Laughing with Sarah

I'm not sure if it was Matt or my Mom who, in my life, first told me, flat-out, "Everything always looks better in the morning." But it is the truth, right? Every fear, every anxiety, every worry, every despair is heightened in the middle of the night. Especially when you are trying to sleep but can't. Especially when you awoke with a start. Yesterday was an anxious day for me, all day. I had awoken with a sore back to start the day, and my lower back ache coupled with constant (but not painful) cramps made me nervous that my body was trying to accomplish something (and by something, I mean nothing good). The constant aches and the constant anxiety about those aches meant that I became more and more of an exhausted, emotional wreck as the day went on. Every time I used the bathroom, I was sure that I was going to find bleeding. Meanwhile, yesterday was a very busy day, filled with meetings were I needed my brain to be present and focused, which meant using up ...

Embryo transfer took place on April 14. I had some low cramping immediately after the procedure, and for the next couple days, which seemed like normal "we totally just irritated your uterus" aftermath. Then cramping for a couple more days. And then a day off. And then, cramping all over again, feeling increasingly like regular PMS cramps as we headed into our blood draw this past Saturday morning. During those eleven days between transfer and blood draw, little bits of boob soreness, but nothing major. A day where food made me a little queasy (shortly after one of my co-workers had a nasty stomach bug). A tiny bit of spotting. Basically, eleven days of symptoms that were all equally as likely to be pregnancy-related, PMS-related, or progesterone-supplement-related. Also, I had logged into my patient account during the eleven day wait, just to read through the reports following transfer, and learned there that the grade A blastocyst that they thawed and transferred wa...

Today is Monday. I am currently four days past embryo transfer, and feeling curious about whether I am pregnant, though not anxious. How far we've come in all of this, that I could have such a deep and yet such a loose hold on the outcome of this cycle. More on that in a moment. Probably our best pre-transfer selfie ever! First of all - what? You didn't know that we had started another cycle? Oh right. Because I never mentioned it. Maybe all of this has become routine enough that I haven't felt the need to chronicle it all? Maybe frozen cycles are more of an obnoxious and tedious process rather than the excitement of a fresh cycle? Maybe we've just been busy? Anyway, we started a cycle mid-March. Protocol was birth control pills for a month, then pills and Lupron injections for five days, and then Lupron injections and estrogen pills for a couple weeks, transitioning to just estrogen pills and progesterone up until transfer, and continuing through my pregnancy te...