Finally ... it pays to be young

In almost every step of this process, with each doctor we have seen, we were always reminded of how young we were. It usually started with the doctor coming in and looking at the chart. Then looking at us and asking what brought us in. And then they look at the chart again, as if they don't believe our Date of Birth listed. And then finally they tell us something pretty close to "your very young, so you really don't need this, you can try for a few more years before you would need something as "extreme" as IVF. By this point we were used to having people look at us and second guess our decisions. And at least now we know that we weren't too young, and that this process would happen regardless, so might as well do it now compared to later.

This week we heard the same words "your so young..." but it was in many good ways. As we got ready for the egg retreval, and the daily injections were going on, it was "your so young ... so we'll lower your medication and you only need 2 shots instead of 3." So being young in that case saved us a ton of money on drugs and a bit of pain and discomfort with 1 less shot a day.

Then on the day of egg retrieval, we heard it again, a few times. As a husband, I felt so helpless that day, as I was told to wait in the waiting room and they would come and get me when they were done. With being told it would be about an hour, but i could ask the receptionist for an update if I wanted, that hour was one of the longest of my life. Originally the extraction was set for 9:45, but Kristy went back around 9:20, so I wasn't sure about if my hour was from the original time or the time she went back. As the clock was about 10:25, I wondered ... should i ask for an update now. In the end, I waiting, each minute harder then the rest, but finally around 10:48 the nurse came and pulled me back.

Its hard to say my feelings, nervous, excited, but more then anything i was trying to look for some emotion on the nurses face, to tell me how it went. Our nurse however would clean up in Vegas as her poker face gave nothing away, and the lack of any emotion or happiness made me worry more. Luckily, after we were out of the public waiting area, her poker face disappeared in a flash and a calming smile covered as she delivered the words I wanted to hear "Everything went amazing, your wife did great!". Whew.

And then the age thing popped its cute little head up again. "the typical amount of eggs we get is 10 to 12, but because your so young, we successful extracted 17." Wow. No wonder Kristy felt like she was full all the time, she had 17 golf balls inside of her insides. We were told that our next steps would be to see how many were mature, and then out of those that were mature, to see how many take to fertilized. Beyond that, we just had to come back in five days and we would begin our process of putting one back in, the best one, and hoping for the best.

The pain of the day was defiantly there, and Kristy got her 10 commandments of the next ten days as well. Now why they didn't tell us these before the procedure, I'm not sure, but I guess we'll just have to deal. No intercourse for 10 days, no Alcohol, no heavy lifting, no strenuous exercise, no pain medication beyond Tylenol, Get lots of rest, not more then 36 oz of liquid for the first few days, no scuba diving, no parachuting, and no cliff diving. Alright, the last three are made up, but i needed 10, so can you blame me?

The only thing that caught us off guard was really the alcohol. The Alcohol was something we knew when we were pregnant, we would have to give up, but this was something we planned to celebrate during the in-between process, a bottle of champagne, a target rumba drink to commemorate our journey. If we would have known before our appointment it would be done, we would have better celebrated its departure from our lives. Gave it a nice going away party.

Well after we left the hospital, It was all about taking it easy that day. We got a couple of red box movies, plus our netflix and just vegged in recovery mode. It was hard to wait that next day, as we would receive a call from our doctor in 24 hours with the results and count of where everything ended up. It was less hard as i wasn't waiting alone, but it was still something that our lives were so close to starting that next chapter, that we just wanted to know.

The call came and informed us that of our 17, 10 were mature. I'm not sure if that's normal, or not, but it doesn't matter much. We only need one. And of the 10 mature, 8 successful became embryos. Now that number is good, I know that. Its weird as we know that we'll only put one back in at a time, but suddenly its like we have 8 baby's growing. Now some may not survive the 5 days, or they may be a grade c instead of our A+ that we want. Regardless, we have great great chances to have a child and very possibly have enough for future babies too with the frozen ones that remain.

We already feel like proud parents, and not to jinx ourselves, but we are excited to begin this next stage. Its not as hard to wait for them to put it back in, as we know that by waiting, it is increasing our changes of getting pregnant on the first try dramatically. Finally in our lives, the words "your so young ..." have come in handy. Finally they have meant that our process will be that much easier, and our rewards will be that much greater.