🌱 Egg Retrieval: Prayers, Mantras, and Gratitude

Today was egg retrieval day. My heart was full of nerves, but I prayed and recited mantras to myself before the procedure began.

One mantra I whispered over and over was:

“I am calm, I am safe, I am ready.”

Going into this process, there were things I didn’t fully understand. For example, just because a follicle is seen on an ultrasound doesn’t mean it always contains an egg. Sometimes follicles are empty. I also didn’t realize that even if eggs are retrieved, not all of them are mature, and not every mature egg will fertilize. And even if they do, not every embryo survives long enough to be transferred or frozen.

That knowledge made today feel even more fragile, and made me even more grateful for every single egg retrieved.

My final prayer before anesthesia was simple yet heavy with hope: that the retrieval would be successful, and that fertilization would take place. Because even now, I know the process is delicate.

We were only able to retrieve a small number of eggs. Still, I am grateful for each one, especially given how slow my follicles seemed to grow along the way.

Just before I drifted off, my last mantra was:

“God, let there be life in these follicles and hope in what is retrieved.”

Now, I wait — holding onto faith, gratitude, and the quiet prayer that even these tiny beginnings might bloom into a miracle.