Preparing for Transfer Day

So now that we have done round one, round two and round three of IVF harvesting and ended up with 5 beautiful healthy embryos it is time for the main attraction...

Transferring one of those embryos into me and making a baby!

After our third round of harvesting we waited for me to get my period like you would if you were doing another harvest cycle but when I got my period instead of starting birth control pills to level out my hormones I started taking estradiol which is a form of estrogen.

After taking the estradiol for about a week and a half I went in to the doctor for blood work and an ultrasound to see if my lining was thick enough.  All the tests came back with what they wanted to see (high levels, low levels, I don't remember) and my lining measured thick enough.

While we were at the doctor we also met with the nurse to get trained on all the medications I would be taking for the transfer because the shots were in a different location than I was used to.  They even drew on me with a permanent marker so we would know exactly where to put the shots.




Transfers are done on Mondays and due to the way the Christmas and New Year's holidays fell this year we scheduled my transfer for January 7th.  Because we we were waiting a little bit longer than normal between the first set of blood work and the transfer because of the holidays I had to go in for a second blood draw on New Year's Eve just to make sure my levels were still okay.

All the levels were okay and we were a go for a January 7th transfer date.

On January 2nd we had to start progesterone.  This was the part of the process I was most nervous about.  Twice a day I have to take progesterone suppositories which aren't fun but not too big a deal.  You just have to wear a little panty liner because the capsule are yellow and they do make you leak yellow when the outside of the capsule dissolves.

The part I was nervous about was the fact that once a day (in the evening) I had to take progesterone in oil via a shot.  Now at this point I have been pretty much become an expert at giving myself shots in the lower stomach but these shots aren't given there.  In fact because they are given in the upper butt/lower back area I am not even the ones administering them.  My husband has to give me a shot every night and his is very much not a fan of needles so I was worried about him having to do it.

He still doesn't like needles at all but he has been doing a fantastic job of being brave and giving me the shot every night. We kind of got into a routine. Put a numbing patch on for 30 minutes and then he gives me the shot.  After the shot he has to massage the area for a few minutes to make sure the medicine is disbursing into the muscle and not just sitting there because it is in oil.  Then I lay on a heating pad for about 5 minutes to try and melt anything still there and then he gives me a little bit more of a massage.






This whole process takes about an hour from putting the pain patch on to finishing the massage.

A couple of days before the transfer I also started taking an antibiotic to kill any germs in me just in case. By the time we got to the transfer day I was taking 4 pills, 2 suppositories and 1 shot a day!

After all that prep it was time for the transfer but that deserves its own post!