More 2WW rambling

I'm not listing symptoms below.  Rather, I think that a combination of estrogen+progesterone+occupied mind is just causing some out of the ordinary mental/health/emotional changes here lately.

Sleep!  I'm back to sleeping with PC:]  By that, I mean that since the week of retrieval I have been camped out on the couch.  Around that time I was going to the bathroom 4-5 times during the night.  I don't know if it was enlarged ovarian area pressing on the bladder or what, but PC is a light sleeper and was waking up each time so I moved to the couch.  Last night I moved back into our bed since I'm down to one trip a night and I slept so hard but not hard enough  because I remember my...

Crazy Dreams!  I've been having some weird dreams but last night took the prize.  I went on a date to a water park with M.ike R.owe from D.irty J.obs!  I woke up laughing when I rememebered!  PC didn't think it was too funny but I told him not to worry, I hate water parks!  The last thing I watched last night was P.awn S.tars so I'm surprised I wasn't at the shooting range or eating KFC with C.humlee!  At least these weird dreams have been funny, which is better than the alternative!

Appetite!  I can only hope estrogen and/or progresterone lead to an increased appetite because otherwise I am in trouble.  I'm hungry when I wake up, hungry before I go to sleep and most other times of the day as well.  Another reason to hope that this works... pregnancy is a much better excuse for weight gain!

The 2WW is still moving slowly along but I'm trying to line up distractions for the rest of the week.  We go back to the RE on Thursday to check my P4 level.  I guess that's to see if the shots in the backside are producing enough progesterone?  I was on valium and PC picked the time for this appointment, so we'll be leaving to get my blood checked at 5:30 a.m.  Arrggghhh!  WAIT, I was griping to PC about that as I typed and he said "we can leave at 5:45 a.m."  That makes it all better. 

Reading back over this, I guess you can add moody to this list although I don't really want to admit it.   

Is it only 1dp3dt???

Sitting here with a heating pad on my PIO'd butt!  1dp3dt and PC has already banned me from reading anything about embryo transfers.  He didn't catch me in time to find this "play by play" chart so that I can hope and pray that my embryos are following the schedule!  This is going to be a long two weeks!

3-Day Transfer

Days Past Transfer (DPT)	Embryo Development
One	The embryo continues to grow and develop, turning from a 6-8 cell embryo into a morula
Two	The cells of the morula continue to divide, developing into a blastocyst
Three	The blastocyst begins to hatch out of its shell
Four	The blastocyst continues to hatch out of its shell and begins to attach itself to the uterus
Five	The blastocyst attaches deeper into the uterine lining, beginning implantation
Six	Implantation continues
Seven	Implantation is complete, cells that will eventually become the placenta and fetus have begun to develop
Eight	Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) starts to enter the blood stream
Nine	Fetal development continues and hCG continues to be secreted
Ten	Fetal development continues and hCG continues to be secreted
Eleven	Levels of hCG are now high enough to detect a pregnancy

I'm mad at myself for agonizing over every move I make or every twinge I feel!  One of my friends realized she went horseback riding in the early stages of her second pregnancy and here I am worried about having the hiccups!  Aside from running a marathon or hanging out in a sauna, I don't think that normal activity is going to interfere with the natural process that is hopefully taking place in my uterus right now.  These embryos may not have gotten there through the usual route but I'm hoping they are "home" now...for nine months anyway! 

PC asked me about some credit card charges today and I told him I hadn't used that card in a long time.  We realized someone stole our card number and we have it narrowed down to two online sources where PC recently made purchases and our card number was hijacked.  So far they have bought body art/piercings, spent two nights at a hotel in Raleigh, NC, spent $300+ at a home office store and $1.00 at Home Depot before we caught on and closed the card.  How do you spend $1.00 at a Home Depot?  And do you think they felt the least bit guilty doing all of this on our DISNEY card?  Poor Disney card has been defiled from who knows what has been purchased by this/these thieves!  Now we wait for a claims form to get everything straightened out.  Thank goodness we rarely use our debit card for online purchases, that would be a bigger pain if these funds were drained from our bank account!  (They couldn't get very far seeing as how those funds were pretty much drained from IVF anyway!)

I hope part of the 2WW support here is being able to ramble about topics that may or may not be IF related while passing the time!  

