Mother Hen

***Warning: the following post was created while under the influence of Combunox.***

Just go ahead call me Mother Hen because I laid my eggs today.... 20 of them to be exact. Well, really I didn't lay them, but I did have my egg retrieval today, and it went really well. I got to have a couple of margaritas given intravenously (aka Versed and Fentanyl), which was a really nice feeling. I won't say that it was completely painless, but it wasn't bad at all. Now I am just feeling like I have bad menstrual cramps, but I should be fine enough to go back to work tomorrow. But anyway, the procedure was really short, and after it was over, the lab ended up with 20 oocytes. Yay! That's a really good number, so good luck to my recipient! It's in the hands of the lab for the next couple of days, and then it's up to her uterus. I'm glad, but also a little sad, that it's all over with on my end. I've really enjoyed doing this, and I would definitely do it again. Plus, I'm a little bit richer now that it's over! $$ :D

I finally found some good pictures to show y'all (I've been looking on the 'net for some all along):

This is an ultrasound picture of follicles. What you see here is basically one ovary with the fluid-filled follicles (the big black circles) that have developed on it. Today in the retrieval, we watched on the ultrasound as he went from follicle to follicle aspirating the fluid out of each one. As he would aspirate, the black circle would slowly disappear.

This is a a mature oocyte (under high magnification). When you first find oocytes, they are surrounded by cumulus cells that will later be stripped off of the egg for further manipulation. You can actually see the oocyte with the naked eye, but it is necessary to use a microscope to see it well. After the cumulus mass is stripped away from the egg, the egg is about the size of a dot that a pen would make on a piece of paper if you just touched the pen to the paper and didn't move it.

This is not the best picture, but this is a fertilized egg. My eggs were put with sperm this afternoon, and so hopefully in the morning they will look like this. Tomorrow will be considered "Day 1" after fertilization.

This is a 4-cell embryo, and this is what the embryos look like on "Day 2." They will have cleaved, and they are usually between 2 and 6 cells on day 2.

These are 3 gorgeous 8-cell embryos on "Day 3." Most of the time on day 3 they will be 8-10 cells. Day 3 is generally the day that they are transferred to the mother's uterus.

This is a picture of 2 expanded blastocysts, one of which is about 50% hatched. This would be about Day 5 or 6 after fertilization, and occasionally embryos are cultured to this point before being transferred to the mother's uterus. Between this stage and the stage in the previous picture, the cells have divided so much that they have begun to organize, and at this blastocyst stage, the cells have formed an embryonic mass (which will eventually form the fetus), and the cells around the edge will eventually form the placenta. At this stage, the blastocyst will "hatch" out of the "zona pellucida" which is like the shell around the outside. Once they hatch, they can implant on the uterine lining and begin to grow into a baby!

For more cool images, check it out here.