In my previous post, I mentioned how Friday was the ultimate pit of despair. In my head, even as illogical as it all seems based COMPLETELY ON MY OWN RECORDED PROGRESS, I was terrified of the Ultrasound. I had built it up to this "all or nothing" type appointment where -- what if it proved all my labs were lies, what if things weren't as good as it seemed" etc., etc..

I keep referring to myself as the little "green" emoji that looks seasick - but not quite vomiting. Yeah, that's me. I haven't actually thrown up yet, but I've had a few days were I feel like I should look completely green.

Friday was one of those days. 

I've been through the entire emotional lifecycle in the last couple weeks. I think Thursday into Friday was the worst. It was like the ultimate pit of despair.

I woke up feeling sick - except that I don't even think I can honestly call it "morning sickness" because I feel it was actually physical manifestation of anxiety. 

To catch everything up to speed, here's my beta breakdown so far; including as much "lingo" as possible so I have it logged for future reference:

 I realize there will be a million different "Finish Lines" that we will have to cross... but we can cross "Embryo Transfer Success" off the list. 

I'm not overly spiritual, but we've been blessed to be able to say our first Embryo transfer was a success. On some of my Reddit forums, I'd seen that some women had gotten positive pregnancy tests as early as 4 days post transfer. Never in a million years did I think I would fall in that category too.

We survived our first IVF FET. Today was the day. I am home now, have slept off the Valium (WOW it was strong) and we've been trying to adjust to our new realization that - as of right now, I am actually pregnant.

I realize my last entry was in October '22.  Fast forward 5 months and we are now almost the last week of March '23. It's been almost a full year from our Egg Donor news. Since October, I could have sat down and given a bunch of micro-updates along the way, but I'd rather given entries with more substance. Here's what been happening:

Coming back as a follow up to [this] entry concerning the tentative "timeline" that was strictly a guess-timate at the time. Ironically, that loose timeline was dead-on accurate!

So since Part 1: The Egg Acquisition, we have ordered, received, thawed, fertilized, embryo created, and refrozen. They call this whole timeframe and process The Hunger Games (because the attrition rate of your eggs is mind blowing). Here is a run down of our stats. 

Over the last few days, I had a very nice email update from my Nurse Coordinator, saying that the Egg Donor {referred to as "Mia"} had her submitted Genetics Profile crosschecked with Otters. There is no issues what so ever, so we are Golden! She outlined a few more of the next steps, and I was very relieved. 

I had a smidge of .... not quite impatience... but, like... I had an "In The Dark" vibe going for a hot minute. I don't need hard facts, I just work better with less surprises. It's really hard when -for right now- the point of contact is literally me. Trying to get these different facilities to communicate together. 

If there is one part about this whole  IVF Journey that I hate the most, it's definitely the "In Between Emails" part. I have been SO good about keeping my "Peace" when it comes to everything else.... but my compulsion to CONSTANTLY hit refresh on my email (on my phone) is just..... flabbergasting. I'm a monster. I'm a monster that literally has to take a charging bank with me to work because my phone is at 30% by 11am. 

Just hung up the phone from the Psychologist. We have our Pre-IVF session scheduled for Wednesday, July 13th. I had my Mammogram last week. Unfortunately, it was my first one ever and they warned me well in advance that First-Timers are routinely called back for more images since there is nothing to compare it to. As expected, I was called back. My follow-up for more imaging is the day before our Psychology appointment. So both items will be checked off next week! 

WOW. So a lot of ground has been covered. I'll just jump right in.

In March, my Invitae results came back, I was 100% clear of all Genetic Disorders. There was a few other labs that the fertility doctor ran also, and that's where the big bomb was dropped. The "short & sweet" version is that my Cancer history & the related Radiation obliterated my eggs. Essentially, I will kick out a "shell" of an egg, but there's either no yolk, or what is there, is fried. 

I know I've had a lot of updates lately. This is probably the biggest one, so fasten your seatbelt. Well, my Significant Otter and I have launched/began the Fertility Quest. I was researching some things concerning my medical history and I came across some not so nice age-related news. Ultimately, that was the prompter for this whole thing. Before I did much else, I started researching facilities and physician reviews. I found one that had consistently rave reviews - even though their particular facility had some somewhat mixed reviews, I still decided to go with this specific physician. I am very grateful I found this doctor, I am thrilled with how we were received as patients, and his optimism is definitely needed.