Regards from snowy Kiev

Today I even do not know what to start from. It’s the second day after eggs retrieval and I still have pain in my lower abdominal, obviously in the places of puncture. It still bleeds slightly. They say it’s ok. My poor belly was full of bruises after hormonal injections and now this all is doubled with inner pain and weakness after anesthesia. Gosh? The same question again and again: Who told that women are the weaker sex?

Despite of all my post-stimulation and post-surgery tortures, there’s the main fact that should be underlined: the surgery went well. And yes, this is the key factor in this story. The day was magical from the very morning. They told me not to eat anything before the surgery. I woke up and looked through the window: everything was cover by virgin white snow and it was still snowing. I don’t know why, but I decided that it was a good sign. The driver came to take us to the clinic at the appointed time. It seems that traffic was getting more intense because of snow.  We started to get nervous that we won’t get to clinic in time. Hopefully, our driver knew the best way and took us to the clinic just on time. They took me upstairs. It was warm there, so I almost forgot about snowfall that was outside. My anesthesiologist was really a humorous man. He was definitely in a very good humor so I relaxed a bit. He asked something from my manager. They told me to take off all clothes and to dress a one shot medical gown. It was complete anesthesia. I remember myself counting and then I fall into very deep sleep. They told it was around 15 minutes. For me, it seemed like 30 seconds.  Not feeling anything, nothing at all. No nervousness, no pain. I had so many questions and I was waiting for my manager to come. She ensured me that everything went well and told that I will get a report on how many eggs were retrieved a bit later. She also gave some recommendations on my post surgery care.

Oh, I forgot to tell that my husband was done with his sperm pickup even before they took me to surgery room. They use everything fresh for our fertilization: fresh sperm and eggs. They told that 8 eggs were retrieved. We still don’t have any report on embryos. Maybe it’s too early. In any case, our embryo transfer is planned for December 5. We had a separate discussion with our doctor and manager of how many eggs should be transferred. They said that they can transfer up to three eggs. I know that it increases chances of successful ivf, but still it increases chances of multiples and we were not so much overwhelmed by the idea. I love children but raising triplets accompanied by a toddler was not actually what we were dreaming of. So we gave our consent on transferring two embryos.

They told me that it would be better to stay in bed for 2-3 days after the surgery. Our air tickets are booked for tomorrow night so I have one more day for rehab. We have another long and tiring flight back home, again with a change in Frankfurt, so I have to get better soon. Hopefully, Martin keeps Den entertained. They give me as much time for rest and sleep as I want. There’s a maid who cooks dinners for us and cleans the apartment, so we have nothing to worry about. It was already late evening when it stopped snowing so heavily. They went outside to play with snow. I’m sure they had much fun. Snow was shining on the moonlight and was so divinely white that it seemed that ground was covered with down and it felt so comfy in this fur coat.

Today it doesn’t snow anymore and the sun is shining so brightly that I even had to pull down roll curtains on my windows. This time it reminds me that Christmas is so soon. According to my approximate calculations, we will get to know the result of our surrogate’s pregnancy just a few days before Christmas. But let’s not run before we can walk. Flying home tomorrow and will be looking forward to their updates on our embryo transfer on Monday. I hope my eggs will be good enough for fertilization and embryos will develop properly.

PS: it seems that I forgot to tell you a few other important steps of our surrogacy journey that took place during this visit. Most importantly, we had to make the second payment according to our payment schedule. This time it was 7 900 euros. This was the second installment. By this time, we have already paid 15 900 euros in total. Also, we signed contract with our surrogate even though we still haven’t seen her. They told that we will be able to meet her only when pregnancy is confirmed. Ok.  Now our future totally depends on Biotexcom embryologists and gynecologists. I hope they will do their best for us and our attempt will be positive. Everything crossed!