4th Time's a Charm (0dp5dt)

Throughout this cycle I kept asking myself, "How does one get excited for their fourth embryo transfer?" I may have asked you guys that too. It's the same theme I've struggled with this whole month- that overriding theme of building hope and excitement while guarding yourself against failure and grief.

I can honestly say that today? Building excitement was no problem. No problem whatsoever. We hadn't heard anything about our embryos since Tuesday, and weren't really sure what to expect. On Tuesday (day 3), we found out that all 17 were still cleaving, all were 8-11 celled, and all grade 1. Holy octomom, we had HOPE. But then again, we had a great day 3 fert report last time, so that knocked me back a little too. Hope, but not TOO much hope.

I did my pre-transfer acupuncture, took my valium, and promptly got drunk. I mean hey, I accidentally took 10mg instead of 5mg, sue me. It was awesome :)

We were quickly led back into the transfer room and brought a picture of the two embryos selected for transfer. As soon as we saw the picture, all the excitement that had been questioned for the last few weeks exploded my heart and I started crying. (shocker, me? crying?)

Meet Turtle and Penguin! (and my widow's peak)

We had a grade 1AA hugely hatching blast. In fact, the embryologist said "Hurry up and get that thing in there!" The second blast was also grade 1AA, and had just just started hatching too! Double score! We very briefly discussed whether we would transfer one or two, but decided on both based on our history of failure. And that it's probably not good to freeze something that's already started to hatch.

Transfer PDLAMBLATI* from In Due Time

I laid down and we got all prepped, saw the awesome flash of embryonic medium whooshing into my cute ute, and checked that the catheter was empty. Everything went off perfectly, a textbook transfer.

Some resting, post-transfer acupuncture, and earning karma points by calling in a small brush fire in the median in our town (on a very dry windy day), then more resting at home completed our day. I have since bribed the embie with delicious chicken quesadillas, pineapple, and a cuppy cake. I will stop at nothing to get at least one of these guys to stick around.

Funfetti FTW!

Here's hoping that finally, truly, fourth time is a charm. Beta is a week from Saturday at 9dp5dt.

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*PDLAMBLATI- Please don't look at my business, look at THESE instead!