I called and left a message asking for the doctor to call me back. I just wanted to know if they know WHY it happened. She just called me back.

I asked if they know the cause, and she said no… that there are many possible reasons, but that they may not ever know exactly what caused it in our case. She said sometimes it’s poor morphology or other sperm problems, but Den’s S/As were always perfectly normal. So she said they do think it’s probably the sperm’s fault, not the egg’s, but they really can’t say for sure. And I’m sure part of their opinion is due to me being 24, with presumably healthy eggs. (I keep telling Den that my eggs could just be bitches, though, and not be letting anyone in. I’ve always liked my alone time, you know.)

She said we will definitely benefit from ICSI next time. I asked if they ICSI all the eggs, and she said all of the mature ones. So that’s good to know. Next time we’ll hopefully have a much better fertilization report.

She also said that next time they might lower my dosage a bit… that they don’t need as huge a response as I got, and of course they don’t want to put me at risk of OHSS. And I totally understand that. I think I’ll just trust her lead on that one. She knows how to get the best result with the least amount of risk.

And of course she reminded me that we do have one normal fertilized embryo, and we will hopefully be having a transfer this weekend. She said she’ll be honest, that she doesn’t not real confident in the one… but that there’s always hope. To be perfectly honest I am really freaked out about having just one embryo. If there had been none fertilized of course it would be a more horrible shock… but now I’m feeling strung along. At any point it could die and crush me again. I’m just terrified. If there were a lot of eggs losing a few wouldn’t be such a big deal. But when there’s one, losing any is obviously a big deal. But I really really hope that our problem was only fertilization… and that since that one embryo made it past that point that it’ll grow and flourish… that it just needed a chance to get past that hurdle.

But you know what’s really scaring me right now? This was one of two insurance-covered IVFs. If this one doesn’t work, then we’ll do it again, with hopefully a better result… and get pregnant. But that’s the end of our insurance. We really want two children, and we always had insurance-covered cycles as backup. Yet again, we could run out of backups. I guess I really shouldn’t worry about that now. If we end up with one child and one child only, well at least we’ll have the one to dote on and love and spoil. And hell, it appears that one out of 24 eggs can fertilize. So maybe we’ll get pregnant with a micracle over the span of several years. Maybe. Or, more likely, we’ll switch to a different insurance with more benefits.

When I pick Den up we’ll have a long talk about where to go from here.

I don’t think my poor belly could get any bigger without actually being pregnant. Boy am I bloated. I’ve always had a “pooch” of a stomach, but I could suck it in. Now even when I suck hard as I can I still have a rounded belly sticking out. Oh it is frightening.

And running? Out of the question. Not only because that would cause my boobs to flail about wildly (and painfully), but oh the ovaries! They are unhappy with me. Bouncing is their least favorite thing ever.

For amusement’s sake, I have done some drawings showing what may have been happening in that petri dish.

And for some other cases, like the ones who get totally lost.

I have named our embryo Murphy. We are fervently hoping he keeps dividing like a good little embryo. He may very well be the first embryo we’ve ever had.

We did not get a call with bad news today. I am waveringly optimistic about tomorrow – I could actually get a transfer! Just one, and I don’t know what grade it’s going to be, but at least we could get one!!

I’m still holding my breath, though. I’m fighting the urge to call and ask them to check on Murphy, just in case, and let me know how he’s doing. But like Den said… no news is good news.

I had a crappy sleep this morning – I got up at 7:30 to change my estrogen patches and put in my progesterone suppository, then I tried to go back to sleep. First there was something in my eye driving me crazy. I mashed that eye into my pillow so it wouldn’t bug me, fell asleep… then was having a very *ahem* interesting dream… but because Den was up showering the dogs were whiny/barking and they kept interrupting my *ahem* dream. I woke up feeling very irritated, until I realized what day it was.

And I have to say, the first thing I did this morning was check my phone for messages. I really really did NOT think we’d get to transfer. I had this horrible fear of Murphy kicking the bucket beforehand. But there was no message, so Den and I got dressed, took the dogs out, put them in their crates, and off we went to the hospital.

They set me up in the bed right next door to the one I was in for the retrieval… they are rather comfy, you know. I had to take everything off (except my socks – I refuse to take off my socks during any ob/gyn or RE proceedure! Too cold!), got dressed in those funny smock things, put my hair in a net. I signed some paperwork allowing them to do the proceedure. They covered me in a blanket – I love them. :)

Den also had to get dressed in some scrubs over his clothes, in order to go into the operating room with me. While we waited he was acting like a dork, saying things in a smarmy voice like, “Hi, I’m your doctor for the day,” and waggling his eyebrows. He was a wee bit hyper.

