Egg Retrieval Time.

23.12.14

8am - up we get and off to Cambridge we go.

I am such a wuss, I openly admit it....I pretty much had to stop myself from crying the whole of that journey.

I was apprehensive, scared, frightened and just wanted it to be over with.

Upon arrival we went straight to the ward and was greeted by the wonderful nurses, one thing I can say about Bourn is that everyone is so amazing, so friendly and never treats you any differently just because you are an NHS funded patient.

A nurse took us into one of the rooms and showed me to my bed, it's hard to explain what it's like because it's nothing like an NHS hospital where it's noisy, clinical and rushed.

The room was like someone's living room, carpeted, inviting, beds in each corner and then the standard hospital curtains that pulled around for your privacy.

We had a form to fill out and then I got changed into the gown ready for surgery.

As soon as the nurse came back and mentioned to me about being under local anesthetic I started hyperventilating. One thing I said from the beginning is that I did NOT want to be awake for this procedure. I knew what was going to happen and I really really just wanted to be knocked out for it.

Here's a run down of how egg collection works:

They insert a ultrasound wand that has a needle on the end through the wall of the cervix and out the other side to collect the eggs from the ovaries. The needle is pushed into each follicle and then the eggs (if there are any in there) are sucked up and go through the tube.

They say that under local anesthetic you will not feel much of this process but I just could not go ahead knowing that there was a chance that I might feel it.

I'm pretty sure that there are others out there who feel the same, it's not a nice procedure.

So anyway after doing my blood pressure and seeing that it was sky high, the nurse decided that thankfully it would be best to let me be under general anesthetic.

There were other's going in and out having their egg collections too so I had to wait for about an hour or so before it was my turn. 

During this time, poor Kenny had to go off and do his part of the bargain.....well we don't need to go into details about that do we but put it this way it lightened the mood a bit every time one of the men in the room had to be taken away. ha ha

At around 11.15ish I was taken to theatre by the anesthetist. 

We walked down the corridor to the theatre and I was greeted by a whole team of doctors, nurses, surgeons ...you name it. It was like a scene from Scrubs so strange.

 I got onto the bed with the bright surgical lights shining down on me and I could feel my body tensing and my heart banging.

They explained that they would insert the anesthetic into my hand and began trying to get me to relax.

The needle wouldn't go into my hand so they tried inside of my upper arm, still no good....by this point I was laying there trying to stop the sobs from erupting.

One of the anesthetists was holding my hand, he was an older gentle man...I'm sure he had an Australian accent but I remember him talking to me, asking me if I was going away this year, desperately trying to calm me.

In the end they had to then try the other hand and it finally went in, I remember saying to them can you just put me out now please, just knock me out. 

They gave me some drug and I finally started to feel woozy, they also gave me a mask with gas and air I assume and I remember laying there thinking in a minute this will all be over......and then that lovely warm feeling took over and I was OUT!!!

When I was coming around, they wheeled me back to the ward where Kenny was waiting for me. I think I was garbling some sort of rubbish about "it's not time to wake up yet, the alarm hasn't gone off".

Once I had come around a bit more and noticed Kenny sitting there holding my hand I just burst into tears....it was a mixture of feeling relieved that it was done and also the memory of that awful bit before hand of being put out. my hands and arm were sore.

The good news was that they managed to collect 13 eggs which were now going off to be fertilised. 

I didn't really feel any other pain at that point, I was just super thirsty.

After about half an hour I was sitting up and just wanted to go home...they made me drink tea and have some croissants first and then once they were satisfied that I was okay they let us leave.

Once home all I wanted to do was sleep.