Bedrest sanity strategies after a 7th transfer

It is 2dp5dt today and I am ending my bedrest this morning. We've been taking it easy around the hotel this morning, having a nice breakfast, and me taking a luxurious shower. Soon we will be off to do a little light shopping before heading back to NYC tomorrow morning. Nothing too strenuous. Will and I are not big shoppers, but we enjoy shopping in Denver because it is so quiet in the stores - not the mob scene that trying to buy anything in NYC always is.

So far, I haven't felt any sensations that I would find very reassuring. Yes, I realize it's early, but checking back to the last FET, I had definitely felt some uterine twinges by now. I thought I felt some faint ovulation-like pinching yesterday, but it was brief, and oh-so-faint, and not really in my uterus anyway. I lay in bed much of yesterday convinced that the cycle was a failure, then trying to tell myself not to give up yet, and that none of this is in my control anyway. With that repeated self-talk, I was able to move into a more neutral place, a who-knows-what-is-going-on-inside-me-right-now place.

It is just so, so hard to imagine that this could work, if I let myself think about it. And on bedrest it is hard to NOT think about it. Yesterday, I found myself needing to know that we have other plans lined up, that we are moving forward, that a baby one way or another is going to be coming our way.

So I ended up calling the donor agencies we've been working with to get a few women preliminarily tested. We've got three in the works, as crazy as that might seem. All three are seemingly good candidates. We've been going through the process of testing two of them since December. One of them stopped the pill late in December and we are still waiting for her to get her first period afterward so we can get her Day 3 bloods done. Gah. Another one has good Day 3s, AFC, and AMH, but is half Jewish, necessitating a bunch o' extra genetic testing, which we've been trying to line up. There's a third we've been interested in from way back when (our runner up to that first donor we loved so much who turned out to have the inversion on chromosome 9) and so I called her agency and they are contacting her to see if we can move forward with testing her. I'm just hoping one of these folks turns out to look like she is able to pass the Denver screening process.

In the event that this transfer fails, I would really like to be able to move forward in a fairly timely manner. Really and truly.

It felt a bit crazy to be lying here in my hotel bed hoping that at least one of the blastocysts was sticking while also phoning around to try to get our other ducks in a row for an egg donor. Weird to both hold hope that maybe we will get (and stay) pregnant from this transfer, while also feeling like that seems so unlikely, such a fantastical possibility.

At first I tried to talk myself out of double-tasking. Told myself to just wait and see what happens. It's only 9 days between this transfer and the beta. But then I decided that no, it's ok. We've been through enough that I don't have to wait and pin all of my hopes on something that may not work. I can have a big enough heart and mind to do both - to hope for these embryos and to keep moving toward another plan if we need it, another pathway to begin our family.

So strange as it may sound, I think my bizarre split-brain approach helped. I hate this feeling of limbo that the two week wait produces, such a sense of vulnerability, such a set up to enormous disappointment and sadness. It is also a time of hope and possibility - something we haven't had in a while.

I'm going to try to hold both of these realities. And I'm going to keep one foot in the potential of new life forming inside me and the other foot in the hard reality that we may need to find another pathway. I think I can hold both without one hurting the other.

I will keep you posted on any symptoms as they develop. As rational as I'm trying to be, it would be great to feel something is going on inside my body.

Question for you folks: those who have gotten pregnant, did you feel something in your uterus during the two week wait? At what point was it? And what did you feel?

More to come.

Mo

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All in: Thoughts on a 7th embryo transfer

Just back from the transfer and resting comfortably on my hotel bed while Will whips up a nice lunch for us. Bed rest has commenced and will end on Saturday morning. Kind of nice to have an imposed rest.

I did acupuncture before and after transfer, which I think helped relax me (along with the 10mg of valium they give you). I was so relaxed, I actually fell asleep during the hour-long lie down following the transfer (Will says I even snored a little). This transfer was much more comfortable than the last one because they didn't make me overfill my bladder. I explained how uncomfortable I was last time and how I can't seem to use a bed pan (all those years of practicing not peeing on myself lying down as a kid, I guess). So the tech actually let me get up and partially empty my bladder twice before the transfer. This made all the difference.

We decided to transfer three blastocysts back. I had six total frozen (five chromosomally normal ones and one no result), so we figured we'd use half on me and save half in the case I need to move forward with the woman who has so generously offered to be a carrier.

For those into the details, the three embryos transferred were of the following qualities:

1. A Day 6 3AB
2. A Day 7 4AB
3. An invitro matured day 7 4AA (was immature at retrieval and so fertilized a day late. Technically this one then is a day 6)

These are all three confirmed chromosomally normal...So with my amateur embryologist hat on, I rate these as seemingly one that looks pretty good (the straight up day 6) and two that are more wild cards (the day 7 and invitro matured one)...

we shall see...

Two survived the thaw 100% and were re-expanded. One survived 98% and hadn't fully expanded, but they said it was on its way. Here's what they looked like up on the screen just prior to transfer (I have highest hopes for the one on the bottom right).

Now to just rest as much as possible and hope that at least one of these guys decides to burrow in to the nice lining I've been working on developing over here...

I can't believe this is my 7th embryo transfer! Please please please let this one be the one.

Mo

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Bedresting twinges

I've been flat on my back since yesterday, completely taking it easy, and wanted to report I'm feeling something.

I'm definitely not imagining it. There's an on and off crampy feeling in my lower abdomen, on the left side. Started overnight. Still going on, with increasing sensation. It's not gas. It feels a bit like ovulation pain, but that can't be, can it? I was thinking it couldn't be implantation yet, because it's too soon...

But then I remembered a couple of things:

1. Two of our three transferred embryos had completely hatched by the time of the biopsy, so they were ready to go before even being frozen.

2. Our embryos are old and advanced, folks. In fact, I was trying to think how to write the abbreviation of where we are at today. For two of them it would be 1dp6dt. And our third embryo is 1dp7dt. So developmentally two are at day 7 and one is at day 8. Day 8 being around the time implantation occurs on average.

So given those facts, it is possible that I'm feeling something as I lie here (not obsessing, but attentive) on bedrest. And that that something is real and not just in my head.

You know what this feels like? It feels like hope.

Mo

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