She's Back!

Okay, okay, okay. I am sorry this took so long to update, but I was at work!
This is JB by the way.

So, I'll give the abbreviated play-by-play:
- We checked in at 6:30 a.m.
- They took Wendi to the pre-op area at about 7:15.
- She waited in there for quite a while - until close to 8:15 or so - and was then brought to the operating room.
- They retrieved 18 eggs.
- She went back to the recovery room and then was rolled back to her room, where I was waiting watching the movie National Treasure, at about 10:00 a.m.

Now let me tell you something, Wendi has never been drunk before, but if you ever wanted to see what that would be like, you should have been there today. She was GONE! Slurred speech, laughing, crying, sleeping... all at the same time. She started talking to the nurse and then realized she was not me, and she said to the nurse, "Oooooohhhh, I thought you were my husband... but you're still really pretty." Then she was told to scoot over from the transport bed to her room bed. She looked at the room bed questioningly, turned to the nurses, and said, "I am really naked! Ha! Ha!" Well, under her gown she was, but apparently this was throwing off her ability to move. When she was finally tucked in, she turned to me crying a little and said, "I know what I want to say, but I sound like a complete moron."

Let me say that she knows I am writing this. I am not a mean guy that likes to share with the world how funny my wife is when she is drugged, although I am enjoying this immensely.

So where are we now?

At this point we do not know how many of the 18 eggs are mature, but we will find out tomorrow. Oh, and we have decided to do what we did last time and fertilize 14 of the eggs. This means that tomorrow, the embryologist will determine how many of the 14 actually fertilized (this is typically from between 5-12). He will take two of them and let them grow for another 2 days for the "put back", or transfer, on Thursday. The other remaining embryos will be frozen tomorrow.

Now Mayo is one of the only places that does freezing in the pronuclear phase of embryo development. What does that mean? There are actually 2 phases of what most people call "fertilization". The first stage, actually called fertilization, is where the sperm penetrates the outer "shell", or zona pellucida, of the egg. The second stage, called syngamy, is where the genetic material actually combines to make a new set of genes - i.e. our baby's genetic code. Mayo freezes the embryos after fertilization but before syngamy, the so-called pro-nuclear phase. Just thought that was interesting information for those who cared. :)

Anyway, Wendi is doing well. She slept most of the afternoon and has less pain than she did for the first transfer. I am pretty happy about this. It is terrible to see someone you love in pain... plus the whining is ridiculous! Just kidding. Kind of.

Wendi will be blogging again soon. I promise.