IVF cycle – GAME ON!

We were bundled out into the street after a brief rest directly after embryo transfer.

Moments before we had been led into a tiny room with just enough room for a recliner, another chair and a small cupboard, we soon realised we weren’t about to get the post-embryo transfer relaxation time with drinks and sandwiches. The embryo transfer line was long that morning and the clinic rooms small. This operation staffed to the bare minimum. Wobbles peeped into the drawer of the small cupboard and had his suspicions confirmed; inside was the mandatory clinic collection of pornography. This multi-purpose room also doubled as semen collection room. Hardly private from the adjoining waiting room, it appeared to be another clinic economy on personal embarrassment.  A brief visit from the nurse followed as she handed us a simple post-transfer instruction list, and we were out.Outside we embraced. Thrilled. We were now ‘with embie.’ It had been over two years since our last and only other transfer. No ordinary embie, thank you to our wonderful anonymous donor we were carrying a “perfect” (in the words of the scientist) Grade A plus embie. A five day hatching blastocyst. We could not have had a better result. It was not yet 8 am, the morning was still dark yet it was a beautiful day that was dawning, sealing the end of a week that had turned into IVF perfection. We were finally getting ART right, and the IVF gods had decided to smile down on us in a grand fashion.

Five days earlier we had sped towards town.

Carrying a very special cargo, we had to get Wobbles’ sample of swimmers to the laboratory at first light. Our donor’s egg pick up was first on the day’s list. For the first time ever, Wobbles was able to produce his sample at home. Unlike every time before, we had only minutes to travel to our clinic destination – shaving some four hours off our longest journeys to clinic locations. Driving through local streets we imagined these Wobbly little swimmers being escorted by the sirens of security vehicles. Surprisingly, a proud Wobbles decided to take mobile phone photographs of the specimen jar containing his genetic material.

Safely delivered, we left the ‘goods’ behind to go on with our individual days. As usual, we could only speculate as to what results the next days would bring, and hope that they would improve on our own past dismal efforts; one two day transfer in five full IVF cycles.

Having endured several cycles of problematic communications with the various clinics we had made a joint decision that Wobbles would manage the calls. Hours would pass and we had still not heard any news of the donor’s egg collection. We realised we had no idea of what the communication protocols were in donor instances. Speaking to Wobbles on the phone, a new trend of role reversal emerged. He was the one getting anxious. I put the lack of the information down to the standard clinic disorganisation, while Wobbles feared it meant possible IVF disaster.

On an afternoon visit to my favourite charity store book section the call would come through; and how much better did it sound coming from Wobbles. We had 18 wonderful eggs! It might as well been 100, the numbers were greater than either of us had dared to hope for. One huge almighty gap bridged in this attempted cross-over to ART Success Land.

This lil’ Lifeslurper was slow to detect Wobbles’ anxiety. Oh how the IVF tables had turned! For a brief and glorious time I was removed from the ART success/failure equation. Wobbles had previously swept aside my fears that my old body would not do these wonderful young eggs justice, yet suddenly in the hours post-egg pick up his own fears about the quality of his sperm emerged. This was an interesting lesson reminding my beloved Wobbles of the agonies experienced over and over again in years of IVF failure. While I didn’t want Wobbles to know that disappointment, it perhaps was something he finally had to understand.

It would be well into the next afternoon before the fertilization results were finally tracked down. I had taken bitter prior IVF experience to mean that all bad news receives an early morning phone call. Otherwise it is a case of good news – or that the clinic has lost your phone number.

A relieved Wobbles phoned me. It had taken a number of calls before he finally got the results. We had 13 embryos! It was a huge result in any IVFers’ experience. Still we wondered if the attrition rate was normal or should we be worried? We never quite relaxed from an intoxicating blend of over-excited fear. We had embies! Lots of embies!  More embies than previous five cycles had yielded. Thirteen times more embies infact! We were now spoiled for embies, but with news of the fertilization numbers we now knew that the aim would be blastocysts. Blastocysts? Now that is an ART term that had never been uttered within our hearing.  My, how things had changed.

The next four days leading up to transfer were a happy but frustrating blur of slow trickling information coming from the clinic. Wobbles dealt with the maddening clinic communications control command that I had resigned from prior to the pointy end of the donor cycle. Despite our best efforts, there was to be only one more update – a vague one at best. We still had some embies, no one seemed all that sure of their numbers or condition.

We battened down the hatches and I continued to fill every orifice with progesterone and other fun ART goodies so my body would be primed for a hopeful transfer.

Transfer eve we took a leap of faith and continued to hope the communication failures would not backfire on us. That aborted first attempt at transfer over two years earlier never long forgotten. That day we bounced giggling into the clinic after a four hour drive giddy at the prospect of our first transfer about to take place. Laughing in the waiting room I took a phone call from somewhere upstairs. Why were they asking if we were coming in? There would be no transfer that day. Our lone embie had not survived someone would eventually come downstairs and explain. It was a very long drive home that day.

But this time something had gone right.

We arrived clinic side bright and early. Wobbles paused to take a photo of the building before we stepped inside. After a slightly anxious wait – at least we hadn’t been turned away on sight – there must be something transfer- worthy waiting within these walls for us.

After being ushered into the procedure room we were quickly given a rundown of the status of our remaining embies. Yes, it was plural. The scientist claimed that they were of equal high quality, that this was the preferred position to be in choice wise. There would be leftovers for freezing. Wow! First blastocysts, then frozen embryos?!

Hardly doing the long long lead in justice, the transfer was over in minutes and there we were sitting in the tiny waiting area/porn cupboard eagerly awaiting our dismissal.

Could we ever know such IVF joy again? We had an 11 day wait ahead of us. With hope in our souls and love in our hearts we ventured off into the cold morning.

There were no real plans for the day. Not that it really mattered.