Saturday morning went great.
We arrived at 900 North Michigan Ave. in Chicago right on time, bright and early at 5:30 a.m. I'm very familiar with the 900 North building - there is a whole beautiful mall/shopping center there that my family would visit during our annual pre-Christmas Chicago day, where we would walk Michigan Avenue, visit the Christmas tree and windows at Marshall Field's, and head to the 900 North Michigan shops, mostly to see the large Christmas tree and huge wreath...and to visit the Jessica McClintock boutique, where we girls would ooh and aah over all of the dresses.
I had no idea that 900 North also housed a surgery center!
Anyway, we were one of a handful of couples slated for the earliest surgery slots, and very quickly after arriving, we'd filled out all of our paperwork and were ushered to a small room that would serve as both pre-op and recovery for me.
I changed into a hospital gown, stashed all of my belongings into the cabinet next to my bed, pulled the thin blanket over me, and tried to keep calm. The room was pleasantly mood-lit, and there was a beautiful panoramic picture of fall trees on the wall ahead of me. But even so, I had various bouts of flat-out trembling, that was part anxiety and part being cold (the thin blanket was not doing nearly enough to keep me warm). It was even worse once they put in my IV. First of all, let me say that IVs in the hand hurt way worse than IVs in the arm. Second of all, when you're already cold, you feel even colder when they start pumping you with cold fluids.
I know that I didn't wait very long in that room between arrival and IV, and between IV and surgery, but when you're anxious, time passes SO SLOWLY!
Finally, Dr. Morris came in to get me. I found it oddly sweet and comforting that he, himself, was the one to wheel me down the hallway to my OR. And he carried my IV bag for me as I walked the ten steps from my wheely bed to the bed in the OR. He told me that they needed the back of my gown open, and went to try to untie the ties one-handed...and failed miserably. I probably SHOULD have been feeling strange and vulnerable because someone was about to expose my naked backside...but instead I got a little chuckle out of the fact that he had to hand off my IV bag to the anesthesiologist and use two hands to untie what were, apparently, invincible bows that Matt had tied in the back of my gown.
I slid onto the table, and the anesthesiologist told me that he was giving me medication that would make me drift off, and I was surprising non-anxious about all of this. I remember lying there after he gave me the medication and thinking, "Wow. It's taking me a long time to drift off." Though I'm pretty sure that it was all of about fifteen seconds between medication and my drifting off...
The next thing I remember, I was waking up back in my original room. At the time, I remember being pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to wake up and how alert I felt. Looking back, I realize that I wasn't alert AT ALL. I consented to Matt taking a picture of me with my oxygen tube still in my nose, but was totally unaware of it, and about ten minutes later, called him over to my bed and said "You should take a picture of me like this." Oops. (By the way, the oxygen tube picture is really bad. I look stoned. And sleepy. And weirdly fat. Definitely a picture for my eyes only...)
I came around pretty quickly, though, for the most part. They sat me up and gave me juice and graham crackers. I remember the nurse asking me what kind of juice I wanted, and she started listing varieties, and she said "apple" first, and I said, "yes, apple!" and then changed my mind when she said they also had cranberry.
Despite some of the more embarrassing or strange moments of grogginess, I was so happy throughout recovery that I felt good. When I woke up from my ectopic surgery, I felt sick and dizzy and I didn't like it at all. And it took me a LONG time to feel awake, stable, and human. This was NOTHING like that. I finished my juice and one of the crackers, and then was given the all-clear to get dressed and leave whenever I felt like it.
I was a little unsteady as I got dressed and walked myself out, but not dizzy. I remember bits and pieces of walking to the elevator, getting in the car, paying for parking, and driving up Michigan Avenue...though I quickly fell asleep in the car, and again, looking back, I am surprised by how out of it I actually was, despite how awake and alert I thought I was in the moment.
We were back home by 8:45, and we both crawled into bed and took a two-hour nap, because we were exhausted from having been up since 4:00 a.m. I woke up feeling totally human, not at all in pain, and feeling really quite good.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around, watching a fabulous stage production of "Phantom of the Opera" on PBS, and Matt had a fantasy baseball draft, and I took another nap later in the afternoon while watching a Cubs spring training game. I was feeling good enough that I finished cleaning up the apartment so that things would look nice when my parents came over that evening to bring us dinner. We all had a great evening together, eating homemade chicken pot pie and salad and bread pudding for dessert. We watched Wipeout and laughed a lot, and then watched three episodes of Arrested Development and also laughed a lot.
I am so pleased that things went well, and that I felt so good after surgery, even if I was a little loopy for a while. Retrieval was the thing I was most scared about, and the thing I was most dreading, and it was far easier than I had expected.
When I was out of surgery, Dr. Morris told Matt that they had gotten 18 eggs. Sunday night, I got the full embryology report, which told me that they actually retrieved 19 eggs, and 17 of them were mature, and that 11 of them had fertilized. I don't know if 11 is a good number or a bad number, but it seems good to me.
