Embryogate Day 4

It. Is. Thursday.

Last night was a lovely distraction... It was a comfort to be around the gay husband Mr. T (who I have spoken to on the phone but haven't seen in person since the debacle because I'm a freaking maniac who can never remember if she's even showered). There were a gaggle of hilarious gays, guacamole and pizza, a viewing of Hocus Pocus and American Horror Story... Oh it's so good.  Completely twisted. And Bub got a couple of drinks in him and had a good time (I'm sure he's beyond stressed and I'm such a mess I'm no help to anyone, so it was nice to see).

Additionally, Mr. T got me two pairs of socks for my hopeful FET, a colorful pair with individual toes and a pair that just cleverly says 'fuck' over and over again.  Here's hoping I get the opportunity to make a splash.

So my plan for anticipating the morning-updates and retaining some level of sanity is to stay up as late as humanly possible, then pop an Ambien, and then stay unconscious as long as humanly possible in the morning (hooray for being a writer and making my own schedule!).  

So this morning Dr. Kickass' call woke me up.

So the two that fertilized late are now 'multi-cellular'.  Meaning they have so many cells that they're no longer counting them.  He stressed repeatedly that they won't know if they divided up properly until tomorrow - but as of right now, as far as they can tell, they look how they're supposed to look for day 4.

The second two that fertilized late-late-late - are still dividing.  Found out from nurse angelface this afternoon that one is 8 cell and the other is 5 (it's technically their day 3, so apart from the late blooming working against them, the 8 cell is still about right). There's not a whole lot of hope for them, but they are still dividing.

Fun fact: also found out that what they did for me isn't considered 'rescue icsi' it's considered 'delayed icsi' which is apparently a whole different and rarer beast (which doesn't have that great of success rates, hence the rarity). 

So they are telling me to be hopeful, and as of this morning everything looks like it should be good, but man alive they are stressing the unlikelihood of this situation. Obviously given the circumstances ( and just them being smart) no one can say 'yeah!  this is kickass!' but basically.. everyone will be surprised if this goes well (including me).

(Quite nicely, Dr. Kickass did say that this is going to keep him up tonight waiting, so he can't imagine how I would be feeling.. and nurse angelface assured me upon request she will be lighting candles and sacrificing the metaphorical chickens.)

Tomorrow morning I go in for an u/s at 8 AM because my stomach is still bothering me from Saturday (not in OHSS territory just in weird, feel like I pulled a muscle territory).  That should be right around when they get the report from the lab so I will probably be in the office when it comes.  I have mixed feelings about this because I have no idea how I'll react.

I'm losing a little bit of steam, here... Things are certainly less grim then they were earlier this week, and holy shit me over the last few days there's a lot to be thankful for.. but man, I'm reaching coocoo nervous territory.  

I just keep reminding myself we've slaughtered the odds thus far.  So far, that we've done.  The likelihood of any fertilizing a day late are SO small, and  it definitely looks like they've made it thus far. It's just requiring more effort to keep thinking YES these are fucking BADASS embryos that are punching statistics right in the face and they're going to continue to do so.

And this is just getting them to freeze.  Please, please, please God, mother nature, universe, just let me have the damn shot.

So the two front runners - they have to decide to be blastocysts by tomorrow morning. I am beyond hoping for that, but at the very least they have to get to the pre-blastocyst phase so they're still showing signs of life and then maybe can be frozen Saturday.  So the next 24 hours is the big finish, the big pre-freeze finale.  I need them to be blastocysts.

These have to be my kids, have to be.  I've been through enough, I've been on the wrong side of statistics for long enough - Universe, I will be taking my kids home with me now and retiring to being a bombass cheerleader for others, thankyouverymuch.

Please, pretty pretty please, keep hoping and praying and crossing fingers and lighting candles and sacrificing goats and petitioning to the powers that be on our behalf. We're so close to being able to let them freeze - they just have to surprise everybody one more time, and then they can rest before the big show next month.

I am SO humbled and thankful by all the support and happy dances... please keep them coming.  One more day of working our collective magic and then I'll have a SHOT.  Kick it into overdrive today/tonight, if you would. Hopefully I'm going to get on first thing in the morning and have a happy update for everybody.  Let's DO THIS.

Sidenote:  I think Heisenberg has won out for the second embryo's name.  Again, I feel my embryo should be a badass with a say-something hat that doesn't take shit from anyone.

I've gotten amazing stories in my inbox so far... I mean, amazing.  I'm gonna wait a few days to hopefully have more trickle in and then I'll put them up. If you have an amazing story, send it! (I'm thinking of making it a tab on here instead of a post, so that I can continually add to it when anyone comes across the request and wants to).

Thank you thank you thank you thank you for all the kindness and thoughts and well wishes... Please keep them coming, pretty pretty please.  So far it's done amazing things. I'm just a bug eyed infertile in Los Angeles that you will probably never meet, but you have/will be helping me beyond anything I'll ever be able to communicate, and so help me I will pay you back with wild dances and encouragement of unfathomable proportions.

If I can get embryos/pregnant with these kinds of numbers and odds, then a real, honest miracle will have happened.

Pray/hope/wish/petition that tomorrow morning there's word of a miracle.