5dp5dt

Went for a walk. Came back. Went to the bathroom. Found little brown spots on pantyliner. Cried. 

I want to stay positive and keep praying my little acrobat is sticking around and growing. I want to be hopeful and trust that some spotting is normal and doesn't mean this circus performance was a failure. 

Wipe the tears off my face. Cross my fingers hard and whisper: Please, little acrobat, grow.

Nurse Inga's Don'ts

On transfer day when Nurse Inga was telling us about the dos and don'ts she told me: "You won't have any symptoms of pregnancy before your HPT so don't go around trying to feel if anything is different". I told her I was already feeling knocked up because of the progesterone induced boob soreness and that I'd try to not drive myself crazy. And I'm not. Really. But I can't help but noticing things that are out of the ordinary, right? I'll share if you promise not to tell Nurse Inga...

• Yesterday I had cramps. Or more like a pulling tightness in my lower abdomen. 

• I also came home from the store with pineapple juice. I've never drank that before, I'm more of an OJ or Cranberry kind of gal. ???

• Last night I slept TEN hours! and could've easily kept going if it wasn't for the Dogster wanting to go out and pee.

• Today I had a nose bleed. I've never had one before so that's a little weird.

I'm sure those are all signs of me slowly becoming a looney toon. But maybe, just maybe, they're also signs of a little acrobat growing inside of me.

Welcome home little acrobat

Last night we flew back to England. Not just me and D, we had a little extra something on board.

Sunday me and D went up to Gothenburg for the transfer. Driving up in pouring rain we were still anxiously waiting to hear the status of our acrobats. I was under the impression the clinic would call us at eleven (an hour before our appointment) to let us know. But eleven came and went and the cell phone was quiet. D tried to make me call them but I refused. Until I realized we were going to be a few minutes late. I dialed the number. And got the answering machine! 

At 12.05 we spun into the parking lot, ran to the locked front door but managed to slid in behind a couple that just got buzzed in. Nurse Inga was waiting for us inside. After apologizing for our tardiness I bombarded her with questions: "Do we have any good looking emryos? Will we get to do a transfer today? Do we have anything for the freezer?" She just smiled and said: "You're here aren't you? We would've called by eleven if there had been bad news." I let out a big sigh of relief and then I asked her another thousand or more questions. She asked me to be patient until Doctor Doodle could tell us the details.

I changed into the fabulous circus costume (gown, socks and hair net) and the doc arrived before I finished buttoning up. He started telling us what we already knew but with some added details. All my eight eggs had been mature and Ds swimmers extracted from the testies had all looked normal and healthy. Five out of the eight eggs had fertilized. He then continued by telling us the news we'd been dying to hear. He said four of the five fertilized eggs had divided nicely, two had slowed down Saturday but there was still a chance they would continue to develop and be ready to freeze on day six, and two had reached blastocyst stage Sunday morning. One to transfer and one for the freezer. Great news!! Doctor Doodle said he was very pleased with the result and told us we should have a good chance of success.

He asked us if we were ready and then we all walked into the theatre. We met Kristina the Embryologist and I got up on the stirrup throne. As I lay there with the ultrasound wand on my belly I heard Kristina the Embryologist open a door and shuffle something around before she exclaimed: "Oh, my goodness". My heart skipped a beat and I envisioned a smashed petri dish with our precious blastocyst splattered on the floor. Then the live feed from the lab came up on the screen and Doctor Doodle echoed: "Oh, my!". And there it was, our little acrobat. 

Doctor Doodle explained that this is what they like to see and that our blastocyst was at a perfect stage to transfer. He pointed out the gray mass forming on the top right inside the circle and said it was a good sign. Without further ado he then inserted the catheter, Kristina the Embryologist came in with our acrobat and then the transfer happened. He showed us the drop of nutritional fluid containing the embryo on the ultrasound and when Kristina the Embryologist had made sure the catheter was empty he told us we were free to go. They both wished us the best of luck and on our way out Nurse Inga told us to "break a leg". 

We were in and out of the clinic in less than half an hour. I felt like everything had happened at warp speed and had to take a moment with D before we started our two hour drive back. We kissed and shared a nervous laugh and then just sat in silence for a few minutes listening to the radio. On the way home I got this intense feeling of calm happiness and a single thought appeared in my mind: "Välkommen lilla frö". It's swedish and translates loosely to "Welcome home little acrobat". 

Now all we can do is keep our fingers tightly crossed and wish for a miracle. Hatch, attach and grow, little acrobat, grow!

Ten fingers and ten toes

I have my fingers crossed. 

For five little acrobats dividing in a warm place. 

For a successful transfer tomorrow. 

For a big fat positive in a couple of weeks. 

For a successful pregnancy and textbook delivery. 

For a healthy baby. 

For a beautiful life for our child. 

I also have my toes crossed. 

For all of the above. 

For all of you. 

In whatever way possible. 

Join me.

Love

Unexpected revelations.

A few months ago I had a major melt down. I found out that four of my coworkers at my first agency job were expecting their first child. All of them successful women and men ranging from their mid-thirties to mid-forties. I wasn't upset because I didn't think they deserve the happiness of having a family. It was more that I thought they were happy without children. In the back of my mind I had used them as positive role models in case I was never able to have a child of my own. And now I was suddenly robbed of said role models. Of course I was happy for them but the selfish little girl that lives in my chest was bawling her eyes out, screaming "it's not fair!". 

