Or to rephrase: halfway through the longest. week. of. my. life.
PS - someone left a comment yesterday that said this is like watching Breaking Bad and that made me die laughing. (Which made me think Heisenberg is another option for an embryo name as he is clearly a badass and involved in chemistry. Plus clearly my embryos would be rocking some sort of say-something hat).
Okay so.
No official update from the lab - no lid lifting today. Yesterday I thought having no update today would make me feel more sane but we have gone in the other direction. This morning angel RN worded it in a way that gave me pause - that the day-late fertilizers are more likely to poop out.
Trying trying trying to stay positive - they weren't supposed to fertilize in the first place. And there are two of them. Trying to hold onto the gleeful feeling of Monday morning being shocked that anybody did anything. They are pissed off and feisty and demanding life. I need them pissed off and feisty and demanding life.
Plus - these are made of Bub and me. And Bub and me would NEVER do anything daunting on a weekend so it would make sense they would just hold off until Monday.. right?
So I may possibly get an update tomorrow, or it may be Friday... and more than likely Friday will be the freeze day although apparently it could also be Saturday. Asked about freezing more thoroughly today, and apparently they have some latest-freezing technique where if an embryo is viable, it will absolutely survive freezing and thaw. So there's that.
Anyways. I know I sound like a broken record but please keep the candle lighting, the prayers, the good juju and the chicken sacrificing going. It's fucking doing something. Miracle part 1 was completely against the odds, so miracle to completion is possible. I have stated before that we are all clearly witches but man.... Please keep it up with the international happy juju for them. You will be internet aunts and with a wee bit of hope restored in my life after all these years I can use all my badassery and pissed off feistiness and focus is it entirely on WILLING everyone's babies into existence through sheer will and mind scolding.
And speaking of witches - Mr. T and a gaggle of gays are having an American Horror Story: Coven viewing party tonight. So that will be nice and distracting. I will be the only ute present, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett are clearly good for the soul, and so help me I will make them wave all their fairy godfather hands around and say prayers. As Mr. T put it, they can be my Goven.
(Source. And clearly just a promo for IVF).
So today as I'm taking a surprise hour long car ride because Bub left his insulin pen at home today (I mean.. the man's been shooting me up with needles for two weeks and dealing with side effects - least I could do is bring him his needle) I started thinking-thinking in car, and plotting things to google when I got home.
Mainly I wanted to come home, and for the millionth time in my TTC career, look up shot-in-hell-turned-pregnancy stories. They're all over the place, but there's not a whole lot in terms of a wide variety of stories in one spot.
So I'm thinking we could do a collective post on here about shot-in-hell turned happy stories, like most of us have needed at one point or another, for people to find all in one spot.
Stories about low betas, poor fertilization, concerning bleeding, weird placenta problems, 'you're definitely not getting pregnant', small number of follicles, expected miscarriage, etc., turned successful pregnancies.
So if you have had one yourself or know someone who has, email it to me (Stupid Stork 4 at gmail). However long you want it to be, just the crisis and how it turned happy part, and let me know how you want to be credited (name/link if you have one).
I just think it'd be cool to have a variety of stories like that from real infertiles (not fertiles talking about their sisters aunts cousins hairdressers) all in one spot. For the lady a few months from now googling for some hope when it's almost lost. I'm sure it'll be a virtual hug for someone at some point, and some good karma for us to boot.
Whatdya think?
In the meantime I started a thread about it on Fertile Thoughts...
And honestly, I can't fucking mention this enough.. Thank you for all the prayers and wishes and good vibes and juju - we're at the end of the fertility road here, and if I have to be this frightened I'm glad I have such awesome and understanding people with me. If anyone can make a miracle happen with good vibes and juju and prayers it's you people - you're like the Seal Team 6 of Magic.
Thank you thank you thank you and please oh pretty please keep them coming... These have to be my kids. Have to be. I'm out of shots, here. This is them, I've waited long enough. I'll be collecting my kids now, universe, and then retire to channeling my energy to others. Please please please please thank you thank you thank you thank you.