Then the doctor came in. It wasn’t my doctor, it was a different one from the practice (they rotate what days they’re on duty in the IVF unit). She said she had a surprize for me… and she held up two fingers. “Two?” I said. “TWO? We have TWO?!” She nodded and said one had fertlized late. I couldn’t believe it… I just couldn’t believe it! She said the embryologist would give me all the details in the operating room, but that she just really wanted to tell me… and she said it was worthy it, that my entire face just lit up. Den didn’t quite get it, didn’t quite sink in, even though I grabbed his hand and gave him a huge, teary smile.

They wheeled me in my bed down the hall and through the two big doors into the operating room. While the doctor was getting all scrubbed/suited up the embryologist came in and introduced herself, then handed us a card with our info. I states quite clearly that TWO embryos fertilized – one an 8-cell, the other a 5-cell.

They put my legs up, scooted my but down, put a speculum in. The nurse sat to my left, brought over the ultrasound machine, and squirted some warm gel on my stomach, then used the abdominal ultrasound probe to get a quick look at my insides. The doctor threaded a catheter through my cervix, then just left it there as the embryologist went to clean and get our embryos in another catheter. When she came back with that the doctor threaded that tiny catheter through the larger one that was already in, and fed it gently up into my uterus. I could see it moving up on the ultrasound screen. Then the nurse said, “There,” and it was done! There was a tiny little spot on the ultrasound machine that showed where they’d put them – she said they couldn’t actually see the embryos themselves, but that they could see the little puff of air(?) or fluid or whatever it was when they pushed them out. I stayed there for a few more minutes while the embryologist went to check that the catheter was emtpy, no embryos sticking around. Then they took everything out, put me down, wrapped me in a new warm towel, and wheeled me back into my little “room”.

Soon as they left I started crying. I was (am) just so thankful…. TWO little embryos! In me! Den at that time looked at me and whispered, “Did they put two in??” I think he was still in shock! I stayed laying down there for 20 minutes then they said I could get dressed and go.

So now we’re home, I’m propped up in bed with my laptop where I’m planning to stay the rest of the day. Den’s dreaming of twins, and I’m just hoping for one to stick around! Having two in there…. makes me feel SO much more optimistic about this. One has GOT to stick. Please, please stick.

(We have been going over names for embryo #2. Lots were tossed out. I suggested “Turtle,” since it was slow going, and Den thinks Michaelangelo – of the Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles – is appropriate…. or Tortoise, rather than Turtle. Because he said it’s more appropriate – the Tortoise and the Hare!)

First off I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who are the most wonderful, supportive people in the entire world. This goes for the people online like my SIL and mom (who don’t read this), for my most awesome friends in the world who are following along, for my forum buddies (some of whom wrote cheers for Murphy yesterday – fully animated with smilies for effect. Cracked me UP!), and of course to my wonderful, wonderful blog buddies. I KNOW, without a doubt, that I have this amazing support system around me who will cry with me and shriek with me and cheer me on. You guys ROCK. All of you. Every once in a while I’ll think about my “real” life and how little friends I have to catch a coffee with or whatnot (especially after moving to the U.S.), but then I log on and I’m overwhelmed with how many friends I DO have. I really hope I’m able to work it out to go to the BBISP (Big Boston Infertility Slumber Party) – Den’s immediate reaction last week was unhappiness at the thought of the cost of me driving or taking the bus, but I think he’s realizing how much it would mean to me.

In any case, for those of you who have asked how long before we know… unfortunately it’s going to be a very very LONG week and a half for me. My official beta blood test isn’t until Wednesday June 6th. I may or may not pee on a pregnancy test before then. I definitely want to pee on a stick before then, but Den’s all, “I don’t know hon, what if it’s negative and we get all upset, but it’s wrong…” So I don’t know yet. But definitely by the afternoon of May 6th we’ll know.

So let’s talk symptoms. Someone on a forum asked the pregnant ladies/new moms when they started feeling pregnancy symptoms. My answer – though very not applicable to anyone else there – would be around the time of transfer. And obviously, I am not so much feeling the effects of the little microscopic embryos, but rather feeling the effects of the very large progesterone pills I am shoving up my hoo-ha three times a day.

The boobs hurt. Every morning when I sit up in bed I give a wince as, once again, I remember that my boobs are a lot more sensitive than they used to be. I usually get tender boobs before AF comes, but this is… well, worse. I wouldn’t say horrifically worse, but they feel inflated and tender. I can imagine they’ll only get worse.

This morning I had a lovely and sudden bout of “Hmmm, my tummy doesn’t feel so good,” followed quickly by dry heaving over the toilet. I’m sure I would have thrown up, had I eaten something this morning prior. However this particular symptom I’m blaming more on the massive amount of food I ate yesterday at a BBQ. That was such a bad idea. (And yet, I’d do it again. It was friggin GOOD food!!)

The bloating has gone down significantly. This is a good part of the reason for the massive overeating yesterday – it was the first day in a while that I’d felt able to eat more than a few bites of anything. It is really nice to feel more “normal”, and I’m just very glad it’s going away already.

