A Very Medical Weekend

People this morning have been asking me, “How was your weekend?” It’s standard fare at the beginning of the work week, so I expect it. This week, however, my response is, “Medical. My weekend was very medical.”

Saturday morning I was supposed to pick up the rental car I had reserved to drive down to The IVF Clinic. At 8:30, I got a phone call from the rental place, asking if they could push my reservation back to 10:30 because their manager was still en route, and the interstate was closed due to icing. This worked out well as I had been up sick since 4:00 am. I actually wound up sleeping till about 11:30, and got to the rental place a little after noon. By that point I was feeling much better. Pooka had had a similar “bug” earlier in the week, and it only lasted about eight hours, thankfully. The five-and-a-half hour drive to the clinic went smoothly and without incident. My biggest “complaint” was that the CD player in the Jeep Compass I was driving didn’t have the best stabilizer, so Disk 4 of the “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” audio book I had borrowed from Vriska’s Mom skipped a little.

The hotel was lovely, as always, and I got to take a long, hot shower – a luxury I don’t have at home, as we share a water heater with the upstairs apartment, and it only works for so long before it has to reheat a new tank of water. If I’m lucky, I get fifteen minutes of hot water in my bathroom at home.

Sunday morning I got up at 5:30 and made my way to The Clinic for 6:00 for blood work and ultrasound; both of which were… You guessed it: The “P” word (perfect) for embryo transfer. I was sent back to my hotel to get breakfast and relax for a few hours, with instructions to return at 9:00 am for laser acupuncture and embryo transfer. Of course this meant a lot of sitting around and waiting, but that’s nothing new.

Mum and Dad got to The Clinic twenty minutes early, so I drove over at 8:45 to meet with them. I think we were all pretty excited, and we had a marvelous chat about everything except the transfer, which included a lot of laughter – a trait I will never fail to undervalue in them. They hung out in the waiting room while I got prepped and had a lady come in and basically touch my ears, wrists, legs, feet and belly while her magical laser machine beeped rather persistently at us. I guess it was supposed to relax me, but I didn’t feel any involuntary reactions to the treatment. I didn’t want her to feel bad, though, so I relaxed my body bit by bit on purpose.

Unlike the first IVF Clinic, I got to stay in my own private little room for the whole shebang. The IVF Doctor, Nurse and Embryologist all came to me, as did the embryos themselves. I got to watch the Embryologist check the embryos on a monitor above the case for his equipment, all the while chatting Mum and Dad up about whether they wanted twins or a singleton, the patterns I’ve noticed in my IVF transfers and successful pregnancies, et cetera. They’re pretty well lined-up, pattern-wise this time. I don’t think their munchkin will need much in the way of auspicious dates for transfer or anything like that. Not like Wiggle-Worm and Tempest did. After the transfer I got poked with the laser pen again and pretended to relax my muscles for the acupuncturist, then laid around in my little room for about twenty minutes. The nurse told me, as she gave me my post-transfer instructions, that because these were day-six embryos, implantation should occur within two days.

Mum and Dad took me out to lunch after I was given leave to head out (but not home; only to my hotel), and we talked a little more about baby stuff. I got a text from Hubs while we were waiting in line, though, saying that his uncle had died. He had liver cancer, and didn’t respond well to chemotherapy. If I believed in reincarnation, I’d say that the timing was auspicious in its own way.

After lunch, Mum and Dad headed home and I scuttled down the sidewalk to a local health food store to peruse for afternoon snacks. They made me a tasty berry-and-banana-and-protein shake with almond milk, and I found some organic prenatal vitamins that are supposed to not make me queasier than I normally get during the first trimester. So far their boast has proven valid. The only real suck-point of the weekend was not being able to work out after my progesterone shots. No wonder women complain about those things! Without exercise, the muscle gets SO FREAKING SORE! I tried taking Tylenol to ease it, but I might as well not bother. And I’m not allowed to elevate my heart rate or core temperature till at least after the pregnancy test next week. I never thought I’d say I MISS exercise.

Speaking of progesterone shots, I learned a valuable lesson last night: Always check to make sure that the syringe cap (not to be confused with the protective needle cover) is properly screwed onto the syringe, even though it came in sterile packaging from the manufacturer! With these syringes, the needle is attached to a plastic cap that screws onto the cylinder of the syringe, where the liquid goes. Well, last night I got the needle into my “glutes” as usual, and began pushing the plunger in to inject the progesterone into the muscle, and the cylinder popped right off the cap, leaving the needle in the upper part of my butt-cheek and the cap sort of hanging out a little way above my skin. (You can laugh. It was funny.) I had no idea how much of the medication had made its way into my body though, so I had to call The Clinic and ask them what to do. Long story short, it wasn’t a big deal, but I had to give a second shot. I am so very sore today! (Still funny, go ahead and laugh.)

OH! So as I said: The Nurse at The IVF Clinic told me that the embryo should implant within two days of transfer. Yesterday morning I was sitting in the Hotel’s restaurant eating breakfast, and suddenly I got a hot flash and had NO further interest in my scrambled eggs and roasted potatoes. Mind you, I LOVE eggs and potatoes, so I feel like this was pretty telling. The queasiness eventually subsided, but it happened again this morning. And CatButt (yes, that’s my cat’s actual given name. It was the only name to which he would answer as a kitten) has been very sniff-y and clingy since I got home yesterday. Normally he comes running to be held for a minute when I get home, even from a long trip, then runs off and just kind of “checks in” off and on till bedtime, at which point he’ll settle down at least a foot away from me. Yesterday he shadowed me from the moment I got home until bed (with the exception of a quick jaunt to the store, and Pooka’s basketball game, obviously) and curled up right next to me, making sure he was touching me until Hubs came home from work at midnight.

Between the queasiness and CatButt, I’m thinking I might be pregnant. We’ll get medical confirmation a week from today, though.