Maybe Babies

I'll be honest: I used up most of my positive thinking on that last post.  Pretty much as soon as I hit "publish," I started getting more and more depressed.  I mean, ONE embryo?  One little lonely maybe-baby?  What were the chances that it would keep growing, be healthy, implant, hang on?  I know that it only takes one, but I'd rather that one be the best of several, not my only hope.

And the rescue ICSI?  Despite my promise to stay off the internet, I kept Googling it, and what I found wasn't good.  The internet's opinion on rescue ICSI could be summed up in three words "it rarely works."  My doctor had recommended ICSI at the beginning - Henry's semen is on the low side of normal - but I had pushed to try conventional fertilization to give those sperm a chance.  Why had I done that?  Was that arbitrary decision, based on my gut rather than any real evidence, going to cost us a baby?

So I waited for my nurse's Saturday morning phone call with a sick feeling in my stomach.  I was convinced, CONVINCED, that she was going to call to tell me that out one sad embryo had stopped growing.  I decided I would be happy if she called and my one embryo was still around; I'd be thrilled if one of the rescue ICSI eggs had fertilized, and if two or more had fertilized... that was too good to contemplate.

Saturday morning I woke up early because Henry was running a 5-miler, and I was his ride.  So I drove him to the race and stood by cheering while he ran past.  Usually I would be running with him (Henry and I recently discovered we love running together... within the last year, we have done two half marathons, two 10ks, and a 5 miler), but of course I was sitting this one out.  I felt like holding up a sign that said "I have a good excuse!" as everyone ran past me.

Anyway, the point is that by the time the phone rang at 10:30, I had been up for four hours, watched a race, and had a really productive trip to Target (where I got $83 worth of stuff for free by using promotional gift cards I had gotten by buying things I was planning on buying anyway). (Sorry, I have to brag about a good deal).  The anticipation was killing me; I was pretty tightly wound.

Finally, the phone rang.  "Hi Chelsea, how are you?" the nurse asked.  "Well, why don't you tell me?" I answered.

The rescue ICSI had worked on two of my eggs - I had gone from one maybe baby to three!  My previously-fertilized egg was a two-cell embryo with no fragmentation; the ICSIs were fertilized and lookin' good.  My transfer was officially scheduled for the next day (today) at 10:30 a.m., although the nurse promised to call me the next morning between 7-8 to give me the final word.

Even though I was feeling better, I was still nervous.  I spent my day prepping for a couple of days of bed rest... I made a pile funny books and movies (because of this study) and made myself a little nest on my couch with everything I could imagine I'd need close at hand.  And then I had a really terrible night's sleep filled with nightmares about embryos that stopped growing with no explanation.

My bedrest nest... quilt, pillow, cheez-its, tangerines, books, computer, DVDs.

So this morning I got up at about 6:30, put the finishing touches on the nest, and waited for the phone call.  And waited... and waited.... Finally, at 8, I got in the shower since we'd have to leave at 9 to arrive at the hospital an hour before the transfer.  At 8:30, I started getting really nervous, so called the clinic's 24 hour help line.  Of course, as soon as I had a nurse on the phone, I had a call come in the other line so had to do an awkward little, "Oh, she's calling me now..."

The good news was that none of my embryos had stopped growing.  My two-cell had grown into a six-cell embryo, and my ICSIed embryos were all at four cells.  Still no fragmentation.

The unexpected news was that the clinic had called off my transfer.  My embryos are good enough that even though there are only three of them, the embryologists thought they had a good chance of growing into blastocysts, so they were going to wait and see.

So... I'm on hold for the next day or two.  Every time I think there isn't another thing that IVF can do to make me crazy, something else comes along.