The Retrieval

Here is a quick definition of what happens during an egg retrieval: the medical team provides you with enough narcotics to be able to feel discomfort, but also be out of it (conscious sedation, technically speaking). Then a long needle is placed through the wall of the vagina, using ultrasound to navigate, and travels to the ovaries. The needle is then inserted into the ovary to access each follicle (like 20 or 30). The follicle is drained using a little, tiny medical vacuum, the contents of which are caught in a test tube and sent to an embryologist who counts how many eggs are retrieved, and of them, how many are mature. Then they use microscopes and tools to place one good sperm into each good egg. This is called ICSI, and costs more money. Some people can just have an egg and sperm placed in the same petri dish, but no doctors think that would work for us. And, in all seriousness, we have just gone through all of this, to still leave the fertilization to nature?! I don’t think so.

Needless to say, I was nervous. I have gone through an egg retrieval before (the cycle that resulted in Patrick and Maggie). It did not feel good. But also, they gave more drugs. During that cycle they gave me anti-anxiety medications the day before and the day of, as part of the protocol. But Toronto, in true city-style, just said, see you Friday morning. I was nervous that their rushed, nonchalant ways would mean less pain management for me. I guess I was extra nervous.

When we arrived I was asked to prepare myself, while my husband went to provide his ‘specimen’. Being left alone in a medical setting did not feel good. As soon as he left I began to cry. I was nervous about the procedure. I was nervous about the outcome. Everything. The nurse asked about medications I was taking (only what they were prescribing), how I had managed with narcotics in the past (horribly). When the nurse began to prepare my arm for my IV I felt even more upset. I had not been medically treated since I was in the hospital having the twins; the last IV I had was to help treat sepsis. I cried really hard. The nurse tried to engage me, asking if I was nervous about the needle. I responded that the last time I had had an IV I had sepsis and my babies died. She reassured me that I was young and would have more children.  As if children are like jeans? I can just get some more? And I am young, so it will be easy? None of this has ever felt ‘easy’ to me. Not physically and not mentally. (To say nothing of the finances and the secondary stress from that).  So, I sat there crying as she continued to prepare for the IV insertion. She asked if she should come back. Over-whelmed by the entire situation and the loss of the babies, I pointed to my face and told her “this isn’t going to stop.” So, she returned to her original questions, am I taking any anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications? Now, I had already answered this question. Also, it signals to me a possible (profound) discomfort with the expression of negative emotion. Or some sort of over-diagnosing-world assumption: this patient is crying because she has babies die, she must need a clinical diagnosis and to be medicated. As if crying makes me unstable? I believe I was well within my rights to cry that day – and any day. But, simply because I cry for Patrick and Maggie, does not mean that I need to be medicated. In fact, I might argue that allowing myself to have those moments has been important in my healing (not that it’s done yet). Anyways, she got the IV in very easily, and then finally offered something helpful: Ativan. I decided to accept. And then, things were better!

The Ativan made me feel a bit… intoxicated. I think I giggled. This is also around when my memory begins to blur. As it turns out, the narcotics they gave me were highly effective, so much so that they wiped my memory from before I took them to a good day or two afterwards!

I know that the procedure did hurt at the beginning and that I was worried the doctor would work too fast (since everything in that clinic is too fast). Lee tells me that I asked her to go slowly and to try not to hurt me. I was asleep for most of the procedure. (As I review this, Lee explains that I was not sleeping, just had my eyes closed. He suggests it would have all been easier if I was asleep!) I asked Lee to count for me so that I could focus on my breath to remain calm. I have vague recollections of that. I remember them trying to wake me and tell me to breath: the oxygen measurement showed that I had stopped breathing. I think it was a startling moment for Lee, but in fact, the clip had simply fallen off my finger.

Lee also tells me that the tube and test tube collecting all the eggs was being held by a woman just behind my doctor. This seems dicey to me; what if she sneezes? Or drops it? He said that during the procedure there was the sound of something falling to the floor. He said the doctor immediately stopped working and said “what was that?” As it turns out, he had dropped my glasses on the floor.(He confirms that this is true, and laughs).

When I was out of the procedure, and waking, I was back in my little cubicle with Lee. I do know that this procedure was the first time that I got to hallucinate! The circles on the hospital curtain were dancing. Lee tells me I also hallucinated the closet changing, but I do not have the pleasure of remembering that. He also reminds me that I demanded that he sing along with the radio loudly, but that he refused. I do not think I was particularly polite about his refusal. I will say this about the drugs – Toronto does it better! It hurt less, I remember less, I hallucinated more, and the anti-nausea they gave me worked wonders. Thank you big city.

We had to walk back to the car after the procedure, first stopping at a pharmacy. I do not remember much about the pharmacy. I do seem to recall having poor balance but not staying close to Lee as he was suggesting. Once in the car I think I mostly slept. In the day or two that followed we received information about how the procedure went, what medications to start and stop, and how many eggs were retrieved. I had to ask Lee over and over again. I even remember him getting frustrated that I was repeating myself, but whatever was in my system was not allowing me to retain that information.

Eventually I learned that they retrieved about 20 eggs and that 12 were mature. These were similar numbers to that of my last treatment cycle and I worried. Had we just gone through all of this treatment, new drugs, new clinic to have the same outcome? This cycle’s drugs had cost us more than all of my previous cycles combined. It is a waiting game. 

xx