Day 3

Yesterday, I was on pins and needles all day, fretting about the phone call and possibility of transfer on a dime. I stayed out of the house, keeping myself occupied from morning till night: I went to PA for coffee with A and her sweet 3-week-old baby L, then to SJ to visit L and her 3 kids plus 2 visiting to chat on the sidelines of her 6yo’s soccer game, then a walk and Salvadoran dinner with B–much processing and discussion and if-then scenarios. I’m lucky to have such great friends who are willing to hear me out when I am in that talk-it-out mode: thank you.

After several early-morning hours of online research to try to prepare to make an on-the-spot decision, the phone rang at 9:05am.

The nurse said she had really good news: you meet criteria to push to Day 5! (turns out the doc’s criteria was 8 embies of good quality).

Upon looking up the details, she clarified that in fact I still have 16 embies growing and thriving! No transfer today!

Dr. Tran called an hour later, also “very pleased,” and with a more qualified report: 13 look really good, 2 are average, and 1 is lagging. He also reminded me that grading is like judging a book by its cover: it doesn’t tell you the substance. Which is why I am so happy to be able to do PGS (Pre-implantation Genetic Screening) to tell us which ones have a normal chromosome count. We’re still taking it step by step. Which is why we’re not really celebrating yet; he said, “Congratulations, so far!”

I’ll get a call on Wed to say how many were biopsied and frozen. Genetic screening results about 7-10 days later. Frozen embryo transfer in about a month.

There’s still a long road ahead but the news couldn’t be better today, and for that I’m grateful. And I have my body back: no more injections or appointments for a while. Somebody get me a cocktail 🙂