Last Day of Innocence

It's 4:20 am, and I can't sleep...anymore. My mind is racing and it feels like it is going at one thousand miles per minute. I am exhausted, but can't close my eyes. Today is my last day of innocence. Tomorrow I will meet my embryos for the first time. It is weird to say meet them, because usually you feel a connection to them as half of the equation is yours, but here, I am a stranger to them. Once we started cycling, it was all so easy (I am not referring to any role I had to play here). Each day, the follicles were growing appropriately, there was a retrieval where we got a huge amount of eggs (my first time ever) and those eggs matured and became full blastocysts (first time ever). Things on that end could not have gone better. It was the first time in my IVF history that I wasn't sitting by the phone waiting for the embryology report. Ok, maybe a little, but there wasn't stress involved, more like anticipation for how many do we have?

It was out of my hands. I wasn't involved so I knew that that part would be perfect. Today is that last day that I can truly relax for a while. Tomorrow I have big decisions to make. I need to choose which embryos to transfer first. I am so torn. Yes, we have fifteen embryos, but seeing as I have never been in this position (or any position involving blasts) I am struggling to understand the importance of grading. If you asked me the grading on 2pn embryos-I'm an expert :(.

On the one hand, I want to give myself my best shot. I am hoping this is it. As much as Denver is a nice city, I am ready to not come for a while. We figured it out that in the past twelve months, A. and I would have spent a total of five weeks in Denver. That's a lot of mountain time. So, I want to use my two best embryos, but I am scared.

What if it doesn't work? What if this lining is the best I am going to get and plan B yields worse results? What if I need a GC and I have no more good embryos and so that doesn't work either?

It's the what if's that could literally drive a person insane.

I am thinking that I need to put the decision in someone else's hands. I am going to go with the instinct of the embryologist and transfer what he/she is best. I'm going to explain my fears so they understand my big picture plan, but the decision will be theirs. This way, at least I can't second guess myself.

Tomorrow, will be exciting and nerve wracking as well. I'm excited that I am finally getting to transfer. I feel like it is a big milestone that I am passing. I have done literally.everything.I.could.do and now it is out of my hands. That terrifies me. With regards to my IF, I am a control freak. I take doctor's orders literally. I do the required bed rest and then some and I really try to take it easy during the dreaded wait, but it is so hard.

Today is the last day that I don't have to analyze Progesterone symptoms (although my boobs are already sore-please remind of this later). It's the last time that I can live in innocence that this cycle may work without having firm statistics to dwell on. It's the last time I may feel confident about my ability to get pregnant.

That scares the hell out of me.

-R.