You down with BFP? Yeah you know me.

The fastest ever beta results came in at 10:22 a.m. R and I had decided that we would wait until tonight so we could listen to the message together. In the end we met in Central Park at 12:30. I could not stand it any longer. We listened to the message and both burst into tears. We were a tourist attraction. It was neat.

ok. wow. I'm pregnant. Beta # was 522 at 11dp5dt. With Tess and Oliver my beta was 322 at 11d3dt. The number isn't as high, as it's technically two days later, but it is strong and solid. I'll take it. Next week, same bat time same bat channel, will be beta #2 and we're hoping for good doubling numbers every 48 hours til then.

Honestly I woke up this morning and felt so blah. I hadn't gotten up to pee in the night and I, of course, read way too much into that. I considered stopping in Karabela's for a little roach love before heading to the clinic.

The nurse took my blood and then I asked about the cryo report. No one had called to tell me how many embies made it to freezing. "None." she said with what seemed like a smile. I barely made it out of there before falling to pieces. I walked to work and cried the whole 30+ blocks. Poor R was blindsided by a blubbering wife on a cell phone. But he talked me off the ledge like he always does, bless that man of mine.

Rolyn kept reminding me all day the forecast on NPR for today was "Cloudy in the morning with Sunshine in the afternoon." Dammit if he wasn't right. :)

Deep breaths and little steps. It's a long way to forty weeks...but we're hoping to make it there day by day.

***11dp5dt + 11 days past a 5 day transfer (ivf#3)
***11dp3dt + 11 days past a 3 day transfer (ivf#1)

B Day...One More Sleep.

Tomorrow morning is THE beta. My stomach is in knots. I have no idea how to feel. Being hopeful scares me and being negative or shut down scares me. I'm going back to that numb feeling that is sadly so familiar. It's comforting not feeling.

If it's a BFN (Big Fat Negative) I imagine I will not be surprised. It will be devastating and sad but nothing will ever compare to the sadness I felt when I said goodbye to my babies. So like the BFP that turned into a BFN in August I figure I will move on quickly...it will suck though don't get me wrong here...it WILL SUCK.

If it's a BFP (Big Fat Positive) I imagine I will feel happy, terrified, followed by shock and then back to numbness. It will be a long road ahead. I haven't put too much real sincere thought into a positive. I've just been kind of floating along on the river DeNile. Can you believe they serve NO ALCOHOL on this cruise. The bastards.

I have loads of people feeling hopeful and excited for me, so thankful for each and every one of them...but I think I'll have one more night of denial. I'll let everyone else have the feelings. Reality will come soon enough.

Fertile Signs.

Morning of the transfer we walked to the clinic. We stayed at the lovely Chateau de M&L in case the transit workers went on strike. Which ended up not happening (at least on the 16th) but we were glad we stayed in the city in the end. We were totally pampered and well fed...plus what better way to wake up than having a smiling 3 year old with dinosaurs in tow standing at the edge of your bed. Perfect.

It was a beautiful morning so we decided to walk the 27 blocks to NYU. You know, get my chi flowin' and shit. We were a bit early so we stopped a the deli/restaurant to grab a bite to eat. Can you believe I wasn't so nervous that I could actually EAT? After the OJ and croissant we got up to leave. As I went to grab my coat I noticed a teeny cockroach on MY coat. "YIKES!" I screamed. R quickly "got rid of" the roach and then we laughed. Hard.

On our way into NYU
R said, "You know I think it's a good sign"
I replied, "Roaches are really fertile."
R said, "And it picked your coat to crawl on."

And then we laughed. Hard.

Six more sleeps.

Six more sleeps until I go in for the beta. (for all you non-infertility types the beta is a blood test that measures the HCG levels in your system. They can tell at that point if you're pregnant or kinda pregnant. Much more accurate than a pee stick)
R and I have already decided that I will not POAS before the beta. (POAS= pee on a stick) In August after the frozen transfer I PeedOAS and we got really hopeful and then my beta #s were very low and then I lost that pregnancy...it was just too much. So we've decided to wait, uh, yeah I think, we've decided to wait until the beta. On 12/27. sigh.

