The Two Week Wait

I'm two days post transfer and have officially entered the dreaded "two week wait." The two week wait is the time in between any fertility procedure and the blood pregnancy test. For anyone who's experienced it, you may know it as the depths of hell.

This is the time when you're supposed to stay calm and positive. You're supposed to fill your time with activities to keep your mind busy. In reality, it's me losing my mind and frantically searching the internet over every single twinge or cramp I feel in my body.

My google search history is filled with things like "Can you poop out your embryos?" and "Can you get an accurate result from a home pregnancy test on day 18?". The answer to both of those questions is a hard NO. 

I must have googled "early pregnancy symptoms" upward of 1,000 times over the past two years. It's literally the same results EVERY time I search it. But I read it over and over again, as if memorizing WebMD will assure me a positive pregnancy test.

That's what I meant about this process being like a roller coaster ride. One minute you're squealing over embryo quality and the next you're sobbing with your face in a pillow over not being able to tell if you feel pregnant or not. The key is to try to ride the high as long as possible.

Our transfer day was most definitely a high. I couldn't have asked for a better experience than the one we had on Sunday. It felt different than the previous transfer. We weren't panicked over having no embryos to freeze, we were doing assisted hatching, and it was all on a Day 5 transfer. 

Before the transfer, I laid in my little bay on the gurney, with plenty of time to chill. I was covered in acupuncture needles and my headphones were playing a calming IVF meditation.

My cousin-in-law sent me these meditations specifically designed for IVF and IUI cycles. It's called Circle + Bloom. I literally do it everyday and I HIGHLY recommend it. If it can calm my insane ass down, it should do wonders for normal women.

By the time the doctor came in, I was on my "relaxation A game". He told us that the embryo they chose to transfer, was graded with a double A. This basically means it was a 10 and it was ready to nestle into my uterus. 

He was so confident in how beautiful this little embryo was developing, that he strongly recommended we only transfer one instead of two. And, luckily Michael and I had the strength to make the unemotional decision to take his suggestion. 

They walked me back into the room, and the mood was right. It was dark with soft music playing, perfect for baby making. This also helped to distract me from my enormously full bladder that was being pushed on by the ultrasound nurse. You have to drink 40 oz. of water before a transfer, so I'm not completely confident I didn't pee a little. 

We watched as our little embryo made its way through the catheter, into my uterus. Michael sat behind me again, held my hand, and I think we both teared up a bit. It truly is absolutely beautiful that we're able to do this. 

Before we left, the embryologist informed us that she'd be freezing four more embryos that day. She gave us a zip drive containing a video of our embryo growing from day one to day five. Watching that video was absolutely insane. I've probably watched it more times than I've watched the last season of Sex and the City, and that's A LOT of times.

The embryologist called us the next day and told us she was able to freeze four more. That leaves us with eight frozen embryos at the blastocyst stage. I absolutely cannot believe it.

This means that all of those stimulating hormones were worth it. It was all worth it. I will never have to get injections in my abdomen to make my ovaries enormous and my mood swings deadly, ever again. It's hard to wrap my head around. 

So, now here I am, with one embryo in me and eight of them of frozen. All I have to do is survive the next two weeks. One simple, little task. Just come out on the other side of these two weeks without any major mental breakdowns or premature at home pee tests. 

As I was trying to think of how to wrap up this post, I grabbed my phone to actually look at my recent google history. My last search was "How much weight gained during IVF cycle?"

The first result is a string of women saying, "None! Just some bloating that went away pretty quickly!"

Fuck google.

This is going to be a long two weeks.