think good thoughts

Getting ready to leave the office to head over to PRS for the quick and painless procedure that is so anti-climactic when you consider the potential impact on my life and the future baby’s life and the lives of everyone around us. I feel good. A little sleepy (stayed up a little too late last night), ate a salad for lunch, drank a lot of water. I saw something online today that said to eat full-fat dairy which helps with fertility and I think there’s ice cream in my future.

I’ll pack up, walk to my car, drive over to Potrero Hill, find a parking spot. I’ll pause to notice how nice it is to be outside in the sunshine instead of in the office. I’ll check in at the front desk. (I have 2 friends who work in the same building and I’m always unsure of what I’d say if I were to run into them in the hallway.), Then I’ll wait to be called in by Ingrid, the nurse practitioner. Whenever Ms. R. and I email or text or gchat about Ingrid, her name is always followed by a <3. We love her. She is beautiful and gentle and says things like “think good thoughts!” right at the critical moment. She also looks like a friend of my sister’s who is a family friend and also a good vibe person to resemble. I’ll have Mojo with me, and knee socks. The IUI itself feels like nothing; last time I couldn’t perceive anything after the speculum. Then you just lay there alone for a few minutes in the dim light, but Ingrid says it’s “mostly psychological” so you can get up and get dressed whenever you want.

Then I’ll get up and drive home and probably do some more work, practice for band rehearsal, go to bed early. We know I’m probably ovulating around now. The sperm, since they’ve been frozen, live around 12-24 hours (as opposed to 3 days with fresh sperm). So you hope that the window of the egg meets the window of the sperm. The fertilization happens within hours of IUI, then it can take up to a week to implant, the zygote traveling it’s merry way down the fallopian tube. Eventually, it turns into a blastocyst and finds a nice home on the endometrial lining. I have lovely guided meditations for both fertilization and implantation that use really obvious metaphors (like your pond and your flower and a dragonfly that’s coming to land, etc.) but they’re nice and relaxing and why not?? 🙂 Acupuncture tomorrow. The idea is to send resources to the tissue and de-stress as much as possible. What’s not to love?

And then, the two week wait. I know you guys will be here for me, and I appreciate it. I need it! Please think good thoughts for the next 24 hrs in particular, and maybe again in 1 week. You will receive partial credit for any eventual birth–you can all be aunties and uncles! Thank you! ❤