Back to the real story here...on the 16th we transferred two beautiful blastocysts. (5 day old embryos) The doctor said they were beauties. They were both graded 4 bc. 4 being really good as the grading is 1-6, six is the best. The doctor said no one EVER gets a 6. Kind of like no one ever gets an excellent on their preformance review at work. She also said it's very rare to get a 5. 4 is good. Really good. The bc part is like in school A is the best etc. etc. Once I heard my embies were rated bc I knew they were mine. Had to be. I didn't even need them to confirm my social security number and the spelling of my name before they transferred them. I knew they were mine. They are just like R and I were in school. They grew to a grade 4bc and said "Eh, that'll do."

My mother being my mother said, "Well it's not that they weren't capable of being 6a's."

Right Mom, you are so right.

Did you hear that?

It went ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom.

It woke me up in the middle of the night. It didn't take me long to realize it wasn't an explosion like I first thought, it was my heart beating wildly in my chest. I don't think I had been completely sound asleep. But man I was AWAKE now. My mind was racing. The "doesn'ts" had come to visit and they were not leaving.

What if this cycle doesn't work?
What if the mta doesn't come to an agreement and there is a transit strike ON THE DAY OF MY TRANSFER?

What if this cycle doesn't work?
What if the mta doesn't come to an agreement and there is a transit strike ON THE DAY OF MY TRANSFER?

What if this cycle doesn't work?
What if the mta doesn't come to an agreement and there is a transit strike ON THE DAY OF MY TRANSFER?

This went on and on and on and on until (almost) the break of dawn.
I tried to breathe deeply, which worked for a millisecond. I tried my meditation CD...and ended up cracking myself up with the snarky thoughts that popped into my brain. No, I won't release that distracting thought and let it float away "like leaves on a stream"

And then the S N O R I N G started. I ever so gently touched R's arm. I mean I barely touched him and he stopped. "That was easy" I thought, until it started up again. I touched his arm gently and once again he stopped immediately. This went back and forth for at least an hour. To the point where I was starting to think R was just fucking with me. It made me mad and it made me laugh.

Somewhere in there I got 15 minutes more of sleep before my alarm went off.

When I got out of bed, thankfully the doesn'ts had gone away.

Eight is GREAT!

Eight embryos growing in a dish...one more could make it.
We'll see what happens today. Nine would be FINE!
If not Eight is still GREAT. I think. Right? Yes, it's GREAT. It is.
I'm so relieved it wasn't Eleven. That would have freaked me out. Completely.

Transfer is set for Friday 12/16.

I'm a nervous wreck...but hanging in there. Being hopeful is so darn scary.

15

They got 15 eggs this morning. I was surprised. Even though I felt like I had at least 45 water balloons in there when I woke up today I was still surprised. Hopefully at least half of those eggs were mature and fertilized. We'll know tomorrow when they call with the fert report. I'm a bit crampy and slightly groggy from that sweet sweet amazing sleep. Other than that feeling pretty good.

I was anxious and teary going in...don't remember that at last year's ER.The doc that did the retrieval was great, as was the anesthesiologist. Dr. Sleep asked about my "cute little star tattoos" and I was so nervous I just blurted out that they were for Tess and Oliver, my babies that were born too soon. And then the tears started rolling. He was so sweet he rubbed my forehead and said "THIS time it's all gonna be ok." The nurse patted my legs and Dr. Egg Catcher said, "Don't worry we're going to take good care of you." And then... I. Was. Out. ahhhhhhhhhhh. Now if they could only invent some type of drug that could make me sleep until the beta. I'd pay boocoos of cash for that pill.

