"You may feel some slight cramping"

This is my fake excitement face...

I had my mock embryo transfer and sonohysterogram today. It was not a fun experience! They did tell me if have some mild cramping afterward, but this was nothing like what I expected. I was stressing about it all morning. My blood pressure was high when I got there and the nurse could tell I was super nervous. We sat and waited for 20 minutes in the procedure room too, which just made me more anxious. The procedure was painful from the start and the pain didn't go away until it was all over.
They started with an abdominal ultrasound while she fed the catheter through my cervix and into my uterus. She did that twice to make sure there was a clear path for when they actually transfer our embryo. Again she said I may feel some slight cramping, but it was more than that. It felt like someone was forcing something through my cervix...probably because they were forcing something through my cervix!  When they were done with that, they switched to a vaginal ultrasound for the sonohysterogram. They filled a balloon that was in my uterus with saline solution so they could check for polyps and fibroids. That was the part that hurt the worst. After they deflated the balloon and removed the catheter, she used the ultrasound to look at my ovaries. This part didn't hurt at all, it was just uncomfortable. There were 6 visible follicles on my right ovary and 7 on the left. Meaning they will probably retrieve close to 13 eggs during the egg retrieval.

Once it was over, I did have some cramping for a few minutes. I became very hot and started sweating, so the nurse was concerned I was going to pass out.The rest of the day I didn't really have "pain" as much as I was just uncomfortable. They give you Valium for the actual embryo transfer to relax the cervix. I don't know why they would prescribe that for the embryo transfer and not this, but I'm not the doctor...

I told Brian he didn't have to go with me to this appointment but I'm glad that he did. Half way through the procedure he walked over and held my hand which helped a little. I know it's hard for him watching things like that when he can't do anything to stop the pain or help the discomfort. One kind of cool part was that we could watch the ultrasound on a monitor mounted on the wall. I wish I would have taken a picture, but I wasn't too focused on remembering that moment at the time. I'll be in that room several more times throughout this process so I'll take a picture at some point.

We are on the schedule for a September egg retrieval and embryo transfer. This may be pushed back to October depending on when we get all of our DNA tests back from RGI. We are currently waiting for the testing kits to arrive, which could be 1-2 weeks. Once those are sent in we will have to wait for RGI to create the probe, which will be another 4-6 weeks. We cannot start the process of injections and egg retrieval until we have all the information back from RGI. Another waiting game.

Our next appointment is July 19 with the ART case management nurses. They will go over all of my medications & injections, and explain what each of the appointments will look like. I'll be happy to have this appointment out of the way so we can move forward as soon as possible. Maybe everything will magically take half the time, right?!

-Emily