Two Little Treasures

We're into the 9-day wait! Here’s a picture of the two embryos that were transferred on Tuesday. It's a picture of the screen since CCRM's policy is not to photograph the embryos directly, for fear of damaging them. I've been on bedrest since the transfer and decided it would be too difficult to update the blog lying flat on my back or slightly propped up. I wasn't allowed to sit up - no more than two pillows. Hence the late update.

We got a call last Sunday, as we were navigating New Mexico, with all our instructions for Tuesday's procedure, including the time of transfer and time of arrival at the clinic. I wasn't sure when they’d start thawing the embryos, nor did I really want to know, since it would cause more stress knowing the exact details. Given the call on Sunday, we weren't expecting to hear from them before we got there on Tuesday, so my heart absolutely stopped when my phone rang several hours before we were due to get there and it was CCRM. I immediately feared something had gone wrong with the embryo thaw. However, it was a quality control check, confirming that they were thawing both of our normal embryos. I was a bag of nerves until we got to the clinic and the process took over.

Much to our relief, the thawing and transfer couldn't have gone any better. We arrived about two hours before our transfer time to do bloodwork and the pre-transfer acupuncture session. The blood was taken to make sure my hormone doses wouldn't need to be increased. Once that was done, we were assigned a room and everything else happened in there. First a 25-minute acupuncture session, then valium (one of the main highlights of the day), then the transfer and then another 25-minute acupuncture session. The purpose of acupuncture at transfer is to calm the uterus and prevent any contractions or spasms during or after transfer. Cramping or contractions can traumatise the embryos. After our first acupuncture session, the embryologist came in to tell us that both embryos had survived the thaw 100% and were re-expanding normally. In fact, as can be seen on the picture, one of them was already hatching out of its shell. What an enormous relief – I duly burst into tears at the news. Shortly after that (and after I’d composed myself), Dr Sch came in and inserted the catheter through my cervix without any issues whatsoever – another huge relief, given what had happened last year. At that point the embryologist came back wheeling a little incubator containing our two embryos and they were transferred into my uterus. The whole procedure took no more than a few minutes, but the embryos went from their culture medium into my uterus in a matter of seconds. Once again, a fantastic experience at CCRM. Everybody we came in contact with was absolutely wonderful.

Now the dreaded wait. My blood pregnancy test is scheduled for Thursday, 30th of April. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be able to overcome my usual cowardice and POAS (pee on a stick) before the blood test. We’re leaving later this morning on our drive home and hope to arrive back in Atlanta sometime on Saturday. I'll decide when we're home.

A huge, huge thanks for all your encouraging comments and to my book club girls for the gorgeous flowers delivered to our hotel room on Monday.