My beta was scheduled for December 25th! Unfortunately/Fortunately they are closed on Christmas Day. AND the day after. Sigh. Looks like we have to wait until the 27th. After what happened with the FET I'm gonna try my damndest NOT to poas (pee on a stick, for those of you not up on the lingo.)

We'll see if I can hold out. I'm not so big on surprises.

Stay tuned.

The number 11 is stalking me.

Ok I know you think it's all in my head. But really it's stalking me. I cannot get away. No matter how carefully I plan...it finds me, it knows where I hide. I'm the girl in the B horror flick that is running at top speed and the number eleven is walking and yet it STILL catches me.

The party in my ovaries will get shut down on Sunday. Look at your calendar. Yes, that's right, Sunday the e l e v e n t h. I got the inside scoop from my doctor today. SuNday SuNday SuNday, it's not going to be a moNster truck rally it's an egg retrieval rally. I really thought it'd be Tuesday or Wednesday...only eight days of stims for me!?! wow. weird. I'm not complaining as I guess that's a few less days of Menapur. yippee.

IVF#1 we got 12 eggs, all mature, all fertilized. From the DC action report this morning it doesn't sound like we'll be so plentiful this time...but hey, I only need one sticky one, right?

Come on eggs don't stop now.

I'm still here stimming along. R is tending to the needles. Doing a great job as always. I'm still hating the Menapur. Stings like a mofo. The dildo cam has found loads of action the past two days. A BIG party going on in there. I'm holding my breath and holding on to hope the Antagon I shot myself up with in my office this a.m. does not shut down the party. I'm also hoping that this doesn't happen. That would suck. Right now I feel like I have a belly full of seaweed. Walking is getting slightly painful. Emotions are running a tad high. I think I cried 10 times today. Not sure what the difference is this cycle but I've been such a puss.

I've been knitting like a mad woman since Thanksgiving. It's been great. I had the best laugh I've had in a looooong time when someone sent me this link. Proves you can knit anything. Not sure what my Grandmother would think of this. R immediately said "You may NOT knit that. Period." haha. Period. funny. No I seriosuly think that is funny. No sarcasim there. Really. I mean it. The more I go on, the less you believe me, huh? But I do think it's funny.

Back to the knitting and Grandmama. I have a hand written pattern for her baby booties. The ones she made for both me and my sister. It's a little like a recipe handed down for generations. With detailed info like... use size 2, 3, or 4 sized needles. Knit along for 15-18 rows or so. Things that could drive a person new to knitting to drink. A lot. There's also the tie that I'm supposed to put pom-poms on the ends of...this sounds adorable and like a death trap all rolled into one. The pattern was written before kids wore seatbelts or had car seats. Come to think of it, in 1969 where did moms put their babies while they were driving? Did they just never leave the house alone with a baby? Anywho, I've decided NO POM-POMS. Not going to be handing out choking devices as gifts. Nope not me. Maybe once everyone starts on the next round of babies I can knit booties instead of making TaTa blankets. I finished my first booty tonight. I need to adjust the pattern a bit, figure out when to stop at 15 and and when to go to 18. The first one looks like it was made for the baby of a basketball player. It's really looooooooooong. But it's still pretty freakin' cute.

Off to bed. A girl's gotta get her beauty rest.
Especailly one that has a hot date with a DC at 7 a.m.

ivf #3. Ready. Steady. Go.

2.5 hours and counting until the injections begin.

Bloodwork and my date with the dildo cam this morning went smooth as silk...ewww. Did I just type that? I feel like I have to leave it now cuz' it's kind of hilarious that just came out of my mouth/head whateva. But ewww.

I feel scared, well, sorta. And I feel hopeful really. Really hopeful. I just figure of course this will work. I have decided to think this way. "And if it doesn't?" you ask. Well, if it doesn't then we will deal with that when it doesn't. One thing I know for sure is it doesn't help me to think about the doesn'ts. Yes, they are there...floating around somewhere in the back of my head. I'm just choosing not to feed them at the moment.

I'd say hold on for the ride people, but it's much more fun to go "no hands"