I was feeling anxious, but Chris did a great job calming me down and even managed to make me laugh. On the drive there he made up a variety of 'imagine if' scenarios and even started chanting "Triplets, Triplets, Triplets!"
It was completely ridiculous, but it worked!
A few minutes after arriving we were called back, asked to verify our names and given gowns and booties to put on... including Chris.
Then we were brought into the procedural room and again were asked to verify our names, as well as identify our names on the petri dish which contained our embryos.
The embryologist who has been monitoring our eggs then informed us of some good news:
One of our 6 celled embryos had become a 7 celled embryo!
This means there is still hope for that little guy. Our doctor then decided to implant just two of the embryos- the one 8 celled and the now 7 celled embryo.
So now we don't have to worry about triplets... not that I was really concerned.
The transfer procedure itself was very similar to an IUI procedure except this time the doctor used an ultrasound to visually place our embryos into my uterus.
Similar to receiving a pap smear, my legs were put into stirrups, a speculum was inserted, and then a catheter was inserted into my uterus. Once she got the catheter into place our embryos were put into a syringe and then released into my uterus. Other than being a little uncomfortable it was completely painless.
The really amazing thing though was that we were able to watch all this take place on the ultrasound monitor. Although the embryos are too small to see, we were able to clearly see the air bubble that they were inside.
They then checked to make sure that the embryos were in the air bubble and not stuck somewhere in the syringe. Once that was verified they left me to relax on the bed for a few minutes.
Before leaving, Chris and I were given a photo of our two embryos. Chris also took a picture of the monitor which showed our embryos (or rather the air bubble) in my uterus.
Imagine how cool it would be if we do become pregnant and these turn out to be our first official baby photos!
It is so surreal to think I have two embryos floating around inside of my uterus. I know that there is a chance that they will not continue to grow or that they don't end up implanting, however, I am trying to remain cautiously optimistic.
*They will continue monitoring our other embryos for four days and if they make it to the blastocyst stage they will freeze them for possible future attempts.
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