IVF 11: They're in my uterus, stealing my eggs.

In one of my favorite children's books, Tal, an itinerant storyteller named Noom-Zor-Noom is trying to win a king's contest for best children's story. He asks the child Tal to accompany him as he travels to the kingdom, while Noom-Zor-Noom reads Tal his stories so that Tal can select the best.

The book is a delightful mixture of their journey, Noom-Zor-Noom's stories, and a talking donkey. I highly recommend it for children in the age 6-11ish range.

Anyhow, Tal's favorite story (spoiler!) involves a giant who overtakes a carefree tropical village. The giant demands that the villagers feed him all their best fruit, with only the unripe or damaged fruit left over for the villagers, who begin to grow weak and despairing. Finally they hatch a bold plot: they open a number of fruits, scoop out the flesh, and replace it with stones. Then they sew the fruit back up again and feed it to the greedy giant.

The giant is incapacitated by a terrible stomachache from the rocks in his belly and never bothers the villagers again.

For the last few days, I have felt increasing sympathy for the giant.

I am a thin woman; I do not have "fat" days; if my jeans are too tight it is because they have just emerged from the dryer, not because I have put on weight.

But for the last three days, I have exclusively worn a pair of corduroys that used to gap dreadfully at the waist. The 32 follicles reached 15-20 mm in diameter, and my abdomen was swollen and tender. It was sometimes painful to walk, and I stood and sat like a 7-months-preggo lady: using my arms for leverage.

Today they fished the little girls out. The anesthesia consisted of a sedative for the surgery prep, followed by the intravenous anesthetic propofol. Here's what I remember:
--changing into one of those awful hospital gowns + hair net (just like in the mouse colony!)
--Golden oldies radio station.
--The nurse-anesthetist taking three tries to find a vein.
--Demanding an extra blanket.
--"The sedative should take effect shortly, but you'll still be conscious up until the moment that they go in for the retrieval."
--"Put your legs up on these padded bars."
--Waking up in the recovery room.

Here's the funny part. I was apparently quite a chatty patient. Both nurses say that I was peppy and asking questions ("Really good questions," marveled the anesthetist) up until they gave me the actual propofol dose. I looked with interest at the ultrasound. They sterile scrubbed me inside and out. I have absolutely no memory of any of this.

Nor do I have any memory of my first hour or so of recovery, during which I apparently asked yet another barrage of questions ("So Dr Earnest Resident and Dr Big Shot each did one ovary? Who did which one?") Dr Hyde says that I was also making witty comments (Dr Hyde: "They're still counting all your eggs--they probably don't have enough capacity to count them all because you had so many!" Dr Jekyll, nuttily: "They had to add an extra bit to the computer--16's not enough.") WTF, Dr J, WTF.

Zero recall. It's like having been through an alcohol blackout, sans hangover, when you wonder what incriminating secrets or irritating propensities you might have shared.

Anyhow, they retrieved 27 eggs, of which 13 were mature (yes!!), 10 were "intermediate," meaning they'll slosh them in the incubator in hopes of ripening them up enough for insemination, 3 were too immature, and 1 was too old.

The whole procedure took longer than anticipated, in part because of my Ovarian Bounty, and in part because they dropped something into the sterile field, so they had to take off all the drapes, resterilize, rescrub, and replace everything. Again, no memory of this.

While it's great news that there are so many potential eggs, because there's a drop-off at the fertilization step (only ~60% are likely to become fertilized, even after they inject a sperm), it also suggests that I am at risk for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Mild OHSS (bloating, cramping-- check, check) is not a big deal, but if it progresses, the ovaries swell up and fluid accumulates in places it shouldn't, possibly requiring hospitalization.

I am supposed to pay close attention to whether I gain more than two pounds in a single day (fluid alert). We don't even own a scale.

Perhaps I will just drape my still-tumescent belly over the balance in lab. This will cause all my labmates to think I am crazy and to stay the hell away from me, so that would be awesome really unfortunate.

Thanks for all your good wishes. We hear tomorrow how the fertilization went.