I had so many intentions of blogging frequently throughout this last cycle. I am not sure why I didn't, I think I wanted to just take things day by day and blog about it after the fact. I ended up beginning the suppression part of my cycle on December 17th, where I started a regimine of Cetrotide and Provera for a week. Then I began my Follistim, Menapur, and Ganirelix on Christmas eve. I had a very different type of experience cycling this time around. Cooincidentally everything fell during the holidays, and I had decided a couple of months ago that I was going to take time off between Christmas and New Years. This was the longest amount of time I had taken off in a year, since my ectopic last December. From December 23rd until January 3rd I was on a blissful "staycation", which I thoroughly enjoyed. My only inconvenience during this time was having to make my 7am monitoring appointments. I live in the suburbs of Washington, DC, and my clinic is right in Downtown DC, so on my monitoring days, I would wake up at 5:30 so I could leave by 6:15, to make sure I could get a decent parking spot by 6:45. Luckily, I was able to turn around and go back home after those appointments, as opposed to going into work, which was what I've done during previous cycles. There was something about eliminating the work related stresses this time around, that made everything so much easier on me. I spent so much quality time with Smiley, R, good friends and family during those 11 days, it made the injections and the monitoring appointments a piece of cake. I honestly think that the holidays themselves were more stressful than my cycle.
Things began to get interesting right after the New Year, right as I had to go back to work. Wednesday 1/4 was my retrieval, and my transfer was Friday 1/6. During my retrieval they were able to get 12 eggs, 10 that were mature. Of those eggs, 6 fertilized, but only 5 normally. My doctor decided that he wanted to do a 2 day transfer, because he believes that embryos ultimately do better in the womb (rather than in a dish) and I didn't have too many stellar ones to choose from. There were really only 2 that were not fragmenting by day 2. In the end, we transfered 4. My doctor gave me the required speech about the risks of transfering so many, the possibility of multiples, but he understands that our track record dictates that it's not too likely that this will happen, that we'll be super lucky to get one out of this, and hopefully one that we won't miscarry.
And now, we wait. I had my 24 hours of bedrest, and hope to stay as busy as possible over the next 2 weeks. My birthday is next Monday, so there are lots of birthday related activites that will be starting next weekend, and will take me through beta day. It is a true 2ww, given that my transfer was so early.
I always find that these 2 weeks go slower than any normal two week time frame. It's like as soon as those embryos are transfered, some magical force slows time to almost a standstill, especially during those last few days before beta day. I am not sure if I am going to break down and test this time around. I tell myself to wait, and then ultimately I end up testing, but this time I really want to hold to it, so it doesn't ruin my birthday plans. We will see what happens, it's all out of my hands, and I can only continue to be grateful for my beautiful girl.
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