Two Shooting Stars

On April 13, D and I went to CRM for the scheduled retrieval. While D, loopy from the Twilight anesthesia, was wheeled into the operating room, I was asked to sit in a tiny waiting room where I could watch the entire procedure on a small television monitor. I watched as a needle-like instrument punctured D's bloated follicles, which look like big black balloons on an otherwise white and grayish image of her uterus and ovaries, and deflated them one by one. All of the follicles were drained in about ten minutes and afterwards Dr. Devane poked his head into the waiting room and said, "They've already found six, but there might be more." I was able to spend the next twenty minutes in a tiny curtained room with D while she recovered. She was very loopy, but seemed to enjoy the drugs, remarking that it felt like drinking a couple Pina Coladas while laying in a hammock in the sun. Talking to her was like talking to someone with short term memory loss -- I'd ask her if she remembered me telling her what I had just told her, and she'd smile and say no. Finally, the drugs wore off, and Dr. Devane came in to tell us that the total count of eggs was eleven. Eleven? How could there be eleven when there were only three or maybe five mature ones two days before? The next day, we received a call from a nurse at the Center with "the fert count," which in laymen speak is the number of eggs that fertilized. We were told that eleven of the eleven eggs fertilized -- half through the normal method and half through ICSI (where one sperm is selected and injected into the egg). D and I were dumbstruck. Eleven out of eleven? The transfer was scheduled for this morning (Saturday, April 16). Dr. Jaffe gave us pictures of the embryos -- grade 1, which is the best, and grade 2, which is almost as good, and explained that three others looked like they were going to keep growing to blastocycts. If the three grade 2's continue to grow and divide normally until Monday, then they will be frozen for future use. During the transfer, D didn't get any Pina Coladas. Instead, she was told to take one valium right before the procedure (for cramping afterwards), and I was off to the waiting room again. This time, on the monitor's hazy image, I was able to make out two bright, shining lights (like little stars) being set free into D's womb. Two shooting stars and I made a wish. Now, D is on bed rest and we're both going just a little crazy watching movies from the couch. Staying still can be pretty exhausting.