Terrified

Wednesday May 22, 2013

Hello darlings,

It's been a while since I've written.  There's not a day goes by that you're not on my minds, but I've just been in an extra big funk lately.  Fitting that I would write to you again on a Wednesday, the day you were born.  You would be almost 17 months old today.  Every picture I see of other toddlers around that age makes me die a little bit inside.  I get so sad thinking about what you would have looked like, and which one of you would have been the first to take those first steps.  How much you would have been babbling by now.  Working on your swimming skills.

Yesterday marked the 6th anniversary of your great-great Aunt Jayne's death.  I know she's got you and is taking good care of you.  I hope you were extra sweet to her yesterday and didn't act too fussy.

As you probably know, we are trying to bring forth a sibling.  We started a fresh IVF cycle, with the egg retrieval on Tuesday, May 14.  They retrieved 18 eggs, which was a remarkable number, 2 more than the cycle which gave us you two.  We were blessed with fortunate news that of those 18, 16 were mature and ready for the ICSI process, and of those 16, 14 normally fertilized and embryos were developing.  There was much debate whether the implantation would be on cycle day 3, Friday May 17 (your Uncle Pete's birthday) or cycle day 5, Sunday May 19 (the MISS walk and Phoenix Bereaved Parents' Day).  The coordinator called me Thursday afternoon with this glowing report that our embryos were developing beautifully, that I was her star pupil of the week, and that there was excellent cell division, which was remarkable for a woman of my age.  She said she would call the next day to let me know if the transfer would take place that morning or Sunday.  So, she calls Friday morning and tells me to come in at 10:30 with a full bladder.  We arrive.  Daddy notices the car in parked in front of us has a Sewell sticker on it (a car dealership in Dallas), then, we get out of the Tahoe and Daddy notices the manhole cover says Waco Drilling.  We go inside, Daddy selects the latest issue of Phoenix magazine.  He flips it open and there is a picture of Waylon in an article on musicians with Phoenix ties.  We're excited to see all these things from Texas, we take 3 things as a good sign.  We go in to talk with the doctor.  He now thinks it would be best to wait until Sunday, ok fine, you're the expert, we'll wait until Sunday. He said he debated it, because we got pregnant the first time with a fresh cycle and 3 day embryos, but by waiting until day 5, we should be giving them a better chance to further develop.  We leave feeling a bit dejected, but hopeful, because he too commented on how wonderful my eggs looked, especially for a woman of my age.  We had 8 8-cell grade A embryo's, with the remaining 6 embryos graded nothing lower than a B.  I was ecstatic, but scared to feel too cocky, as sometimes I worry my cockiness is punished (the whole pride goeth before the fall and all).  So, we planned to go back Sunday.  We decided on a sushi lunch, as once they did the implantation, I hopefully will not eat sushi for several months.  On a side note, I am totally torn on all the things they tell pregnant women to avoid, how they freak out over things such as sushi (when millions of pregnant Japanese women probably eat sushi daily) and limited amounts of wine (thousands of Mediterranean women probably drink a daily glass of wine with dinner).  But, we are no longer innocent, and if able to become pregnant, will be over-the-top paranoid.

