A good sign (I hope!)

For my chemical pregnancy, I was using the Countdown to Pregnancy site to track my symptoms. You can enter symptoms for each day past ovulation and see how your symptoms compare to those of other women on the same day. You can also track pregnancy test results. It was fun until I found out I was having a chemical, and then I was so bummed that I deleted that cycle. Now I kinda wish I hadn't.

The good news is that (A) having been pregnant twice this year and (B) having blogged about some of my symptoms, I know my symptoms pretty well, and lo-and-behold I think I experienced an early symptom last night--the chills. Happened last night about 1:00 am. We had gone to bed about midnight but I was having trouble falling asleep. I was in bed under a warm blanket and I was COLD! The shivers didn't last long (I think I fell asleep) but I now have some hope that my little embies are sticking around. At first I thought--wow, symptoms just 12 hours past transfer??--but then this morning I checked an earlier blog post and found that I'd written that  1dp5dt I'd had the chills. Given the fact that one of my little embies had fully hatched, perhaps it wasn't too soon for one of them to start to implant?

Or I could be completely hallucinating. My next symptoms should be losing my high notes when singing and some dull AF-type cramps. Oh yeah, and a positive HPT.

So while I wait for more symptoms, I thought I'd introduce you to my embies, Trouble and Scooter, named for their unwillingness to get into the catheter before the transfer. Trouble is first one, the fully hatched blastocyst. I wish I'd asked the embryologist what quality they are. I tried comparing them to the pictures on this site but can't really grade them myself.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm going to go relax and wait for some more symptoms!

ER and Fert Report

Yesterday was egg retrieval day. I went in at 9am and they brought me back to the room where they do the ER's, which looked like a hospital. I was completely under for the procedure so I don't remember anything about it, but the whole experience wasn't too bad. I laid in the bed for an hour or so after and then Mr. Sassy Bud drove me home. I spent most of the day sleeping afterward. I am not in much pain today and I am back at work.

The doctor also called with our fert report this morning. We had 28 eggs retrieved yesterday. Out of those 28, 24 were mature, and they fertilized 20!!

We are definitely looking at a 5 day transfer with that many embryos, so I will go back on Monday for the ET. My cycle has gone so well that this has to result in a BFP, right? I'm scared to even think that far in advance.

Tonight I start progesterone shots (PIO) so that should be fun. They are supposed to be the worst of the shots that I have taken so far, but at this point I am not really phased by anything.

I will update after the ET unless I hear any other news on Saturday when they call with an update.

I should be happier...

My embryo transfer was yesterday and I now commence what I call the "5 day wait." That's because I will start peeing on a stick (POAS) in 5 days. I don't get all the angst about not POASing before beta (blood pregnancy test). I've had enough painful phone calls in my IF journey. If I'm going to get a BFN, I want to find out before the phone rings.

Yesterday's ET was flawless, the best of the four I've had. I had been hoping and praying that my favorite doctor (not my usual RE) would do the procedure, and sure enough, he was there. Talk about fate--he said he wasn't originally scheduled to work yesterday. I'd only met him once before, during my second IVF, and he'd shown amazing compassion. He was no different yesterday. He knew about my loss and about my difficult transfer last time. He also asked how I felt about transferring a single embryo. I wasn't expecting to be asked - it was good to talk it through with him and although I qualify for transferring 2, in the end, we agreed on one.

Somehow all the stars aligned yesterday--we had a perfect, highest-grade blast, the transfer took all of about 5 minutes, and my bladder was tolerable (usually the most painful part of the transfer process). My secret fear about my cervix being blocked by scar tissue did not materialize.

So why am I not ecstatic? Because we only ended up with 5 embryos to freeze. Yes, 5 is way better than 0, but for a record cycle for our donor with 38 eggs, we also had a record low number of frosties. This is the second donor cycle where our donor had her worst performance ever.

I expect to POAS this Friday. I know it's early--5dp5dt--but I got my positive in my last cycle at 8dp3dt, and I'd always wondered if I would have gotten a positive the day before. (In case you were wondering, 5dp5dt=10dpo, and 8dp3dt=11dpo.) The blood test will be 10/20 at 8:45am, which is 15dpo.

In other news, Mr. GB's parents are coming to town on Thursday. They are living proof of what happens when you have a child in your forties:  they are nearly old enough to be his grandparents. That's going to be us someday, for better or worse.

Til Friday,
Golden Bud