hanging in there

Pippa: We're still hanging in there! It's a miracle we have come this far but my 1 good and 2 decidedly underdeveloped follicles yesterday yielded 2 eggs.
I can't lie, the procedure was unpleasant. We were at the clinic for 8:15 am, 1.5 hours before our scheduled collection time. 1.5 hours to sit in a hospital gown with cold feet and think and worry about the outcome.

Our clinician spoke to us before the collection and did not have much confidence in a positive result. I went under the anesthetic almost sure it would be for nothing and was shaking like a leaf.

I was in the procedure room for 35 minutes and woke up behind an oxygen mask with Jack at my side. I was very disoriented but I remembered to ask right away, how many eggs they had managed to retrieve. Jack was delighted to tell me they had got 2. I started to cry, it was such a relief. Of course, our expectations were not great but with 2, there was a fighting chance.

So, from relief to anxiety, there's no let up. This morning, we were expecting a call from the laboratory. I was awake at 5, then 7. Finally at 8:30 we could no longer lie there and worry. We got up and went for breakfast at the local cafe. By 11 o'clock, still no call. Why would it take so long? Were they leaving the bad news until later in the day?

I was working through each scenario in my head- what if they called and neither egg had fertilised? What if both were successful? We couldn't be that lucky could we? Should we head for home so I wouldn't need to cry in public?

Eventually they rang. 1 embryo, we have 1 embryo, 1 against-all-the-odds embryo, all alone in it's dish. Relief again, ok, that bridge crossed.

Anxiety sets back in. 3 follicles to 2 eggs to 1 embryo. The next in the sequence is 0 surely? But we might have ourselves a fighter, the chances from here according to the clinic stats are 42%. The odds are up from 36% when we started. I like numbers, they are solid and tangible and there's something comforting in that.

So tomorrow our little fighing embryo will be given back to us to look after. I'm taking progesterone to thicken my womb lining and Jack says if there's one thing I'm good at, it's making a cosy bed. So hopefully our 2, 4, 8, 16 cell Jack/Pippa hybrid will want to sleep there for a little while, say 9 months or so.