"Between the wish and the thing lies waiting"

I just have one thing to say about the 9 embryos that did not survive.

I am determined not to entertain any feelings of disappointment or regret this week. One thing I know for sure is that stress is the worst possible thing for the 3 embryos swimming around inside me right now.

That's it.

Now, I am going to give you some stats on the 3 embryos that were transferred. On day 3 they like to see 6-10 cells developed and less vs. more fragmentation. Fragmentation of 30-40% is bad. And having fewer than 6 cells is bad.

We transferred an 8-cell, a 7-cell, and a 6-cell embryo, all of which had 10-20% fragmentation.

Another way to look at this is to use a 4 point scale, kind of like grades you get in school.

A 4+ is perfect, followed by a 4, and then a 4-. After that comes 3+, 3, and 3- and so on. Get it?

All three of ours were graded as 3+.

The reason we rushed in for a transfer on day 3 instead of waiting until day 5 was because only 3 embryos were in the "good" range on day 3, and to let them grow in the dish for 2 more days would have increased our risk of losing them. Amazingly, embryos grow better in their natural environment. Duh.

Since we went in on Wednesday instead of Friday I was not able to have my normal doctor for the transfer. So far my doctor has done neither my retrieval nor my transfer. He did do my surgery, though. And I am sure that all 4 doctors at CCRM are quite capable. Actually, my doctor is the newbie, and the 2 I've had for retrieval and transfer are the founders.

My current drug routine is as follows:

1. Progesterone in sesame oil shots in the morning. I have only accidentally seen the needle one time. As long as I don't see the needle, I really can't feel the difference in it and the smaller needles we had before.

2. Vivelle patches, four, every other day.

3. Baby aspirin, one every morning.

4. Estradiol pills (2mg) twice a day, morning and night.

5. Pre-natal vitamins every morning.

6. And one other unmentionable that turned out not to be as bad as I thought it would be, but I am still not going to describe it here.

I have not really had any symptoms yet. I had a scare on Monday...bad cramps, thought I was starting a period. Turns out I only needed to have a poo :) I felt way better once that was done.

Speaking of periods, I am due to start tomorrow. Hopefully I won't!

The only other symptom I have had is breast tenderness, and it only started today. It is probably being caused by all the estrogen I am taking. The same thing happened during the retrieval when my estrogen levels were sky-rocketing.

I can say that these 2 weeks have been (are) the longest two weeks of my life. Monday cannot come soon enough.