I had my Endometrial Receptivity Array (ERA) done today.
For those of you who don't know what that is, hold tight, I will explain in a minute, but I still need to tell you what L stands for. Today, L is for Lobster.
So the ERA:
This is the same procedure as the "scratch", which *may* aid in implantation ... but the sample is sent for testing instead of being discarded. When I had the scratch done leading up to my 2nd transfer, they had to clamp my cervix because apparently, it moves too. Who knew? This resulted in me almost succeeding in breaking my mothers hand, while trying not to jump off the table and away from the pain, all while swearing profusely (semi) under my breath.
So how does it work? In a nutshell, you take all of the injections leading up to a transfer, but instead of transferring an embryo, they take a biopsy of your uterine lining—with no anesthesia or pain meds (OMG OUCH!) and send it out for testing to see when your personalized "window of implantation" is. This is testing more than TWO HUNDRED genes that play a role in the endometrium becoming receptive.
There are two possible results:
Receptive - all good
Non-Receptive - Your lining needs more or less exposure to progesterone before your window.
Once the results come back, we will tweak my protocol with exact timing on when to start the progesterone injections, or look for other possible reasons why the "perfect" quality, genetically normal embryos are failing to implant.
Stirrups come out. Speculum goes in. Here it comes. Chads hand is ready to squeeze. Oh no, please no clamp. The MA pushed down on my bladder, I try hard not to pee on them. How mortifying would that be? That's it. The biopsy is done, with no clamp this time (praise the Lord!) and no *almost* broken hands. Mine however, had some pretty good bite marks on it.
Fun fact, iodine has shellfish in it. Chad and I are chillin in the room. Picture this: I'm sitting on the exam table, with only a giant paper napkin covering me from the waist down, and my cat-acado sock adorned feet hanging out. I'm starting to panic. My bladder is full and ready to burst. The MA comes in and explains the procedure, asks some questions, when did I start meds, how is my bladderm blah, blah, blah. Then comes "do you have a shellfish allergy?" I say no. Then I proceeded to ask if they were going to shove a lobster up there... Yep. That happened. I would LOVE to blame it on the hormones, but I can't. That's just me.