Larry's MESA surgery

10/22/14
As I type this I am in the waiting room while Larry is in surgery. We drove to Houston last night and stayed in room since we had to be at the hospital at 6 am this morning. We got here right on time and got him all checked in. They took him to pre-op around 6:40, and I got to be back there with him. We met with his nurse who went over all his medications, allergies, past surgeries, etc. With the Ebola scare going on, the first questions she was required to ask was if he'd traveled to Liberia in the past month, if he'd been to Dallas, and if he'd been in contact with the nurse with Ebola. Thank God we are able to answer no to those questions! We also met with the anesthesiologist and the nurse anesthetist. The whole time Larry seemed nervous, so I just sat in the chair next to him comforting him. He's a man so of course every time I asked him if anything was wrong he said no. Finally it was time for the IV... The part he was most nervous about. He wasn't nervous about the surgery at all, just the IV! Haha. The nurse did a numbing shot first, so he ended up not even feeling the IV ago in! The toughest part was over! (Or so he thinks lol) I switched out with his mom for a few minutes so she could see him before surgery, then I went back with him. It's so surreal that this is the first step in our IVF process. In just a few months it'll be me in the gown in the hospital bed for the egg retrieval and then for the embryo transfer.... And then not too much longer I'll be in the gown and bed again to welcome our sweet baby into this world.

Larry and I just hung out for a little bit waiting on the doc to come and get him for surgery. We took these silly pictures that I fully intend on showing to our children one day. :P (They will know that not only did their mommy go through a lot of pain to have them, but so did daddy!!)

Not long after that the doc came in, and then the nurse anesthetist gave him his "chill out medicine" (that's what she called it). Then I kissed him and they wheeled him away.

The doctor said that the surgery would take about 2 hours and recovery an hour and then he would call us tonight with results. Larry's mom (Mrs. Amy) and I went to get some breakfast at the cafeteria of the hospital next door, then we came back to the hospital and waited for Larry to be done. Dr. Lipshultz came out after surgery just to say that the surgery went fine and Larry was fine, and then he hurried away (he's a busy man).

When it was finally time to go to post op to see Larry he was in a lot of pain. They gave him some more pain killers through his IV, and then would move him to the recliner before we would leave. He ended up staying in the recliner a little longer because he was still in a lot of pain and needed more meds. Then, we went back to the hotel and the 3 of us napped.

By 8:30 we thought it was weird that the doc didn't call us with the results yet, so Larry decided to go ahead and call his office. They told him that they'd have the on-call doc call us back. He called us back not long after and said that the samples they got were great! They were able to get sperm from the epididymitus so they were somewhat mature and mobile! This will make our chances of IVF success much higher!! Dr. Liphultz did end up calling about an hour later with the same results and said that they got 4 tubes from the epididymitus and 4 tubes from the testes.

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10/23/14
We are so happy to be done with this first step and to have good news about the sample! We are back home today and Larry is still in some pain, but is feeling much better! We are so thankful and are praying that the next few months fly by so that we can start my part next! :D