Up and In

When she was younger, my mom had every intention of being a nun. Got herself to a nunnery, became a novitiate, has all kinds of stories about having to knit her own sweaters and rolling her own sanitary pads. And she was cool with all of it.

The joke in the family is that the vow of silence is what broke her. She just couldn't keep her mouth shut.

Well damn if I'm not my mother's child.

I wasn't planning to be near a computer today but now I am and it seems that there is nothing I can think about other than these things I'm not talking about so I might as well uncork the bottle, get it out and get on with my day.

We are in the midst of a fresh donor egg cycle.

And when I say "in the midst" I mean we are going for a 5-day single blast transfer on Sunday.

And when I say "fresh" I mean 16 fertilized. 8 tossed in the freezer right away. 8 still cleaving. One lucky one gets to try their luck up in my (still not great, but not terrible) ute come Sunday.

So, there. There you have it.

Lots of drama between then and now, including preparing for the biggest event my work puts on all year (and my absence from it), and a full-on 103+ temp., hallucination-inducing bout of the flu for M. that manifested itself the night before his, ahem, specimen retrieval.

Not that flu that dare not speak its name, but a good old-fashioned seasonal one that required some medical intervention nonetheless. His sweats and chills and feeble coughs brought about a sleepless night with terrible dreams of being turned away at the clinic door (get your virus-filled selves outta here!), watching our long awaited cycle disintegrate into ash along with his overheated swimmers. Google searches and reputable health sites reminded me yes there is a 72-day delay between the sperm made and sperm emerged. But still. This was one additional layer of panic we truly didn't need. Particularly since earlier stripe checks for me were showing not only the substandard level of my endometrium, but some mystery liquid up in there to boot.

Luckily, we had planned for some of this - my thin layers, not the liquid. And built in more time in this cycle for it to grow, keeping me on estrogen longer, starting our donor on her way later. The fluid (not atypical in IVF cycles) sorted itself out and reabsorbed. And the last we checked, my lining was up to 4.5 mm and counting, and attempting to get itself trilaminar (appearing on the screen as 3 distinct layers), usually a prerequisite for a successful cycle. This was about a week ago, so I am hoping everything continues to plump up. Dare I dream for 5 mm. before transfer?

Now I know, most clinics don't even think about a cycle with uteri thinner than 6 or 7. Some set the bar at 8 mm. Yes, yes, we know. That's my clinic'c preference as well. But you see, they know us and we know them on a first name basis these days. I've already earned enough frequent rider points to get two round trip tickets from my train excursions to the clinic. Some of the nurses and residents could probably pick pictures of my uterus out of a lineup. That's how often we've been hanging out there. We've already had a mock cycle earlier this year which showed that despite the thinness, everything else (luteal phases, progesterone absorption, all that) is lining up as it should.

So we are going for it.

On Sunday.

With one embryo.

Over and out. (or should I say, up and in)