13 DPO: Darker

12DPO - a little darker

I don't have a pic, but the test was a bit darker this morning! Fingers crossed!! Testing again tomorrow. No additional symptoms, and certainly nothing as strong as when we were pregnant with A, but the test seems to be a good sign, so we're hanging onto our hopes!

11DPO

I have been feeling crampy and haven't slept all week, and two days ago I was completely convinced that this was it. Then, last night, E and I went through old fertil.ity_fr.iend cycles (both A's +hpt and the countless unsuccessful ones.) Lots of the same symptoms in both types. ARGH!!! Last night, I was so deflated that I was convinced there were no babies left.

This morning, just as EVillage was preparing my progesterone shot, AVillage vomited all over me. Poor little guy. So, we spent the day together in comfy pants on the couch. I had an unsettled tummy all day,

and was worried that it was b/c of the early morning incident. Now, though, I'm really hoping it's b/c of this:

It's positive! Ok, you can't really see it, and we aren't supposed to test yet, and technically the trigger shot could still be in my system. (10-14 days is what they said, 14 days will be tomorrow at 9:30pm). Still, it's giving us lots of hope!! You'd better believe that we'll probably be testing from now until beta day! (Beta day is still 6 days away!!!)

Transfer complete

We arrived this morning and learned that both eggs were still dividing. They were both given a B- rating, which is considerably lower than we had hoped, of course. Regardless, given the fact that only two were retrieved, we have hope that they are going to pull through since both are still going. The RE gave us a 35-40% chance at a baby. It's definitely better odds than we had on Monday.

This has been emotionally and physically exhausting. On Monday, for the retrieval that barely wasn't, she tried so hard to get my follicles to give up the eggs. She worked them over for twice as long as a normal retrieval takes. I am still just ever so slightly sore from it. Thankfully, E's dad has been here doing most of our childcare. Hopefully, it will be worth all of the hassle once we are done and have our twins. (OK, I'll settle for ONE!!)

Lots to process, and now it's time to stay on my rump (bedrest) and let those embryos grow/divide/implant.

Come on universe. Smile on us.

Hopefully just the first hill was the steep drop

Monday was the retrieval. Sour news as only two eggs were able to be retrieved. We were devastated. S grew 6-7 follicles that were look to be promising but when the RE went in only two would give up eggs.

Yesterday they reported that BOTH fertilized! We couldn't believe it.

Today, one is a 2 cell embryo and the other is a 4 cell embryo. Moving along.

We are scheduled for a 10 am transfer tomorrow.....let's hope the only devastating hill on this roller coaster was Monday.

Getting close

My eggs are growing slowly, but surely. They are now projecting a Monday retrieval. I'm ready to get them out of here. I've been waking up much before dawn and driving the 1.25 hours each way to have my monitoring done, and I am exhausted!

(We are between two large-ish cities. One of them lost it's RE clinic a few years ago when the doc moved to another city. I suspect there will be a new RE in town very soon, just not soon enough for us. Unfortunately, however, the other city near us is rather conservative. All three RE clinics work ONLY with married couples. No single women and no lesbians. Awesome. So, we are going to a clinic just over an hour away. We really like them, and they have good results compared to the other clinics based on the other numbers we've seen, so....)

A Monday retrieval gives us a Thursday or a Saturday transfer I believe. I'm feeling hopeful. Again, I wish I had more eggs to retrieve, but it only takes one!

Time for a nap.

Drugs Drugs and more drugs

We just had our 8th day of injections. So far, the shots are going fine. The RE is gradually upping my drugs b/c I'm not really getting very many eggs. So far, we are up to 7. I'm hoping that number creeps up a bit more. I guess I'm not that surprised given that I always tend to have a one-egg response to the drugs when we are doing them for medicated IUIs when most folks get 3.

We had an estimated retrieval of Saturday, but given our small-ish eggs today, I think it will get pushed back; although the RE isn't saying anything. I'm trying to not read much into anything and take each day/new instruction as it comes. Her office has been mostly positive about everything, and I feel like the energy is a good thing.