Holiest of Holy Shits.

Umm, I love you people.

I fucking love you people.

Yesterday morning when the Doctor called and said "none", I immediately went dead inside.  Just dead.  Lights out in Storktown. Here we are at IVF, here we are at super snazzy challenging IVF, here we are still screwed. I know people have it worse, I do.  There are some women who I marvel at on a DAILY basis all the shit they've gone through (you are probably reading this).  But four years, ninety gajillion dollars, heartbreak and the exhausting attempt to keep my optimism later, and not an embryo (or really, a hope of future embryos) was too much.  I went dead.

Every couple of hours I'd look at my phone, and there would be a new comment on my post from yesterday, a tweet, a picture of a candle lit for me (which slayed me), a text, a message on Facebook, and I would WEEP.  I know weeping is normally considered bad, but it was the ONE release I had yesterday (better than Vicodin or a cigarette). I have never felt so embraced by the IF community and I've always felt pretty awesomely embraced. I am just so very, very, very thankful for you and for being allowed to be a weird little corner in this community.  It's fucking awesome, humbling, comforting - a big comfy bosom at the ready.

I asked for prayers, happy thoughts, good vibes, candle lightings, a stern mental petition to science and nature, and I got them.  The dead part of me didn't think it would do anything, but it made me feel better, and loved, and not alone.

Then some crazy shit happened, one after the other.

Last night I'm sitting on the couch with Bub trying to convince myself to sleep.  I don't use my phone for music - at all, NEVER (I like my tiny Ipod).  Also, a few weeks ago Bub finally convinced me to put one of those passcode thingamajigs on it to get into it in the first place.  The phone is sitting several feet away from me and I haven't been on it in hours, and it starts playing music.  At first I thought it was the TV with a really weird choice in song - then when we muted the TV, it was clearly coming from my phone.  Took us a few minutes to figure out how to turn it off.

It was playing "I can tell that we are gonna be friends" by the White Stripes.

I don't have any songs on my phone - just ringtones. I DO, however, love that song.  On my Ipod it's on my IVF playlist.  Yeah, I have an IVF playlist.  Just songs that make me happy, make me think of babymaking, make me optimistic.  The White Stripes song is one of my favorites.  Eons ago a spiritual/cooky family member of mine told me 'you're going to have twins one day'.  The last couple of months when I tried to force my mind to be optimistic, I'd listen to that song and think "they're going to get embryos, they're going to stick in two". Again - rare attempts to be optimistic, here, and that song just makes me think of two friendly peas in a pod.

It was absurd - like, really?  My technology has to go all haunted and wonky JUST to torture me? So once we figured out how to turn it off I went to bed.  Done. D-O-N-E.

I barely slept, kept waking up crying or just angry.  You know like when you had a bad break up in high school?  You'd wake up in the middle of the night and for a hot second things would be fine, and then you'd remember life sucked and your stomach would drop through the floor. Like that.  Mixed in with getting lovely messages, and saying out loud to the universe I KNOW my eggs are feistier than this. I was also beyond moved by the hope friends, family, IF people were showing me and was plotting exactly how I would kindly and non-dramatically say "thanks for trying, but..." in the morning.

8 AM Doctor calls - he asks me how I'm doing physically post egg retrieval (since they got twice as many this time, I'm super duper sore but that's the least of my problems).  Two minutes in he says "Well, out of the six we talked about yesterday -" I literally brace myself wanting the zero to be over with - "two of them fertilized normally".

At this point I start screaming and crying.  I say "SHUT UP!  ARE YOU LYING?" at which point Bub hears me from the other room and comes sprinting in, and Luna the lovable moron begins circling and howling. (Thankfully my Doctor thinks I'm funny).

He's a Doctor so apparently he's not supposed to lie.

Yesterday, 11 out of my immediately mature eggs didn't fertilize.  Not one.  He told me the embryologist was going to try with the leftover 6 eggs that had matured since Saturday, but that the chances of even one fertilizing was less than 5%.

