I have a quick question that I would like to pose to my readers before I begin my blog: Do you weigh more after you fart? I mean… hot air rises. These are the things I think about all day long.
Now back to our feature presentation…
After a few appointments to check on the progress of the eggs, we were given some exciting news. “We extract the eggs tomorrow”, said Dr. Vaughn. My heart was racing; this was HUGE news. We were scheduled for 9am the next morning. That night, to stimulate the eggs, I had to give Christi a shot of HSG. This shot was to be given at exactly the right time “and not 1 minute later”, according to doctor’s orders. Damn, I’m late to work every day and they expect me to do something I hate doing… on time? Long story short, the shot was on time and we were ready for the extraction.
The extraction is made up of four main steps:
- The eggs are taken from Christi
- I provide the sperm
- Using the tiniest of tweezers, inject the sperm into the egg
- Hope like hell it works
That night neither of us slept a bit. There were so many questions that were floating in my brain all night long:
- What if the eggs are too big… or too small?
- What if my “swimmers” weren’t good enough?
- Would I have stage-fright right before the big dance?
- What if that little drawer they keep the porn in at the hospital was empty?
We were at the hospital early that morning. The nurse escorted us to our room and instructed Christi to put on the required paper clothing. The embryologist came to the room and escorted me to my little love nest at the same time Christi was wheeled into surgery. Christi returned from surgery 30 minutes after I had returned from taking care of business. Based on my calculations, her surgery took 31.5 minutes (I am proving to perform well under pressure).
Christi on anesthesia isn’t much different from Christi on Jack Daniels. She asks the same questions repeatedly and rubs her face a lot. In addition, Christi didn’t hide her face when the camera came out. She took photos of the doctor, hospital bed, windows, IV stand, carpet, and herself without makeup. Ok, I am getting worried now.
Daniel: Twenty-three, baby you did wonderful
Christi: That’s awesome. How many eggs did we have?
Daniel: Twenty-three, that’s great news.
Christi: Yes, but how many eggs did they get?
Daniel: Twenty-three. I’m so proud.
Christi: How many eggs did they get…?
Daniel: Twenty-three
Christi: Can I have some ice cream?
I’ll stop there but this went on for a while. The next step was to wait two days to see how many fertilized. We were hoping for all twenty-three but would be happy if just one made it through. The embryologist takes over from here. They watch the fertilized eggs constantly and make sure the cells start to split. All we need is one… come on baby!
