Dottie Done Kicked Me in the Stomach

Today I got to see the underbelly of the fertility clinic...well, maybe not the underbelly, but a whole new area--the area where they do the egg retrievals. It felt like a spa instead of a doctor's office; we walked down a long hall and took off our shoes by the bamboo shoe stand and rock fountain and then I changed into a gown that was much nicer than a normal hospital gown, probably made of organic cotton or something.

My nurse, Dottie, was very nice and she gave us a bunch of instructions I forgot right away and also just kept us company. And then we took bets on how many eggs we were going to get, based on the # of follicles (15-17), using Price Is Right rules. DH said 13, Dottie said 14, another nurse said 17, and the embryologist said she'd be Bob Barker. So I bet one egg, to be the closest without going over. There was no prize but the embryologist did end up drawing a sort of "award certificate" for the winner.

It was all very comfortable except that there was another woman also having retrieval in the room before me and we could hear her get wheeled off and come back all f*#ked up and hear that she had 11 eggs. They said 12 is the average but 11 was great for her age. So this was making me nervous (Was I going to feel like she sounded? What if I had fewer eggs, and I'm young?)

Before I knew it (time stands still back there, especially if you don't have a watch), DH was sent off to collect his specimen and I was wheeled away. I felt like I was in one of the Jason Bourne movies (I love those movies!) because the last thing I remember is that everything was very, very white. I woke up as f*$ked up as that lady sounded. I asked Dottie if she kicked me in the stomach and she laughed but I didn't.

But the news was good: 12 eggs. A dirty dozen, good place to start. And I won the contest. And I'm totally average. I guess in a world where 10% of couples have fertility problems, and a smaller portion need IVF, ending up finally being average ain't too bad.