Embryo Transfer!!!

The baby-to-be has landed!

First, we got there and our super sweet nurse came in and told us all about how the procedure was going to go from start to finish so we knew exactly what to expect. She was so nice and seemed to be genuinely excited for us. She gave me a list of post-transfer instructions and a list of drugs that are okay to take during pregnancy. So it looks like no swimming, and no dying my hair after today but we CAN have sex! (After a few days, which is awesome because originally they were saying I might be on pelvic rest afterward for up to the entire pregnancy depending on how many embryos and if there are any complications etc... and this soon to be pregnant girl has some majorly pent up sexual frustration after all the shots and abstaining the last couple weeks!) 

   So after the Nurse prepped us, our Embryologist, Andrea, came in with doctor's order for restricted activity and a stack of pictures of our embryos! Ryan got a little teary-eyed seeing the pictures especially when she piointed out the little mass of cells that would become our baby. He's such a sensitive guy. We got to see each one of the thirty embryos and she explained one by one what was going on in them and which she recommended we transfer (turned out we 17 good quality embryos today). She told us that they are perfectly comfortable transfering 1 or 2 embryos for us because of our history. So Ryan and I had a few minutes to discuss it and we came to the conclusion that we should only transfer one embryo because we really don't want multiples (and having to do another round of IVF with frozen embryos is better than going home with twins or triplets or worse... although we could get our own tv show... "Min and Rye plus 9" ).  The picture to the right is our little embie. The one with the arrow pointing at it is the one bouncing around in my Ute as I type this :)

Next came the acupuncturist, Jeaneane. (She introduced her self to Rye as "I'm the one who's been poking your wife"... "she takes it really well"...  LOL!) We did a treatment and a guided meditation, and just relaxed in the room. We showed her the pictures of our embryos and she oooh'd and ahh'd over them with us for a little bit. Over the course of the 2 hours we were there, a lot of our nurses, assistants, acupuncturist, embryologists and others who had worked with us over the past year came in to wish us luck and give hugs. It really feels like you have a team behind you there . Dr. Kettel and Dr. Hummel has an amazing clinic staffed with dedicated and caring people. I couldn't have asked for a better support team!  Visit their website at http://www.sdfertility.com/.

Finally, Dr. Kettel came in and discussed with us the pros and cons of transfering one or two embryos and completely agreed with our decision to transfer only one. He had me lay back with my feet in the stir ups and watch a screen that was mounted behind him where the embryologist was loading a catheter with our embie using a camera mounted to her microscope. Our embryology nurse from the retrieval, Cori, came in to assist and set up the monitor for us. We got to watch them isolate the embryo, and suck it up into the catheter in the lab as Dr. Kettel and Cori prepped me on the table. It really didn't feel that much worse than a regular pap smear, but it was getting kinda crowded down there with all the people and tools... kinda wierd. A moment or two later, Andrea walked in with the filled catheter and they slowly inserted the tube and released the little ball of sunshine into my uterus. It showed up on the ultra sound as a little ball of light, which was really heart warming.. as corny as it may seem. Check out Rye's video of the transfer... (but don't worry there are no Spike Lee angles of my cookie or anything) you can see her load the catheter and then Rye swings around to catch the actual transfer on the ultra sound screen.
Here's the embryo as she is isolating it in the dish...


And here is the actual transfer...


They printed us a couple copies of the ultrasound showing the little speck, and told us not to move for 30 minutes to let the little guy settle. During the 30 minutes of rest, Jeaneane the acupuncturist came back in and did one more treatment to "welcome the embie home" which was really sweet, and then Ryan and I were left there alone for a while to relax.

So now we are in the 2ww... (2 week wait) until our blood pregnancy test on October 5th. Any suggestions you have to keep me busy so I don't go crazy during the next two weeks would be much appreciated!  I'm tempted to buy a bunch of dollar store pregnancy tests and take one each day to post just as an experiment.. What do you think?