right here.  I thought we were going to get kicked out.  Haha!  At this point, you are separated from other patients by 2 walls and a curtain.  So you can hear other patients' heart rates.  I was trying to make my heart rate slower than everyone else for some reason.    G said he was going to go scare the other patients so that theirs went up.  When they were about to take me away, I told G not to forget to film his contribution.  lol.  I thought I was pretty clever.  After I went into the retrieval room, all I remember is the anesthesiologist asking what I like to do and I told him painting, then they slapped those little round sticky things on me and I was out!!!

 

Woke up and I thing G was already there.  I didn't have much pain at all.  Just what felt like bad cramps from a period.  G said I was a little loopy in the fact that I kept asking about how I got back into this other bed.  I couldn't comprehend how I got from that operating room back to the rest area.  And honestly, I still don't know and I still want to know.  lol. After allowing for me to wake up a bit more, I started to get up and get dressed.  They handed G a prescription for a painkiller for me and I had to laugh a little.  I never did fill it.  Pshh.  I don't need that business!  My mom wanted a post-retrieval pic, so here it is!!  Oh, and they were able to get 20 eggs.  That's all we knew at that point. 

 

We got a call from them the next day letting us know that out of the 20 eggs, 15 were mature and all 15 fertilized!!!!  They also let us know that since we had so many, we would be doing a day 5 transfer.  So now was a waiting game.  Well, another waiting game.  This whole process is a waiting game.  So while our embies were "cooking," G and I went shopping, went to and IMAX theater, I worked on this 1000 piece puzzle from my brother and sister-in-law (notice the image of a mama, daddy and baby snowman!) while G played his Star Wars game.  

 

The bestie got us a hotel room for my birthday at a hotel just a few blocks from SRM so we stayed there for a night and watched a bunch of Charlie Brown episodes!  lol.  So romantic.  Haha!  But really, for G and I, it was a perfect night to ourselves!  Plus, it was really cool to know we were sleeping only a few blocks away from our "kids."

 

Transfer day was pretty exciting.  This was walking down the hall of SRM towards the lab/surgery where our transfer would happen!

 

The embryologist (who shares the same birthday as me!) came in to give us our report.  Basically, we have bad ass embies.  We ended up with 4 top quality embryos and 2 that would be transferred together.  She was amazed by the quality of our embryos.  She said you could not have had any better quality.  That was pretty awesome to hear!!!!  She gave us this picture of our embie that they were transferring. 

 

I have to mention the fact that I had to have a full bladder for this procedure.   After they embryologist left, we waited for the doctor.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Pretty soon, I was in so much pain from holding in my pee.  That was definitely the worst part of this whole process.  I told G that he was going to have to get someone or I was going to pee myself.  lol.  So he went out and found a nurse, and she let me pee enough to fill a cup and it was just enough to take the edge off.  Holy buckets.  It was terrible.  I was so much better after that.  

Finally, the doctor came in and we got to see live footage of our embie before it got transferred.  Coolest thing ever!!!!! 

We took off for home the next day.  Again, we ran into a traffic jam on the way home where we were stopped on the interstate.  Crazy that it happened on the way there and the way back.  I'm not sure what was causing this one other than it was raining and people are pansies when they drive.  There was no real explanation as to why there was such a hold-up.  But at this point, I was so ready to be home!  I was homesick and missed my dogs!!!

 We FINALLY made it home and I plopped on our couch with our picture of our embie and just stared at it and thought of it digging a nice comfy place to stay for 9 months! 

The next week was the hardest ever.  I started off really chipper then as days went on, I started to get that sinking feeling.  The not-knowing was killing me.  Plus, I've had horrible sciatic nerve issues that have made things a lot harder to deal with.  My usual outlets for stress are working out really hard and painting.  Both are being hindered because my workout/art studio has no heat.  And it's been -20F to -50F degrees out so there's no way I can do anything out there.  But, I made it.  Tomorrow is my blood test...BUT, I happen to take a pregnancy test today.  I think it's broken...