Right now, somewhere in a lab in Redondo Beach, my EIGHTEEN eggs are being introduced to hubby’s sperm in a petri dish. With a needle. “What do you think my eggs will think of your swimmers?” I asked him. “Would they be like, ‘So THIS is what she married? YOU guys?!’ ”
“I think it’ll be love at first sight,” he said confidently.

I got kicked out of bed this morning at 4:30am. Getting ready wasn’t hard, since I wasn’t allowed to wear contacts, makeup, or scented lotions. I just put on a comfy tee, sweatshirt, loose workout pants, socks, glasses, and I was on my way. Of course we got to the facility half an hour early for the 6:15am check-in time. My procedure was scheduled for 7am. I filled out some consent forms and Mr. W and I went to the back into a prep/recovery area with three hospital beds. I was told I could leave socks and my t-shirt on, but to change to the hospital gown. So here’s my fashionista self in that state:

The anesthesiologist came by and chatted with me about what to expect. Apparently I wasn’t going to go totally under; just enough to be buzzed. She said she’d watch me and keep me at just above a local anethesia so we don’t need breathing tubes and stuff. I told her I’m pretty cerebral so if I could feel something and recognize what’s going on, my brain goes into hyperdrive and I freak myself out. She said that won’t happen. Okay, if you say so. While we were waiting for my turn to go into OR, another patient came out and was put next to me, a curtain between us, to recover. A nurse asked how she was doing. She croaked some weak response. The nurse offered to get her anti-nausea medication, but only seconds later, I heard the patient throwing up. Oh, CRAP. Was that going to be me in a half hour? But the anesthesiologist had said that looking at me, it doesn’t appear I’d have any problems.
When they got ready to take me into the OR (just a room off the prep/recovery area where I was laying on a bed), Mr. W kissed me goodbye and off he went for his own procedure, 20 minutes away. The OR was FREEZING. I couldn’t get my legs to stop shaking. The anesthesiologist, a nice Asian woman, said I’m her little Asian girl patient so she felt like she knew how to take care of me. She swung out a little footstool so I could climb into the higher operating bed. I definitely needed that, and thanked her gratefully. As a surprise, my regular fertility doctor was assigned to do my procedure that day, even though we were told it would be a different doctor. I was happy to see him and he squeezed my toes through the blanket playfully. The anesthesiologist went to work trying to get an IV into my right forearm, but after a poke, couldn’t find my vein. She slapped around on my arm for awhile and said, “You are NOT the veiniest girl I’ve seen.” I did warn her nurses often had problems finding my veins. My fertility doctor came in and said, “I think you can’t find her veins because it’s too cold in here.” He brought me a HOT blanket to put over my chest, and another one to wrap my right arm in. A few minutes later, the anesthesiologist was able to find a good vein on the back of my hand, and she agreed the heat must’ve helped. And then she said she was going to administer something to get me buzzed. “If you’re the typical Asian girl, it wouldn’t take much,” she said. I said something about high tolerance, and she said, “No, Asians have low tolerance!” Some time went by when I gave some identifying information to another nurse, and my doctor told me to place my calves into stirrup type contraptions. I didn’t feel anything yet. Then, as I was looking up at the lights, suddenly it felt like the lights were trailing behind where my eyes went, exactly my first symptom of being buzzed. Like my vision was slower to follow my head turning. I told them, “OH, I’m feeling it now.” The nurse said something else and I answered her, and then hearing myself, I said, “I think I’m slurring.” I decided then to stop talking.
I was aware of the people in the room the entire time, I don’t think I fell asleep, although I did close my eyes a couple of times toward the end. There were two times when I knew the doctor was pushing something into my vagina that felt rough and uncomfortable, almost like how fabric would feel. I was an observer, but I had no cognitive activity. I had no opinions about it, no fears, I really didn’t care. Because I didn’t care, I didn’t even pay that much attention to them or what they were doing or saying, even though I was aware of them and their talking. I remember I was rather comfortable in that position, surrounded and covered by fresh hot blankets. At one point, when I thought they were still doing the preparation (I knew a nurse had to wash, then the doctor had to rinse), I realized the drapes were being taken off my legs. “That’s it? We’re done?” I slurred. My doctor came by and tucked something hard and square but nice and warm underneath my right forearm, saying that’s for me to warm up. I thanked him.
By the time I got from the OR into the recovery room where the beds were, I was clear-headed and my speech was normal. “How do you feel?” the nurse asked.
“Fine,” I said honestly. I felt the same twinges on both of my ovaries I’d been feeling the past couple of days, but it wasn’t unbearable in the least. I was mostly grateful I didn’t feel or sound like the woman in the next bed, who was still there, moaning and nauseated. I heard another nurse explain to that woman they were giving her more nausea medication.
I laid there for maybe 20 minutes while they kept the IV in me, and meanwhile I read a book I brought, and the nurse gave me 2 extra-strength Tylenol, a couple of saltine crackers, and a cup of apple juice. She encouraged me to get up and use the restroom. I said I didn’t feel like I had to go. She pointed to the nearly empty IV bag and said they dumped a lot of fluid in me, and it was important to them that I’m ABLE to pee. So she helped me put the IV on a wheeled pole and off I went with it to the restroom. “Just sit there until you’re able to go,” she instructed. Okay…a tablespoon later, I came out. She said it was fine.
They don’t think it’s necessary that I stay on a stringent diet, but because of how many follicles I have, my estrogen level will be high, which means I’m at risk for hyperstimulation. They said to stay off the refined white carbs, like white rice. I can’t even remember the last time I had white rice. They said wheat or grain bread, fruit carbs, that stuff was fine. So basically my normal diet makes them happy. Since I was clearly doing well and could walk and pee, the nurse took my vitals one last time, took the IV out, and discharged me a few minutes later. Oh, while she was removing the IV, she looked at the bed and said, “What’s this? How’d you get THIS over here?” and pulled out a small square plastic container filled with hot liquid. I didn’t know what it was, but I know my fertility doctor put it there to warm me up. She chuckled at his inventiveness. I waited for Mr. W in the now-full waiting room in the lobby. He called me soon after and said he was on his way, 8 minutes away.
He came in holding this:

