Transfer was....

....Cancelled!

Yep, you heard me right...we did not have a transfer for this round. I swear sometimes I think God is trying to tell us something. Let me back up and explain what happened.

I had been feeling sore after my retrieval, as is to be expected. But the soreness didn't go away and in fact made me feel quite uncomfortable. On Monday of this week, my stomach was bloated, I was uncomfortable and I had gained about 10 pounds over the course of the weekend. I called my nurse to tell her and she said that Bobby and I should arrive at 7am on Tuesday so the Dr. could check me out before they decided if they were going to do the transfer. It sounded like I had Ovarian Hyperstimulation. If that was the case, she told me the transfer most likely wouldn't happen.

~ Ovarian Hyperstimulation happens to about 10% of IVF patients. It means that your ovaries get too stimulated and enlarge and then you start collecting fluid in your abdomen. It can be serious if not treated. ~

Bobby and I got up early Tuesday morning and headed to Spokane. We were both kind of crabby not knowing what was going to happen and I was overly crabby because it had now become uncomfortable for me to breathe.

When we got there, they took blood and then Bobby and I had to wait in a room for the Dr. to finish ultrasounds with other patients. We waited forever! Karen took my vitals and all that stuff and said I didn't look very bad and maybe I just had a mild case. We were told we were assigned the last transfer spot at 11:30 that day and I felt hopeful that we would get to continue. On the off chance the transfer would occur, I was told to drink my 32 oz. of water between 10:15 and 10:30am.

Well, when the Dr. finally came in, he had me lay down, pressed on my belly and said I definitely have Ovarian Hyperstimulation. He said that if they did do a transfer, they would only be able to transfer 1 embryo back because apparently it is a really painfull thing to have when you are pregnant. He said the other option would be to freeze the embryos and do a frozen transfer later.
Basically he wanted to see what my bloodwork said before he made the decision. We were told to go to breakfast and hang out until they got my results back. Oh, and he said, "you are going to get much sicker...in fact you might be spending Christmas with me". I looked at him like he was on crack, and my nurse explained that this will probably get worse. I can look forward to pain, severe bloating , and vomiting. Basically fluid is building up in my abdomen and I will most likely have to go back in to have tubes put in my stomach in order for the fluid to be drained - yuck!

We went to breakfast and I kept my cell phone within a fingers reach at all times, in case the call came in. When we were done, we still hadn't heard and we weren't sure what to do with ourselves. Nothing was really open yet, we didn't want to check into a hotel in case they just told us to go home so we drove around and hung out in the jeep and listened to Christmas music - we waited in the car for one hour, hadn't heard anything, and it was about to turn 10:15am...the time I was supposed to start drinking my water. I called my nurse and left a message, and decided I probably should drink my water just in case. I still felt like we might do the transfer that day. I knew that they had 6 other transfers before ours and they probably didn't have time to go over our blood results till those were complete.

Sure enough, Karen called at 10:32. I could tell by the tone in her voice that we were cancelled. She confirmed and said that my levels were kind of high and that Dr. Robins thought it would be in our best interest to delay transfer. Bummer! I felt horrible that we weren't transferring, but then again, my body felt horrible because of the Ovarian Hyperstimlulation. Karen said to stop my projesterone shots, and to call her on the first day of my cycle. They will put be on birth control, and then they will schedule me to do a uterine cavity search thingy. During this, they will remove my fibroid and do some sort of doxy flush with antibiotics to clean out my uterus. Then I start back on shots January 9th, and hopefully do the transfer on the 19th of Jan. This time my shots will only be Lupron and Progesterone since we aren't trying to make eggs, we are just trying to get my body ready to be pregnant.

The good news is, they were able to freeze 8 good quality embryos, and we will take care of that pesky fibroid. The bad news is I feel horrible, am not looking forward to a possible abdomen drain on Christmas day, and 2008 will pass without a pregnancy. This has been a long year....

I will continue to Blog, since this round doesn't feel final until that frozen transfer takes place. Hopefully I will be able to manage the OHSS with rest and fluids - let's hope so anyway.

More later this week...