The Day Before

My embryo transfer is scheduled for tomorrow morning.

I'm home in a rare afternoon of quiet since the Mister is at his sister's house doing some kind of home improvement (he's very handy).

I went to the gym for the first time in eons this morning, in part because I'd thought I should avoid major exercise during this whole IVF process. A nurse told me the other day I was good to exercise "until the transfer."

So I had a nice 45-minute elliptical workout this morning. Blood sugars stayed stable throughout. It was beautiful.

Tomorrow at 9:15 am, I'm going in for a pre-IVF acupuncture session at the infertility clinic. According to someone's research somewhere, before- and after-egg transfer acupuncture appointments are supposed to increase the chances of an embryo actually implanting. (Instead of the "we're not sure, but it's supposed to relax you" acupuncture I was doing a few months ago a few times a week. Several negative IUIs and hundreds of dollars later, I stopped doing weekly acupuncture.)

But tomorrow hopefully will be different.

The egg transfer is supposed to be easy. Mr. Lyrehca can stay in the room while it happens. Then it'll be another calming acupuncture session and home we go.

I'm supposed to lie flat for the rest of the day after the transfer. I'm glad it's all happening on a Sunday.

And then begins another two week wait. Except with an embryo transfer, I'm told it's only a nine-day wait. So if things move forward tomorrow, I'd have a pregnancy test scheduled for August 15.

The nurses, who I've been stalking for the past few days, tell me that our six embryos continue to look good and thrive. We'll get a full report tomorrow at the official transfer from an embryologist who will be able to tell us which embryo has the highest quality.

Due to my unusual medical history (retinopathy, no-kidney-problems-now-but-why-tempt-fate?, "old" age, a removed-weird-tumor-that-has-a-tiny-chance-of-returning), Mr. Lyrehca and I agreed to transfer only one embryo this time. (Many people my age would likely transfer two or three embryos to up their chances of a successful implantation. This, however, increases the chances of multiples. Which are hard on any woman's body. On me, twins would be possible but not ideal. Triplets are out of the question). We agreed (and got an OK from my high risk ob/gyn who I've already met even though I've never been pregnant) to implant two embryos if we have to do IVF a second time, just to increase the chances of success.

So pretty much everything looks good for tomorrow. Just gotta wait it out and see what happens.