My two precious eight-celled embryos!

We have been very busy since I last posted: Retrieval, waiting for how many eggs fertilized, waiting for how many embryos survived, waiting on how many cells they were, waiting to get them transferred into their mommy. Lots of waiting but then again, we are used to that. Here's the story of our lives from the last few days...

We drove up to Lexington, KY on Wednesday to stay with my friend, Meghan, the night before the retrieval. The procedure was scheduled for 6:15am so needless to say I didn't sleep a wink that night for fear of sleeping late. 30 minutes before the retrieval you are instructed to take a Valium so by the time we reached the parking lot in Cincinnati, I was laughing. I'm just not sure at what??? :)

I put on my hospital gown, hat and booties and waited for the nurse to put in my IV. She put all kinds of medicine in it and then they wheeled me into the room where the doctor retrieved 9 eggs. He originally said that we would probably only get 8 so he was pleased. That is the only thing I remember because I was so drugged up. If you are considering IVF but you are nervous about the process, don't be! You won't remember a thing. :)

Notice I am holding up 9 fingers for my 9 eggs. I sort of remember this??

I slept all the way back to Meghan's house and then slept the entire day. You are supposed to be on bed rest the day of the retrieval so I was being a good patient. Brad was so sweet. He just sat there all day and night with me and got me anything I needed. He is going to be such a good daddy!

Friday we went to eat brunch at Cracker Barrel and then went walking around the mall. I was still trying to take it easy because my stomach was bloated from the procedure. I look like I'm already pregnant and they haven't even transferred anything yet! We received a call from the facility and we had 7 of the 9 eggs fertilized! We were so thrilled with the news. Brad and I had a bet about how many would fertilize. Luckily both our numbers were lower than 7. In the Bible 7 is the number of perfection so that made me feel good. 

Meghan's sister, Colleen, came up to visit Friday night and I got a chance to talk to her about her experience with IVF. Her little daughter, Grace, was there and as I held her I thought, "You were grown in a petri dish and now here you are!" So exciting to think about this possibly working for us as well.

Saturday we decided to go on to Cincinnati and spend the night. We found out there was a Pottery Barn Kids outlet just outside of the city so we had to go! Our dream crib since we found out we were pregnant the first time has been the Larkin. It's a beautiful sleigh crib with a beautiful price. Ugh! I about screamed when I saw it leaned up against the wall-the Larkin!!! When I got closer to it, I realized it was the Larkin but the twin bed version. Even though they didn't have what we were looking for, I was excited to even be talking about cribs. Could this really be our time?

Since the only thing we found there was kitchen glasses, we drove over to the real Pottery Barn Kids in the mall, just to see. No Larkin but we did find The Cheesecake Factory. YUM! We had never been to one and I'd heard such great things so we thought we'd try it out. It was my last big unhealthy meal before the babies are put in tomorrow!

I'll take an Oreo cheesecake with hot fudge sauce please.

Our day was finally here!  On Sunday, July 17 we got our embryos transferred. :) We put on our gowns and scrubs and the nurse lead us to the transfer room. The doctor on call introduced himself and then showed us the chart with the cell counts of our 7 embies. We had one that was 14 cells and he said that was way too many for a day 3 embryo. We had a few 2 cells that they were going to let keep growing until day 5. If they make it then we can freeze them to use on our next cycle. But our prize embryos were two eight-celled beautiful babies which he transferred through a small catheter. As strange as it may seem, I felt close to them immediately after they were placed inside me. No matter what happens I will always love all of them and consider myself their mommy. Talk about love at first sight.

Right before the transfer

Our eight-celled beautiful miracles!

They even give you the dish they were grown in! Little do they know I also kept the hat I was wearing, my wrist bands and so much more. I plan on making a scrapbook one of these days to chronicle the entire process. Hopefully I'll get to begin on July 29th, the date of my pregnancy test!