Anticipation....It's Making Me Wait

An earworm crawled into my ear last night leaving the chorus of a popular 70's song by Carly Simon stuck in my head as though it were a vinyl record that was stuck compulsively repeating the same few words - Anticipation...... 

Practically every few minutes throughout today I checked my phone to see if I had missed any calls.  I was waiting on a very important call.  Anticipation....it's keepin' me waitin'. 

A good quality egg from a 32  year old

Tuesday was egg retrieval day for #604.  Today I was waiting on the call to tell us how many eggs were retrieved and how many fertilized. 

1:00 - no call.  2:00 - no call, 3:00 - no call.  It was then that I started to worry a little.  So when the nurse called me at 4:16, I stared at the phone as though I didn't know how to answer it.

The earworm must have brought a friend to it's dance party -the Whatif.  If you don't know what a Whatif is, one of my favorite poets - Shel Silverstein - can tell you. Here's how his poem starts; however I rewrote the end of it to be more fitting of my what ifs today....

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song....

What if the news was bad? 

What if no mature eggs were had? 

What if no eggs became fertilized? 

Or the embryologist became paralyzed

and fumbled my eggs upon the floor

Leaving none for us to use anymore?

What if the eggs got all mixed up

and switched with someone else's cup?

What if the donor changed her mind

leaving us in a bind?

And just before the Whatifs busted a rhyme, I answered the phone.  Anticipation.....

I'm happy to report that Team #604/Hirsch now has 4 happy zygotes (fertilized eggs).  You've seen ultrasound photos of babies, well - here's a photo of a zygote on day 1 (though not ours):

Eight eggs were retrieved, but only 4 were mature eggs and fertilized.  So....now the 4 zygotes will hopefully grow in their petri dishes for a few more days.

Here are a few photos of what the egg will look like over the next few days:

 

A perfect Day 3 embryo



A Day 4 Morula

Here's what we want on Day 5 (Monday):

On Monday, my doctor will look at the embryos and determine whether we have good quality ones or okay quality.  If they all look like perfect Day 5 blastocysts, then he'll transfer only 1.  However if they are only okay quality, then he'll transfer 2.  Any other embryos that are well-developed but not used will be frozen for future use.


So class, that wraps up our embryology lesson for the day.  Your assignment is to keep praying and cheering for the growing embryos. We want perfect blastocysts. 


And now for 4 more days of waiting.  Perhaps my theme song should be Anticipation.  I sure hope this earworm finds a new home tonight.  Or at least give me a better song tomorrow.  Here's to hoping!