So, we are told to come back Sunday morning.  No one sets an appointment time, so I ask.  The receptionist says "The coordinator will call you later today with a time.".  Ok, so after sushi, I go off to MISS to help finalize things for the walk.  At about 3:45, I realize no one called with an appointment time for Sunday.  I text Daddy and ask him to call.  By the time he got my text, it was 4:30 and the office was closed for the day.  NOOOOOOOOOO!  So, we had to call their emergency service on Saturday and then wait for a call back.  Finally, we had our appointment time, 7:45 arrival, 8AM procedure.  We show up on time (very important to your type A momma).  The doctor is LATE!  Like 45 minutes LATE.  Intolerable!  And then, to top it off, another couple comes in for some procedure.  I was feeling so upset by this point, and my bladder was overly full.  Finally, she arrives, and we go in her office for the mini-consult, where they review the embryo quality and discuss how many embryos will be implanted and give us little pictures.  This doctor again congratulates me on the quality of embryos, she says it is almost unheard of for a woman of my age.  All 14 look fantastic, and they chose the best 3 blastocysts.  She highlights one in particular and tells me that that blastocyst is picture perfect and even compares ours to the one on her little chart.  I am feeling extremely hopeful, but at the same time, completely terrified because if they all look so good, what if we have 3 babies?  I'm terrified because I know how having just the two of you went so horribly wrong with my body failing you at 24 weeks.  I try to remain calm, but of course, being all jacked up on these various hormones, I start crying as she's showing me on the ultrasound monitor the details of the procedure and showing us the surge from when the embryos are pushed through the catheter and deposited in my uterus.  She comments on how my uterine lining looks nice and thick too.  The process is done in a few minutes and they leave Daddy and me alone in the room for about 45 minutes, me with a full bladder and Daddy reading aloud from Travel & Leisure, trying to keep me calm and keep my mind off my full bladder.  We decide that the nurse on duty that day doesn't want to empty the bedpan, as it is never offered to me (whereas both in your cycle and the failed frozen transfer, I was provided a bedpan).

So, we leave there and are driving home.  Daddy is complaining about a terrible smell, and we both mistakenly think it is some residue leftover from the recent detail.  Wrong...... It turns out to be the new box of muriatic acid I purchased on Thursday, but couldn't remove from the car due to the lifting restriction I had.  Your Daddy forgot to take the chemicals out of the car, so the box tipped over and was leaking on the carpet.  It leaked through the peach blanket that I keep in the back of the car for the dogs, and ate right through the carpet, even though probably only about 1 cup of acid actually leaked out of the containers (both still seem quite full).  Unfortunately, Daddy leaves the pool chemicals in there until today.  There is a film on the windshield.  I feel almost asphyxiated from the fumes.  I start having a full on panic attack, freaking out that the fumes will harm the embryos we've had implanted.  Daddy and Grandpa Joe take the chemicals out for me, but I am terrified that I have somehow once again failed any unborn children that might be trying to develop in my uterus right now.  So, after speaking with a dealership service department, we may have a complete and total fouled up mess, in the words of momma's Boston friend, "It's a CLUSTAH....", or in military terms, it's FUBAR.  The acid may have corroded the metal and corroded wires in the floorboards of my truck.  The fumes need to be fully aired out.  I can't do anything for 2 reasons - I am terrified to go near the car right now in its present condition and also, your Grandpa took the car so he could go to his job at the stadium.  When Daddy comes home, he is going to try flushing out the area really well, as the dealership parts guy advised.  We may have to file an insurance claim.  I was just beside myself.  I made Daddy call the doctor, they said it should all be OK, the danger would be from ingesting the acid, which I obviously did not do, just breathed in the chemical smells.  Either way, again, in continuing the theme of this post, I AM TERRIFIED.  And, while Daddy had the coordinator on the phone, he asked how many blastocysts they were able to freeze.  Apparently, my super high quality eggs that produced wonderful and perfect embryos failed somewhere along the way, as she reported they were only able to freeze 4 blastocysts..... So, 7 of them failed, 7!!!  My heart broke a little more at that news.  I can't help but think, we got pregnant when we did a fresh cycle with day 3 embryos and we didn't get pregnant in a frozen cycle when we used 5 day old blastocysts, so what if we don't get pregnant now using fresh 5 day blastocysts, as they should have been returned to their natural environment, my uterus, earlier rather than later?!?!??!!

Oh my babies, it's been a rough rough morning for your momma.  As Daddy said, why can't anything go right for this family?  Please please please help us and ask God to bless us with a healthy living child or children.  I can't even have a drink to take the edge off (not that I'm advocating that or endorsing raging alcoholism, it's just sometimes a small amount of spirits can be medicinal).  Somewhere up there, go see your great grandpa Stan and have him mix y'all a highball and put it in to those Steuben crystal coupes emblazoned with "Baby's First Cocktail" that I first saw in a magazine when we were getting pregnant with you.

Momma loves you my darlings.