I wanted to pop on here and provide a little update for anyone who is following along.

21 eggs retrieved.
15 mature.
13 fertilized.

I am taking it easy while recovering from my egg retrieval. The retrieval went pretty well, aside from the horrible nausea upon waking up from the anesthesia and some aches and pains. The lab called this morning and told me that of the 21 eggs that were retrieved, 15 were mature, and 13 of the mature eggs fertilized normally.

We are very, very cautiously optimistic. Let me explain.

For a normal woman going through IVF, these appear to be great numbers. HOWEVER, retrieving eggs and getting them to fertilize doesn’t appear to be our issue (judging from IVF#1). Our issue is getting these little embryos to survive to their day 5 transfer and beyond. So crunch time really sets in for us after fertilization (a.k.a. in the next few days).

We were also slightly disappointed because our last IVF looked like this on day 1 post-retrieval:

23 eggs retrieved.
15 mature.
15 fertilized.

I was preparing myself for the fact that we would not be able to live up to a 100% fertilization rate like with IVF #1. However, when you actually hear the embryologist telling you that you have less embryos to work with this time around than your last IVF (which failed) you tend to get nervous. Last time, we lost all of our embies except the two that we transferred (which didn’t take). So naturally all kinds of questions and thoughts are swirling around in my head. For the most part, it is just too early to tell if this cycle is any different from the last one. But, I am scared.

Prayers and good thoughts welcomed for our (hopefully) lucky 13.