Against All Odds

This might be the most excited I have been to write a blog post yet! We have beat the azoospermia odds! Yesterday was our egg retrieval and MicroTESE procedures and they went perfectly. Not only did they find sperm but they retrieved 17 eggs...17, I couldn’t believe it. My mom was amazing and was with both of us the whole time, sporting her pineapple socks. We had to be at the surgery center at 7:45am for Eric’s check in. Once they called him back to pre-op my mom and I went over to the fertility clinic for my 8am check in. They called us back to a small pre-op room around 8:20 where I met with the nurses and the doctor that would be performing the retrieval. They took my height, weight, blood pressure, temperature and other vitals and hooked me up the the IV. I got to wear a sexy hospital gown, hair net and smiley face slip resistant socks. It was a good look!  Exactly what everyone pictures wearing when trying to make a baby! Around 9:00 I walked to the operating room which was open to the embryology lab and was introduced to two embryologists, one that would go through Eric’s testicular tissues in search of sperm and one that would prepare my eggs. I got myself situated on the operating table and put my legs up into giant stirrups with straps, I was definitely on full display, there is no such thing as being modest in infertility! Shortly after I was out cold and the next thing I remember was waking up to my mom on one side and a nurse on the other telling me they had found 15 eggs and that I did great. They gave me some ginger ale, checked my vitals again, made sure I could use the bathroom on my own and helped me get comfortable. A few minutes later my doctor came in to tell me they found 2 more eggs. After about 30 minutes I was able to have the IV taken out and change back into my normal clothes. I hopped into my wheelchair with my heated blanket and was wheeled over to the waiting room to wait for Eric. On the way over Eric’s doctor caught us and told us everything went great and he wanted to let me know they found sperm, lots of good sperm. I immediately burst into tears, my mom cried, the nurses got teary eyed and even the doctor got choked up. It is a moment that I will never forget for the rest of my life. That was the first time I felt relieved and that something actually worked out and went our way. I was completely shocked. I was positive they weren’t going to find anything and that we would be going the donor route. In an instant our future was settled and we finally had the answer we had been searching for for over a year. About an hour later Eric woke up and I was able to see him. The entire process was about 6 hours and we were able to go home and even stopped to have lunch along the way. We took one of the best and longest naps we have had in a long time. The feeling of not having anything on your mind and being stress free is pretty amazing. Today Eric is a bit sore and walking around like he got off of the longest horse back ride ever. I am actually feeling fine, I would say I feel better now than I did the night before retrieval, bits of soreness here and there, nothing extreme. My periods and ovulation pains are way worse! Thanks to lots of other blogs and women that have gone through this I knew to start a stool softener and Gatorade with the trigger shot so I think that has helped! Honestly everything went a lot easier than I think either of us expected and with a very happy outcome. This morning we also got the wonderful news that out of the 17 eggs retrieved we had 8 mature that were fertilized using ICSI and out of those 7 have fertilized and started growing. Seven beautiful embryos. The embryologist will continue watching them for 4 more days before they are ready to freeze. I am so in love with them already and cannot wait to meet a few of them someday. Right now we are still over the moon, in shock and ready to relax, have some fun and put the past year behind us!