Fucking miracle. Miracle, miracle, miracle.

I have never - NEVER - cried from happiness before in my life.  EVER. Seen it in the movies, didn't know it was an actual thing, and I WEPT.  Wept.

Since they're a day behind, my uterine lining is going to be a little too fluffy for them right now.  So they think the best chance is if they survive until Friday, they're going to freeze them, we'll get my lining all synced up with them and do a FET next month.

Stopped crying long enough to tell Bub what was going on who was enormously relieved.  Immediately texted my Mom who had my entire family (all 90 million of them) lighting candles last night (she said miracle: part 1).  Texted Mr. T who was rallying the troops last night and cried with me on the phone today (whose text response is priceless)

.

I am so happy.

I realize that that may seem ludicrous - I've seen women upset that they only got 8 embryos and I have 2. And my 2 are behind where they should be...

But holy shit!  2!  2 is SO MUCH better than 0!  And those two had less than a 5% chance of existing in the first place! Yes they have to survive until Friday (please please please) and then to freeze/thaw, etc... but OMG, for the chance, just for the chance...  And if we have to do this again (I'm hoping not) at least I can say "well, last time out of one batch there was a 33% fertilization rate" which is much more optimistic than 0. If I have to have a round 3, it'll be easier to go into it with some hope now.

I am so happy to have hurdles and hope.  So happy.  

... And this could be them.  This could be them. This could be them, feisty and pissed off and demanding life.  This could be those two I've dreamed about and was told I was going to have.  This could be them. They could right now be deciding if they are going to have my bug eyes.. Last night they could have showed some of Bub's technical genius by somehow communicating via my phone (could they not send a text?).  This could be them.  This could be two little feisty ass kickers who insisted on getting here come hell or high water.  They just have to stay feisty and strong - and I'm feisty and strong, so they have to have that in them, right?

I am overwhelmed with all the love I felt yesterday.  Overwhelmed.  Everyone was so unfuckingbelievably amazing.  I'm so honored and humbled to have you in my life.  (And though there's been countless awesome people, COUNTLESS who have gone above and beyond, a special shout out to my darling Fox who has been sending me silly videos and rallying troops on my behalf for two weeks. Honored to call her a friend).

Please keep thinking, praying, lighting candles, etc.  I'm totally fucking humbled that so many people did this in the first place so it feels weird asking for even more (I want MORE free candy, damnit!) but my gawd, you all have some kind of magic.  

And I would love - LOVE - to be that blog that people accidentally stumble across via google one day.. when they've been given terrible, awful 'it's never going to happen' news, and they want to find someone who's prospects were even bleaker and came out the other side.  I will rock the SHIT out of being that girl - I have had enough with being the horror story that scares people. I was MADE to be the girl that can take someone by the shoulders and say 'oh no, honey, this is GOING to happen for you, I KNOW it will'.

If I do manage to come out the other side (please please this time would be great) I will be sensitive, and wonderful, and without complaint.  I will write (as I do, anyway) mostly about unrelated shenanigans and light the whole fucking street on fire when you need someone to burn a candle.  If I loved you times a million yesterday, I love you times a gajillion today.

I am just... okay this is rambly, but I am just so grateful for you.  So grateful.  And grateful for whatever the hell miracle happened in the last 24 hours that gave me at least a shot. A shot is a SHOT damnit.

I'll end this with my peas in a pod song... For you and for my two.

My darling embryos, please, please, please stick around and give me the chance to be your silly Mom who will inevitably be blasting that song into my uterus for the entire 40 weeks. (Sidenote - I have not named you in your embryo state yet, but I am thinking one of you will possibly and inexplicably be La Bamba.  Just trying to think of another name that is also ass kicking).

Thank you for all the love - please keep praying and thinking happy thoughts and sacrificing goats and lighting candles and whatever else you got.  I will be one happy, happy and appreciative Stork.