You got it! You've been the spotlight of my twice-daily prayers and will continue to be. :)
ReplyDeleteI just tap danced a powerful tap routine for you! It was soft shoe, but it's potent. I had low fert rate with my last IVF, too. It's the WORST! I added a shuffle, step, ball change to the dance number for extra fertile thoughts for your little Heisenbergs, who WILL be - according to their name - badass, kickass and surprisingly resilient! You massively deserve this stork. You do so much for the rest of us. This better be your time or else I'll be forced to open up a can on the universe!!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's amazing how 5 days can feel like 365 when you're waiting to find out if you have embryos to freeze! Been there, done that, couldn't afford the t-shirt because I was too poor from IVF. But yeah, the freezing now is this fancy kind of flash-freeze called vitrification and depending on the lab it has over a 90% thaw rate, which I've been counting on because I've never had more than one embryo and if I went through everything only to have it not thaw...well, that would suck. Understatement of the year. Anyway...all this digression to say that hopefully La Bamba and Heisenberg are still cooking away in there and will be nice and fat and blasty by this weekend!
ReplyDeleteSO MANY POSITIVE HAPPY THOUGHTS! Just like in Ghost Busters II, I will make toasters DANCE for you damnit! Hoping!
ReplyDeleteAs for positive stories, I will try to email you soon with mine :)
Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers for the embabies to keep growing!
ReplyDeleteYep, don't worry about freezing the embryos, with vitrification, things are almost as good as fresh.
ReplyDeleteBtw, as a scientist, I think fresh transfers have an element working against them, becuase the uterus is in an extremely wierd place 3-5 days after retreival. It has just gone through an extremely unnatural hormonal barrage,like getting bitch slapped by monster quantities of estrogen, and may not offer the best conditions for implantation. If you do a FET, in many cases, it may improve the chances of implantation. If I were doing a transfer after IVF, I'd elective choose for the embryos to be frozen, and come back.
I haven't been commenting as I wade through a horrendous week right now, but I'm reading on the edge of my seat and have been sending all of my thoughts your way. Well no, not really your way...more I'm sending them out to form a protective bubble around some Petri dishes. Grow, little ones!
ReplyDeleteOmg Stork, you're raising my blood pressure even further! I can't handle the suspense! I think it's a GREAT idea to compile some of the holy-fuck-as-if-this-just-happened stories out there in the IF world... mine isn't really worth a full post or anything, especially because I wasn't dealing with DOR or other major problems in the mix. But I did have to deal with shitty betas for my first IVF and wept a LOT about how the numbers weren't doubling properly, and despite everyone's insistence that it would all be OK, I just felt like I'd never seen a blog where someone had crap betas that actually led to a viable pregnancy. But then mine did -- and now I'm 9 months along. Also, for what it's worth, the embryologist at our clinic stressed to us ages ago that he's seen ugly-ass embryos turn into beautiful babies, so you really just never know.
ReplyDeleteConjuring up as much juju as possible for you guys!!
Still thinking about you and bub....tomorrow is Friday!!!! I think Heisenberg is an awesome embryo name!
ReplyDeleteI'm having a Jessica Lange hangover today!!! I know two great stories. One a girl I worked with her sister inlaw was doing IVF. Got 6 embryos out of it ....2 grade A, 2 grade B, and 2 grade C. Well grade A didn't work, and neither did grade B. she wanted to use the grades C for her third FET, and the doc told her no. She insisted, and guess what she now has two beautiful and healthy baby girl twins!!! Second I had one embryo from our last IVF which was our third IVF and last and final one. We did put that one in, along with one we had frozen. But I firmly believe it was the one that kicked ass that is my baby boy in my arms right now. Your lil asskicker is waiting for you and Bub....I can feel it.
ReplyDeleteStorky, you could probably walk across hot coals with all of the positive thoughts/energy/karma coming your way. You've made such an impact on the IF blog world following you since you started this thing. (sidenote, you could probably publish this someday). My IF journey started in June 2011 and I got lucky with IVF last year, but have been checking in on you regularly ever since. Not as dramatic as other stories we have heard, but all of my 14 extracted eggos died except one little blast that could. they say it and its true... all it takes is one. Chug along, mini Heisenberg & lil kickass!
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