It's the night before transfer. I have everything ready (I hope) but I'm too excited/anxious to sleep. Here's the plan for tomorrow:
5 am: Up and shower with unscented soap purchased specifically for this occasion (apparently embryos are very sensitive to scented beauty products). Shave legs and pick out cute socks so I'll look fashionable in the stirrups - as if anyone cares.
6:30 am: Leave house, drop off kids at my sister's and drive to the airport.
8:45 am: Our flight leaves.
This will be the most stressful part of the day for me. I have an irrational fear of flying and I'm so dreading the flight. It's not even the normal kind of fear - I'm not afraid of crashing (although I certainly would prefer not to do that). I'm not afraid of terrorists or mechanical failure or human error either. I know that those things are statistically unlikely and that flying is absolutely the safest way to travel. What I fear happens every single time I set foot on a plane. Namely being sealed in a pressurized tube and hurdled through the air at 500 mph, 40,000 feet above the ground and there is no way to get down until the flight is over. It's a combination of claustrophobia, fear of heights, and lack of control. It scares the beejebus out of me. When we did our fresh cycle, we drove out to Vancouver but I certainly can't justify doing that for only one day. I will be so relieved when it's over.
9:20 am (Pacific time): Arrive in Vancouver and make our way leisurely to our clinic in Burnaby for our 12:30 appointment.
1 pm: Embryo transfer
At my clinic, the vibe is more like a spa than a doctor's office. First you change into a white robe and slippers and then you sit waiting in a recliner and the nurse covers you in a warmed blanket so you don't get chilly. Then the embryologist comes to tell you about the embryo(s) that will be transferred. The nurses, doctors, embryologist etc. are all smiles and cheerful small talk. This is one of the happiest times at a fertility clinic. It's all hope and potential. The procedure itself is fairly quick and simple. They insert a catheter through the cervix into the uterus and inject the embryo into place. It takes skill though to make sure the embryo is deposited in the right spot. Then we wait with me laying down for 15 minutes for things to settle in.
The transfer is done on a full bladder because they guide the catheter by ultrasound. This was a big issue last time because I drank WAY too much water. I was in agony, I thought my bladder would burst. During the 15 minute wait, Greg was praying for success and all I could think about "don't pee yourself...don't pee yourself" I've learned my lesson though and I won't make that mistake this time.
5 pm: Fly back to Edmonton (again with a very high terror index for me)
That morning the lab will start thawing embryos. It take about one hour to complete the process. They will thaw the first blast, if it doesn't survive, they will thaw the next one. If none of them survive, they will call us and tell us not to bother coming in. If that's the case, I guess we will just have a really expensive lunch date in Vancouver.
Our frosties were preserved using an older slow freeze technology where the water is first removed from the cells so that it doesn't crystallize and harm the cell structures upon freezing (that crystallization is what causes the damage when people get frostbite). Nowadays, most clinics freeze their embryos using a process called vitrification. This is where the embryo is plunged directly into a vat of liquid nitrogen and the cells freeze so quickly that the water doesn't have time to crystallize. Instead it freezes clear like glass. That's how the procedure gets it's name, "vitri" comes from the latin word for glass (your fun fact for the day)
Statistically, 50 to 60% of blasts will survive the thaw so odds are pretty good that we'll have one embryo to transfer. I'm feeling surprisingly optimistic.
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