The Transfer

Transfer day started a little stressful.  I was supposed to be there at 9 a.m. for a 10 a.m. transfer with a full bladder and was still sitting in the waiting room at 10:25... with an overly full bladder.  One bright spot was a guy who brought in a three year old and announced to all of us "this can work people, here's proof!"  That brought a lot of smiles.  Finally, they called me back to the waiting area and I got in the gown while PC got decked out in scrubs and we waited on the doctor to talk to us about the embryos and give me the go ahead to take the valium.  Bad news, we do not have any to freeze.  But the good news was.... introducing...

two beautiful embryos.  One 8 and 12 cell Grade 1 embryos who made the trip into my uterus for what I hope is an extended stay!!!  They also did assisted hatching before the transfer.  We've come a long way the past few weeks to get to this point and now I just want to rest and believe that this process can and will work!  How am I ever going to get through this 2WW? 

Blog buddies, I am so pleased to say I am PUPO!!! 

Pre-transfer Random Thoughts

I guess I need to work off some pre-transfer nervousness, which has resulted in the following random thoughts...

Today I wrapped up things at work and brought a few things home to take next week off.  I typically use 1-3 days of sick leave a year so this feels really strange.   My work can bring some highly stressful moments and I want to give these embryos the best possible chance to stick and stay!  In my work, I constantly deal with people and situations where it's not unusual for me to contact law enforcement a few times during the month.  That's not the kind of adrenaline rush that I want these embryos to experience from the start!  Instead I will be filling my time with positive thoughts, blogging, light spring cleaning, watching TLC (skipping A Baby Story for now) and basically doing whatever I we want!

I had an acupuncture appointment this afternoon.  I told Dr. C. about the transfer tomorrow and he got to work doing his Eastern medicine thing.  I told him to make me a good statistic with the correlation between acupuncture and pregnancy success rates!  He said it has to do with an overall improved health state and balanced energy.  Fine, improve and balance me!  For anyone who's considering it, my experience is to lay facing up while he puts in 6-8 needles at various pressure points.  He turns a heat lamp on and I lay there for awhile listening to the Chinese restaurant music.  The needles do not hurt... maybe a teeny tiny sting here and there but (if so) that only lasts a second.  After IVF, acupuncture really is a treat that involves needles!  Anyway, I do this for about 20 minutes or so, then turn on my stomach and he does the same thing on my back and finishes with massage.  I always leave feeling relaxed, which is a big accomplishment for me.

Tonight was PIO shot #3 and SIL turned the job over to PC.  He did a great job, A++!  He's so cute back there giving me the play by play "one fourth is in, now one half, now three fourths, almost done..." although I'm not going anywhere!  The shot is not so much a problem as the soreness the next day.  I have no idea how to make it better.  I put ice on before, massage the area and put heat on it afterwards but the next day my hips hurt!  Tomorrow morning I have instructions to insert a progesterone capsule vaginally and lay there for 20 minutes.  Seriously?!?  That should be interesting... I mean, does it really absorb or just hang out there for awhile?  Thinking out loud here although anyone is welcome to educate me on the progesterone pill that goes MIA.

I've wondered a lot these past three days about what really goes on in the IVF lab with our egg+sperm.  I don't know about you, but it was a weird feeling for us to think that we were busy making an embryo 79 miles away from home!  So, I did a little Internet browsing and came across this IVF clinic's website.  It has a really good video called 'virtual tour of our IVF lab' that answered a lot of my questions.  It also has an image gallery of embryos that really was helpful for me to understand the grading system.  This medical technology is just amazing.  The embryologists have to be so careful... my worry wart self was thinking "oh please don't let them drop our petri!"

Now that I've rambled with these random thoughts, I am going to try and hold my eyes open long enough to read a few blogs and then get some sleep for the big day!    

Fertility Report!

Mac and PC have hooked up in the petri dish, woo-hoo!  Fabulous Fertilized FOUR doesn't sound too bad, does it?  We were happy with that report and just hope our Fab Four continue to divide and develop!  Next steps:  Acupuncture on Friday then the Transfer on Saturday, which I've already mentioned is also our 6 year anniversary!  Hopefully this will be an anniversary that brings us the best gift we could ever ask for!  Your positive thoughts, prayers and sweet comments will get us through Saturday... Thank You!   

To be continued.......................