transfer complete!

Eek! Right now I have two beautiful little embabies inside me! Crazy...

First and foremost, we have two great pictures, one of the embabies in the lab and one of my ute after they put them inside. The Coach was going to take them to his office to scan so I could post but he forgot to grab them as he ran out the door. Tomorrow :)

The transfer went very well. The drive up to Birmingham was very easy and fast today so we were just getting into town at 10:30 when I was supposed to start drinking my 24 ounces of water. Now, I'm the worlds slowest drinker and I have a small bladder so I knew I wouldn't need to drink the full 24 ounces. I had a few sips of Sprite and then drank a bottle of water. Right when we pulled into the parking deck I took the Valium and then grabbed another bottle of water to take inside with me. When we got inside I went up to the desk to sign-in and the receptionist told me that someone had left a gift for me!?! Immediately I knew that it was from a friend I had met on an online Infertility message board who goes to the same clinic as me and had an appointment earlier in the morning. I sat down in the (packed) waiting room with The Coach and opened the bag. There was a super sweet card that brought tears to my eyes, a gorgeous plaque about courage and a stuffed penguin (long story--a good luck charm). I couldn't believe she did that! So very sweet of her! I started crying right then and there.

By this time my bladder was feeling pretty full so I stopped with the water. Only a few minutes after signing in the procedure room nurse called us back. I got all changed into my gown, booties (over my lucky socks!) and hair net. The Coach also had to put on a gown, booties, a hair net and a mask over his mouth. Then we signed the consents and she wheeled me into the procedure room. She informed us that my RE was out working at (my) the satellite office today so a different RE would be doing the transfer. She got me all set up in the room and did an ultrasound of my bladder to see how full it was. I was only in a little bit of pain so I was surprised when she told me it was totally, totally full. She found out that the RE was about 20 minutes out from making it into the procedure room so she had me empty my bladder a bit. She said to count twelve "Mississippis". Then she did another ultrasound and said it was still really full and I'd be fine if I emptied it for another fourteen "Mississippis" so I did. I really felt like my bladder was empty by this point but another ultrasound revealed that it wasn't! So I did one more quick trip to the bathroom and then she gave me a heated blanket and got me all situated on the bed.

While I was in the bathroom one of those times The Coach asked her the state of our embabies. She told him that two were very good and the third wasn't really dividing properly. I sort of walked back in mid-conversation so they filled me in. Then the embryologist poked her head through the window and verified our names and my birthdate and said the doctor would be right in. The nurse gave me a sweet, soft little teddy bear and told me it was mine to keep and that if we ended up with twins I'd have to come back and get another one :) By this time the Valium was hitting me a little and I was slightly weepy. She told us she was going to turn some music on and asked what kind of music we like. The Coach told her I like country so that's what she put on.

Then the RE came into the procedure room and we made a bit of small talk. He showed us a chart of our embryos and the picture of them (!) and told us that one was a "perfect blast" (which is the stage it should be in on day 5) and the second was "minutes away from being a blast" and he expected it would turn into a blast today inside me.

He prepped the area and we were ready to go. The nurse did an ultrasound while the RE inserted the catheter and then pushed the embabies in. You can't really see the embabies once they are in the uterus (they are microscopic) but we could see the fluid they were in and the nurse printed off a picture of that for us, too. Then I was wheeled back out to recovery where I had to lay for 15 minutes. Once the time was up I was told to go get dressed and we were free to go.

The Coach and I grabbed lunch and then I slept the whole way home. Now I'm parked on the couch for today and tomorrow, hoping and praying that one (or both) sticks!

I can't believe our IVF cycle is essentially over. It all seemed so overwhelming going in but now looking back, it went super fast and really wasn't that hard. I hope, hope, hope I never have to do this again but, if I do, I definitely could.




Beta is scheduled for Friday, January 28th.