It's an honor to be nominated?

First off, thank you all for pulling for my 3 embryos. We transferred 3 on Valentine's Day which in itself I should be thankful for. But the quality was along that mediocre line that could be too crappy to make it or could be not crappy enough to ruin all chances. So limbo once again. My darker side says that these numbers are no good and that my egg quality has clearly gone down over the years of IVF - perhaps because of age, perhaps the endo, perhaps bad luck. The lighter side of me searches online as always for those stories of hope where ugly lame 4 cell or 5 cell embryos rise to the occasion and create these beautiful bouncing babies. I want to believe this. I really do. 

But the one thing I can say without a doubt was that transferring to A. was an emotional and wonderful experience. We were all led into the procedure room. A man pulled both me and my husband into a doorway.  Lo and behold we were in the embryology lab. We saw all the monitors and the petri dishes! He quickly showed us around to orient us. Then we returned to where  A. was lying down, calmly and relaxed. We watched on the monitor as the catheter tried to suck up our 3 embryos. One in particular, we think the 6 cell, was already showing stubbornness (probably channelled from all my ancestors) and refused to get sucked up into the catheter. So they spit out the two 5 cell and got another catheter to suck them all up. We all laughed with relief, but then they spit them out again. We all kind of let out a gasp. They explained they used a bigger catheter to get them close together and then they needed to get them back into the skinnier catheter for transfer. So once again, the catheter suck them in, this time all 3, in one fell swoop. 

If my kid has brain damage I think I might know why. But what a wild ride. A. was just amazingly composed, ready to welcome my embryos with open arms. All I could do was start tearing up. Not sure if it was relief, happiness, shock, sadness, or anxiety - probably all of them. After practically a year of contemplating, organizing, stressing, paying money, getting on airplanes, and accepting loss of so many things, that 10 minute procedure was done. 

As we wait now, we wait like the underdogs hoping for a chance at that Oscar. Though those big hollywood blockbusters might seem like a sure thing, sometimes the low budget unknowns that don't have the best quality lighting, special effects, or beautiful actors give the performance of their lives. Regardless of whether we win, I feel like I should recognized that in my team - my agency that found my wonderful surrogate, my parents who gave us love and financial help, my RE who held my hand as I fell asleep from anesthesia and hugged me after transfer, the nurse who called to say "hang in there," my husband for eternal optimism and love, my ultrasound tech that cracked jokes all through the transfer to lighten things up, the random man who pulled us into the embryology lab to show us how it all works, L. the husband of A. who stands by and supports her being a surrogate as well as sacrificed his Valentine's Day to us, to A.'s mother who came with her to transfer and gave us her warmth and her time to stay with A. during bed rest, and to A. most of all for giving us the greatest gift imaginable - no words to describe it. So now that I've already said my thank you speech, I have to wait out these two weeks really believing it was an honor to be nominated. 

Beta February 27, 2009 - A.'s birthday