Now we sit and wait, and hope that a good chunk of those 11 continue to grow, and that many of them are good quality, and that many of them pass genetic testing. If all goes well, blastocyst transfer will take place this Friday morning! I'd love to have two to transfer and two or three to freeze, but I need to remind myself that if we even get one to transfer, that is at least one shot, and it only takes one...
We arrived at 900 North Michigan Ave. in Chicago right on time, bright and early at 5:30 a.m. I'm very familiar with the 900 North building - there is a whole beautiful mall/shopping center there that my family would visit during our annual pre-Christmas Chicago day, where we would walk Michigan Avenue, visit the Christmas tree and windows at Marshall Field's, and head to the 900 North Michigan shops, mostly to see the large Christmas tree and huge wreath...and to visit the Jessica McClintock boutique, where we girls would ooh and aah over all of the dresses.
I had no idea that 900 North also housed a surgery center!
Anyway, we were one of a handful of couples slated for the earliest surgery slots, and very quickly after arriving, we'd filled out all of our paperwork and were ushered to a small room that would serve as both pre-op and recovery for me.
 |
| This is me, waiting. I look far happier than I actually felt! |
I know that I didn't wait very long in that room between arrival and IV, and between IV and surgery, but when you're anxious, time passes SO SLOWLY!
Finally, Dr. Morris came in to get me. I found it oddly sweet and comforting that he, himself, was the one to wheel me down the hallway to my OR. And he carried my IV bag for me as I walked the ten steps from my wheely bed to the bed in the OR. He told me that they needed the back of my gown open, and went to try to untie the ties one-handed...and failed miserably. I probably SHOULD have been feeling strange and vulnerable because someone was about to expose my naked backside...but instead I got a little chuckle out of the fact that he had to hand off my IV bag to the anesthesiologist and use two hands to untie what were, apparently, invincible bows that Matt had tied in the back of my gown.
I slid onto the table, and the anesthesiologist told me that he was giving me medication that would make me drift off, and I was surprising non-anxious about all of this. I remember lying there after he gave me the medication and thinking, "Wow. It's taking me a long time to drift off." Though I'm pretty sure that it was all of about fifteen seconds between medication and my drifting off...
The next thing I remember, I was waking up back in my original room. At the time, I remember being pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to wake up and how alert I felt. Looking back, I realize that I wasn't alert AT ALL. I consented to Matt taking a picture of me with my oxygen tube still in my nose, but was totally unaware of it, and about ten minutes later, called him over to my bed and said "You should take a picture of me like this." Oops. (By the way, the oxygen tube picture is really bad. I look stoned. And sleepy. And weirdly fat. Definitely a picture for my eyes only...)
 |
| Cranberry juice and graham crackers, and a big smile to show everybody that I'm through surgery and feeling good! |
I came around pretty quickly, though, for the most part. They sat me up and gave me juice and graham crackers. I remember the nurse asking me what kind of juice I wanted, and she started listing varieties, and she said "apple" first, and I said, "yes, apple!" and then changed my mind when she said they also had cranberry.
Despite some of the more embarrassing or strange moments of grogginess, I was so happy throughout recovery that I felt good. When I woke up from my ectopic surgery, I felt sick and dizzy and I didn't like it at all. And it took me a LONG time to feel awake, stable, and human. This was NOTHING like that. I finished my juice and one of the crackers, and then was given the all-clear to get dressed and leave whenever I felt like it.
I was a little unsteady as I got dressed and walked myself out, but not dizzy. I remember bits and pieces of walking to the elevator, getting in the car, paying for parking, and driving up Michigan Avenue...though I quickly fell asleep in the car, and again, looking back, I am surprised by how out of it I actually was, despite how awake and alert I thought I was in the moment.
We were back home by 8:45, and we both crawled into bed and took a two-hour nap, because we were exhausted from having been up since 4:00 a.m. I woke up feeling totally human, not at all in pain, and feeling really quite good.
We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around, watching a fabulous stage production of "Phantom of the Opera" on PBS, and Matt had a fantasy baseball draft, and I took another nap later in the afternoon while watching a Cubs spring training game. I was feeling good enough that I finished cleaning up the apartment so that things would look nice when my parents came over that evening to bring us dinner. We all had a great evening together, eating homemade chicken pot pie and salad and bread pudding for dessert. We watched Wipeout and laughed a lot, and then watched three episodes of Arrested Development and also laughed a lot.
I am so pleased that things went well, and that I felt so good after surgery, even if I was a little loopy for a while. Retrieval was the thing I was most scared about, and the thing I was most dreading, and it was far easier than I had expected.
When I was out of surgery, Dr. Morris told Matt that they had gotten 18 eggs. Sunday night, I got the full embryology report, which told me that they actually retrieved 19 eggs, and 17 of them were mature, and that 11 of them had fertilized. I don't know if 11 is a good number or a bad number, but it seems good to me.
Now we sit and wait, and hope that a good chunk of those 11 continue to grow, and that many of them are good quality, and that many of them pass genetic testing. If all goes well, blastocyst transfer will take place this Friday morning! I'd love to have two to transfer and two or three to freeze, but I need to remind myself that if we even get one to transfer, that is at least one shot, and it only takes one...
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