T minus 4 days and counting

I have been chided for not giving an update on the road to babyville.  Sorry.  I’ve been napping.

Here’s the situation:

Originally, I was to have a day 3 transfer, on May 20.  Then, that morning, the doctor’s office called and said, “Nah, they’re looking so far so good.  Let’s grow these to day 5.”  So, I got a call on Thursday for the Friday transfer.  THEN, I got a call on Friday morning saying, “Actually, they’re not kee-wite where we want them to be, let’s do it tomorrow morning.”  A day 6 transfer?  I’d not heard of such a thing and naturally my worry monster started surfacing.  I did some quick research and found there was very little difference between the success and health of day 6 embryos over day 5.  So, since I don’t work Fridays, and Hubby had taken the day off to tend to me, we headed out for a matinee of Night at the Museum 2:  Battle of the Smithsonian, so we could completely numb any fears in our minds.

Last Saturday morning – 9 days ago, I think it was – we headed out to the high tech lab and got our update.  We had two balstocysts that were of good-looking quality.  There were 6 remaining that they were going to keep for a day or two to see if they got to an acceptable quality phase and then freeze them, if they did.  (Those, apparently, didn’t make the cut, saving us about $1,600 in Frigidaire fees.)  I came with the requisite full bladder and warned the doc that I might pee on him a little because I was agonizing.  Good grief, my bladder wanted to rupture.  They took quick sono-peek at my bladder and decided to let me part with a fraction of its contents.  Apparently, looking at my bladder on the sonogram, they were impressed that I hadn’t marked my territory in the transfer room already.

Hubby and I signed our requisite paperwork.  Our doctor had been pushing for a single embryo transfer since I’ve shown no problems getting pregnant in the past and since the practice we go to are very conservative – they strive for singletons.  And he seemed to have been going back and forth on whether to risk twins on me since I’d had previous damage to my uterus – a puncture he discovered and then sewed up.  The last thing he (or Hubby or I) wanted was to have my uterus strained and then ripped open.  However, when we last checked on the thickness of my womb, the puncture had healed so nicely that the wall was thicker than the corresponding wall on the opposite (un-injured) side, and there was no evidence of a weak spot.  I know he was being conservative, and I’m thankful that he is. However, Hubby and I decided to go ahead and have two – the only two good ones – transferred.  The idea being we’d rather risk getting twins and end up with one viable pregnancy than risk a single one and get no viable pregnancy.  It’s a sad gamble, really, but when you’ve lost as many times as we have, that’s the thought process. Our doctor ultimately conceded to our wish for two.

I laid on my back in the exam room, feet in the stirrups and let the doctor do his work.  Hubby stood by my side while the doctor  slid a catheter into my vagina, through my cervix and transferred, into my uterus, two pre-embryos whose creation my husband donated to in absentia.  It was kind of surreal.  Here was my husband watching another man knock me up.  Luckily, the doctor (not my usual) seemed to be down with my sense of humor and he, Hubby and I talked wine while he was impregnating me. By the way, if you’re ever in that situation, don’t discuss verboten ingestibles.  I wanted wine so badly during that conversation and it seemed a bit masochistic on my part, because I think I’m the one who initiated the topic!  Grr.  What next, Laughing?  Chatting up about sushi and ceviche?

The next 24 hours were spent mainly on my back.  Which sucked.  I’m still not allowed to exercise or … something else, I can’t remember what.  Have sex.  That, I know.  We can’t have sex for another month or so.  As all this medication has almost eliminated my libido, and as I’m not taking progesterone shots, but bodily assuming it otherwise (please don’t ask), sex is not really high on my list, anyway. (Which breaks my heart.  I love sex!)

I won’t know until this Friday whether or not I’m actually pregnant.  That is to say, as of a week ago, I was carrying two embryos, but we don’t know if they’ve burrowed in and started paying rent.  We’re assuming I am.  Since my body seems to like getting pregnant, we’re working on that assumption.  I’ve been exhausted a lot lately and my breasts are swollen and tender.  I haven’t really had nausea or anything.  So far, just the breasts and the tiredness.  But I’m scared, of course.  Afraid that for all the estrogen and progesterone I’m taking, neither of these little buggers will settle for long.  One or both might die.  I’m trying to stay positive.  I’m trying to assume that because I am pregnant (I’m pretty sure), then I will have a baby. Or two!

Hubby is happy and hopeful.  He’s sure I’m pregnant and thinks I’m pregnant with both.  He’s positive we’re going to get twins out of this.  After meeting his enthusiasm with very measured caution, I’ve decided to surrender to it this week, at least outwardly. Okay.  We’re going to have twins.  I’m pregnant and we’re going to have two little blessings at the end of this arduous trek.

I’m still very scared.  About everything really.  Having weathered 5 miscarriages, all occurring around the same time, I have a nagging fear in the back of my mind that maybe something dreadfully, genetically wrong is happening with these embryos and nature’s “taking care of it” for us.  What if I’m forcing a seriously flawed embryo to grow into a terribly sick and doomed baby?  Yesterday’s assassination of the doctor in Kansas makes me doubly worried.  God forbid there is something horrifyingly, insurmountably wrong with the baby, or if the pregnancy goes so awry that my health and life are at stake, this country apparently only has two doctors left who could provide a late term abortion.  I shouldn’t let myself think of these things, but I do.  I pray every day for a healthy pregnancy that results in a healthy baby or babies. That’s all I want out of our family expansion:  healthy pregnancies and healthy babies.  And I guess believing that God loves us, regardless of what comes our way and how we handle it, basically sustains me.

I’m bitter and scared and want to be excited and optimistic.  So, I will join in Hubby’s optimism.  I will set aside my surface skepticism in hopes that I can affect my attitude from the outside in.  I am pregnant.  I am pregnant with twins. I will stay pregnant with twins.  I will have a healthy pregnancy and deliver healthy twins.   … we shall see.