The receptionist said they’ve never had someone deliver their own vial before, and let us into the back and led us to the lab area. Hubby handed his stuff to another nurse, who looked at me in surprise and said, “OH, you look GREAT!” She was one who was with me in the OR. Realizing who Mr. W was, she said, “And YOU look great for someone who’d JUST had a procedure!” He laughed.
“So how many eggs did you guy get from her?” hubby wanted to know.
“Eighteen,” she said.
He let out the most hickish cowboy “Whoo-hee!” I’d heard. But clearly he was happy cuz the more eggs, the better our selection.
“They’re not all mature,” she explained. “We’ll fertilize the best eggs and you’ll get a call tomorrow to let you know how many embryos we have. What would you like me to do with the leftover sperm? Would you like it frozen so you don’t have to go through that again?”
I looked at Mr. W and we both thought the same thing: extra expense. And since they were going to freeze the unused viable fertilized embryos, what use did we have for sperm? So he told her to go ahead and discard what’s left.
As we turned to leave, I asked the nurse, “Did she have to give me an extra dose of the drug?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “You weren’t a cheap date.” I knew I had high tolerance. Ha.

In the car, Mr. W described to me his procedure. He didn’t have the buzzy drug like I did; he just laid back and the urologist picked up one out of 10 needles the nurse had lined up on a tray, and he stuck it into the right scrotum. After aspirating (hubby said there was very little pain, but did feel a prick), the doctor said he’d be right back and went to an adjoining room with the syringe, to check for sperm under the microscope. He came back and said, “Nope. Nothing there.” Mr. W started getting nervous. The doctor tried again with the same scrotum. Ran off to the lab again. Returned, said, “Nope. Nothing.”
“Is that bad?” Mr. W asked, now imagining the worst: that he has no swimmers.
“No, it just means I didn’t get it in the right place.” The doctor changed needles again, and poked into the left scrotum. Repeated the procedure, ran off, came back and said, “I got it out of the left. The right one is blocked, I thought it might be.” The doctor dug into the left again for more swimmers, now that he knows where they are. Apparently he went in a couple of more times, each time making sure he had sufficient samples under the microscope. Mr. W thought there should’ve been hundreds pulled out. After Mr. W was done, the urologist let him look into the microscope, too. Mr. W saw one sperm “propelling” forward, another swimming in circles, another laying there kinda twitching, others looking curled and broken. He asked about those last ones, and the doctor said those may “wake up” later. The sample in the syringe got deposited into a test tube of pink fluid which is supposed to nourish and sustain the guys. Mr. W asked if there were any special way he had to carry the sperm in his transport. “No, just keep them close to your heart,” the urologist said, so Mr. W tucked the package into his front chest pocket. Apparently these little guys will live up to 7 days in this fluid.

Since we were so close to the beach, Mr. W drove us to brunch oceanside. This was our view at our table:

My only discharge instructions were to take it easy, to take extra strength Tylenol every 6 hours (the 6th hour just passed and I didn’t take a second dose, and the twinges have deepened to something less comfortable, but still not unbearable), not to eat refined carbs, not to do any twisting motions, to call the doctor if the pain were more severe than menstrual cramps and if I bled more than I would on a normal period, and to get up every so often and move around. I haven’t laid back down since I’d gotten up from that hospital bed 7 hours ago, but after the hospital was the beach, and we walked a little bit there, and when we got home, my stepkidlet had to catch me up on all the stuff that’s happened recently with her social life (so entertaining I didn’t need painkillers). Mr. W took a nap as he wasn’t as interested in girl talk, and he woke up in pain. I checked out his boo-boos…the left side had small purple bruises under the skin.

By the way, Rebecca called it on one side of his scrotum not working…LAST SUMMER before we started all this. Looking back, I think she even did say the right side, the way it’s shown to her, was the one that wouldn’t “take” because of some problem with the duct not connecting properly. Just like she called it yesterday saying my procedure today would be smooth and problem-free.