Oh, and does anyone have any tips for those estrogen patches? I decided to put them on my upper behind, since it said below the waist, and if I put it on my front I’d have to either stick them on my lap scars, my bruise(s), or risk getting them stuck to my pubic hair (OUCH!), and my thighs are fuzzy so that’s a no-go. My butt seems pretty safe. They stick really well. And that’s the problem… they stick really well. I think I pulled off a layer of skin with them this morning. I was hopping around doing the “Owowowow!” dance, that’s for sure. So am I doing something wrong? Is that just what you have to live with? Not looking forward to weeks of this. Oh no.

The progesterone suppositories is making me frustrated, too, but for a different reason. Since I started charting 18 months ago I stopped really doing it formally, but I guess I just got used to checking my CM randomly every few days. It became just a natural thing to do to judge my cycles. And it was interesting to see how things changed when I was on injections (lots and lots of CM!). But the suppository interferes with all of that. It’s all gooey and gross and forget checking CM. Plus I’m stuck wearing a pad 24/7!

Now yes, this is a small thing to exchange for getting pregnant. Trust me, I fully believe that. However there’s definitely a part of me that’s sad at yet another reminder of “not normal”. I mean, I’ll got through whatever I have to to get pregnant, but I wasn’t really considering having to continue on these things through my first trimester. I guess I never really thought about it. And now I’m feeling like it’s another little piece of “normal” that I’m losing. Every step further we’ve taken into fertility treatments I’ve had to get used to losing that normalcy. And it still makes me sad.

On a happier note, Den frequently kisses my stomach now – twice, one for each embryo. He’s been worrying about me, encouraging me to take naps and rest. He’s really quite adorable. :)

Another queasy morning. I ate a bowl of cereal (rice crispies with strawberries in it) to settle everything. I’m starving though. All I want to do is eat. (Although I couldn’t finish my eggs I made. The first one was fine, the second one made me want to barf. And that, unfortuantely, is pretty much what happens EVERY time I eat scrambled eggs. Weird.)

7 days left. This is when it starts getting rough. Because all I want to do is know.

I’ve started planning out next cycle “just in case.” I don’t know if they’ll let me do another IVF cycle back-to-back, but either way we’re starting as soon as possible – we’ve already talked about it. And it’s funny because before we started this cycle Den was very much against doing anything right away. His concern was money, he sort of shrugged the concept off like, “We can’t just pull $1500 out of our ass.” Which I thought was rather… stupid… because this is important. We’ll find the money somehow. And it’s only $1500, not $15,000.

And now that we’ve done our first IVF? I think it was as soon as we found out that we had poor fertilization he decided he wanted to do another cycle right away (with ICSI this time, like they said). It’s like he didn’t really consider this one a “real” try because it had such big problems.

Now of course things have turned around considerably and we’re sitting in a much better position than we expected to after the bad news. I’m still just glowing with the knowledge that we got two embryos. But if this doesn’t work anyways, I definitely want to turn around and do it again. I’m not ready to give up yet. Especially now we know WHY we weren’t getting pregnant. In some ways this cycle may be our first chance at all.

Before our IVF cycle I had 18 cycles. 1 I was on birth control for (lap); 1 Den was away when I ovulated; and 2 we were either semi-avoiding or just plain not caring about timing. Three of them I was on clomid with 4 follicles each. So that gives us (11 unmedicated cycles x 1 egg) + (3 clomid cycles x 4 eggs). (And that’s being generous – those clomid cycles, I could have had less actual eggs release.) That’s 23 eggs total over the past 18 months that had sperm there waiting. So given our track record with fertilization we can guess that maybe 1 or 2 of them actually fertilized. That’s kind of crap odds, huh?

I’ve been busy… or trying to stay busy. Decided to learn to knit newborn hats. There’s some neat patterns I want to try, but right now are a little over-reaching my skill level. I’m starting small. Baby hats are so nice and small… nice little projects I can finish in a couple of days. And very hopefully useful objects, too. Though this first one I’m making, not so certain it’s going to work out.

Once again I did not take the time this morning to eat. Bad idea. I need to start really putting for the effort for that…. even though I felt fine this morning. I thought I was safe.

I had to drive Den to work, then go to Costco for the order, now I’m at work… I grabbed myself a bowl of cashews and a little chicken half-sandwich. It’s not helping. In fact, I think it’s getting worse. My stomach is making weird grumbles. And I think I need to run to the bathroom now…

Let’s just say I’m keeping extremely regular.

I keep trying to pass this off as my regular stomach “troubles”, or because of all the over-eating I’ve been participating in, or whatever… but it’s getting rather predictable. Like I said, I thought I was home-free today until I got to work.

However, this all started the day after transfer. That cannot possibly be pregnancy symptoms yet. So unfortunately it all comes down to the progesterone.