Well, my apologies for grossing  you all out but I have not pooped in days. The stress of the last couple of days has wreaked havoc on my stomach. As the young, hip kids would say. I literally can’t even.

The day after I wrote my last post was Thursday. Day 4. A notoriously bad day for us as most of our embryos die on day 3. I willed my phone not the ring. I visualized the 2 little guys dividing and growing. I realized at about noon that I was in full on hope mode. Consequences be damned! And by the time 4pm rolled around and no one had called, I rejoiced. They made it to day 4!! Both of them.That is in-fucking-credible.

The morning of day 5 I was brimming with confidence. We definitely have 2 on the go. They’ll call at 10:30 to say they biopsied and froze both. at 9am I get a phone call from them. But it’s to set up a follow up appointment. She says that they should call with news that day if it’s day 5…10am… nothing… 11… silence. 12… 1… 2… What the hell is going on? By the time I left work at 3:30 I’d heard nary a word from anyone. When I got home I remembered that the paperwork said they would email on day 5. I checked my email like a crazy person and checked the patient portal like a psycho. Nothing. I texted my 2 friends who I share an RE with and they assured me that there’s no way they wouldn’t call if we’d lost any embryos. They were confident that both were still growing. It made sense so I let it go.

Saturday. We’re now on day 6. I usually have a few day 6 embryos so this could be okay. Again, I’m refreshing my inbox as soon as I wake up. This is really strange. Why the radio silence? Did they forget about me? Again, my friends are assuring me that they call with bad news asap. But at 3pm I’ve had it and I call. Unfortunately, the damned clinic closes at 2 on the weekends and it sounded like the answering service was for emergencies only. So the three of us went out to dinner and that helped take my mind of it somewhat but only somewhat. But when I got home I kept asking N what if they forgot to call? What if they’re saving bad news til the evening? Why weren’t they calling? I was definite a fun date that night.

Sunday. The clinic opens at 9 and 9:01 I’m on the phone leaving a message for them to call me back right the fuck away. 9:30 she returns my call and says that as of Saturday morning they were both still growing and hadn’t been biopsied yet. The embryology department will email in a few hours with the final count. We’re now on day 7. Day 7 biopsies are new at my clinic. I’m not overly worried about that until I start googling day 7 embryo success rates. What a smart lady I am. Now I’m really refreshing my emails every half hour. We went out for brunch with N’s mom and brother and I had several mimosas. My stomach was in knots. We got home at 1pm and still no email. My stomach hurt so much at this point that I couldn’t get out of bed. The three of us stayed under the covers and watched Ozark for the rest of the day. But then I got afraid. I’d lost a bit of hope and I didn’t want to hear bad news. I’d gone through every possible scenario and each made me sicker than the last. So when 2pm rolled up I let it roll by. I couldn’t call again and have them tell me it’s a no. Not after I’d had so much hope.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Lucky has been a bit sick, waking up screaming for Daddy. So after he settled at midnight I was tossing and turning listening to his breathing and practicing my speech to my RE when I see him next. They really have to revise their policy. On day 5, fucking call man. I don’t care if all are still going or none. We can’t be doing this, people. I’ve been a good patient of theirs for 5 years and 6 cycles. Their record with me has been near immaculate thus far but I was so mad last night. My stomach was in a shambles. I was in pain and worried about everyone. I think I finally dozed off at around 2am.

When I got to work this morning I immediately opened my email for the refresh game. At 8:50 the email popped up and my entire bowl seized up. Am I ever going to poop again?

“Cycle Freeze Report”. I stared at the title for a minute. Freeze means good news. But what if it’s not? It has to be! But what it’s just to say there’s nothing in this freeze report. See ya!

“Dear Useless Bowels,

The XXXX Embryology Lab carefully monitored the development of your embryos and we want to let you know that we have been able to freeze 1 embryo.”

One… We did it. We’re not at all out of the woods yet but, by golly, we did it!! We only have a 30ish% chance of this one passing PGD testing but we made it!!!

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in it now but this feels like the most stressful of all my cycles. Just based on these last 3 days alone. It was just too much.

We’ll find out in about 7 days if the embryo has made it to the next phase. Keep those fingers and toes crossed of us please.

Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to find a way to build up my defenses again so that I can deal with this next few days. I also have to find some prune juice or something.

Happy Monday everyone.

xx