Previous: Fertility Part 22: Egg retrieval/Embryos

May 7th, 2024

The mood going into our first embryo transfer was optimism and excitement, finally being here and feeling so close after many years. Before the procedure, Andrea needed to have a full bladder. When we got to the front counter to check in, I told her I was going to go to the washroom and the person at the counter joked that I had to have a full bladder as well. I laughed and said “suffer in solidarity!” Andrea and I had a chuckle about it afterwards as well, but although the whole interaction was just everyone being silly, it really does feel like suffering in solidarity all throughout this process. 

When you look up anything about embryo transfers online, it’s common to see people getting to choose their embryo that gets transferred, but that was not our experience. For one thing, there was no recommendation to do genetic testing on our embryos, so we didn’t really have much information on them in the first place. Another big difference is that in the US, people often choose which gender embryo to transfer, which is not allowed in Canada unless there are legitimate health reasons due to certain genetic abnormalities.

So we trusted our doctor and embryologist to choose which one would be transferred which honestly actually felt like a huge relief to both of us. It seems that some people really spend a lot of time trying to decide which one to transfer, and that seemed exhausting to us.  I know that some people enjoy making that decision, as they feel it may be the only real control they have over this entire process. For us though, we were happy to give that over fully to the doctors.

While waiting, we overheard nurses talking about someone whose embryo did not survive the thawing process, and they were rescheduling the procedure after confirming that they would pull another embryo and attempt to thaw that one as well. This is definitely one of the big risks involved that’s reasonably unavoidable across infertility. That risk will always be there. The day before our transfer, we talked about what we would do if this happened to us and it was comforting to know that if it did, we would have 6 more chances after that. It takes about 2 hours to thaw an embryo, and we knew that we’d have more chances even on the same day.

So many people don’t have that luxury though. If you only have one embryo and you’ve gone through all of this just to have it not survive the thaw, that would be devastating. We consider ourselves very fortunate.

Andrea’s Perspective:

The embryo transfer happened in the same place where the retrieval was a month earlier so I knew a lot of what I would be going into, but I was definitely a lot more aware this time. Once getting settled in the room I met the doctor and nurse who would be there with me and they told me what would be happening.

I had some forms to sign and information to verify (side note, whenever they ask me for Nigel’s birthday I feel like I completely forget everything I have ever known about my husband) and then we all got situated. The room is connected to the embryologist lab so they are busy in there preparing the embryo and soon on the TV screen in front of me I can see a petri dish with my name and information. They zoom in on the petri dish and then the embryo appears. I am given a chance to take photos with my phone and then they draw it up into a catheter.

Moments later the embryologist comes in holding the embryo and hands it to the doctor. The nurse was using an ultrasound to show my uterus and guide the doctor (hence why I needed a very full bladder) and the actual procedure happened so quickly and was no more uncomfortable than a pap smear. As the embryo gets pushed in, you can’t see it, but you can see the air bubbles that surround it which is very cool to see.

Finally they hand the catheter back to the embryologist who goes back and inspects to make sure that the embryo actually did come out of the catheter and I was good to go.

I was officially PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise) and had completed my first embryo transfer.