Over the course of the past weeks since we joined the circus I've posted cryptic status updates on facebook. Things like "... has a bruised belly, ... has retrieved the magic number eight, ... has five little sparks of hope". So people that know that we're going through our first IVF gets an update and it's still vague enough so people who don't know won't get it. 

Wednesday I got an email from one of the before mentioned coworkers (who had her beautiful baby girl in September) saying she had followed my daily updates and was hoping everything's okay. I wrote back telling her what was going on, about the circus and that we had just gotten the news of our five fertilized eggs. Here's what she replied: 

Hi Circus Princess (all names have been changed),

I had a feeling.....only because I just went through it myself. (They were able to extract 6 eggs from me — 3 of which fertilized.)

We had been seeing a specialist and trying different things for 8 months. Each time the treatment didn't work so he continued to get more aggressive. That led us to our first round of IVF last December. (A week before the procedure, I landed in the ER with an asthma attack. Not good.) The odds were completely against us... a 20% chance. And it actually worked. The Dr. was even surprised. Little Miss V is a result of that IVF.

I COMPLETELY understand how difficult this is. Physically and mentally exhausting. I don't know how I got through the shots!! All so fresh in my mind.

Hang in there. Most of all, relax and stay positive. Best of luck to you!!!

Big hug, T

When I finished reading it felt like something inside me had healed and that I had gotten one of my role models back in a completely unexpected way.  Her story gave me more than hope. It also opened a door to a new friendship.

Meanwhile I'm trying my best to not go nuts about not knowing how our five little acrobats are doing. Relaxing, staying positive and embryo whispering: Divide and conquer, little acrobats, divide and conquer.

And then the phone rang

I woke up this morning at six. Got up and inserted progesterone where the sun don't shine. Went back to bed and read a few pages in my book until the letters bounced around on the page. D woke me up again at eight with a kiss and asked if I was hungry. Got up and had some juice and a yummy cheese and marmalade sandwich D had made - did I mention I have the most wonderful Hubster in the world? 

At nine thirty the phone rang and I nearly fell off the chair. It was Farmor and she just wanted to chat for a while. Pheuw! At ten-ish D and Pappa went to play golf. I helped Mamma start tonight's roast and fold some laundry while trying to not obsess about the phone. Eleven o'clock came and went and I started feeling a little hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the phone wouldn't ring. 

Eleven thirty loud ringing pierced the silence and I threw myself on the phone. A familiar voice said: "Circus Princess, this is nurse Inga." I held my breath and braced myself for bad news. "You know we don't normally call with good news... but I thought I'd make an exception for you so your husband don't fly back to England without knowing the results." Pause. "Are you there?" I managed to make some sort of noise and she continued: "We have five fertilized embryos!". 

I screamed, I laughed, and I cried and I hardly heard what she said after that. I rushed over to my Mamma and gave her a big hug. Finally I inhaled and composed myself enough to let her finish telling me how from now on they would leave the embryos alone to make their magic and not check on them until Sunday morning before transfer to decide which one has the best chance of success. I thanked her excessively before we hung up and immediately called D to tell him the good news. He laughed and said: "I guess that means I need to look into changing my return ticket. I would like to be there when my wife gets pregnant." Then I called my sister. She screamed as loud as I did. Now I can't seem to wipe this big smile off my face. I imagine the cells multiplying and turning into strong, healthy blastocysts while I whisper to my fantastic five: Divide and conquer, little acrobats, divide and conquer.

Keeping my fingers crossed while hugging my belly.

This will be a short post because the couch is screaming for me to come and lay down. Today was the big get-the-goods-out-day. And it was painful. Ouch! And double ouch for the Hubster! D ended up having a TESA instead of a PESA because they couldn't find any swimmers in his epididdythingy. They had to poke his boys six times to get what they were looking for. Not a nice surprise and all we can do is hope and pray that the swimmers they found in his testies will be up for the job. 

The retrieval would have been amazing if only I hadn't been the one in the stirrups. We got to see the follies being emptied on the u/s screen and then the eggs on a live feed from the lab. Well, D saw it all, I was busy trying to breathe and ignore the intense pressure/pain in my abdomen. They did give me some happy juice before they started but not nearly enough. And by the end of the procedure the Juice-nurse was practically sitting on my belly trying to push down my uncooperative left ovary and hence couldn't administer more drugs for practical reasons. Dr. Boss Lady was determined and didn't give up on my leftie. Both our procedures took less than half an hour and we both lived to tell the story. And they got eight eggs! YAY!

This afternoon they were introduced to each other and tomorrow morning we'll find out how many fertilized... or if we don't hear anything we'll know five or more made it. If five or more fertilize we'll do a day five transfer, if less make it we'll transfer on Thursday. So let's hope we don't hear a peep. My inside is bubbling with so many emotions I don't quite know how to deal with it. Just trying to quiet all the negative thoughts, relax and breathe. Repeat mantra and picture beautiful cells dividing. Make magic, little acrobats, make magic!