Gatorade is the best!

So I have some amazing news!  I've lost 8 lbs!  Yes, for real.  Who knew an egg retrieval would help that much!  7 more lbs to go, so I'm still slugging Gatorade as if my life depended on it.  Wonder how "water with miso lady" is doing?  

I was supposed to hear from Susan the embryologist around 10:00am, so at 10:01am I had myself convinced that they had bad news.  My Tyelenol was also wearing off so I was getting pretty uncomfortable.  I was near tears when my cell phone displayed missed call around 10:49am from the fertility clinic.  Of course my phone never rang.  I called and they immediately transferred me back to Susan who said [insert drum roll]

"Out of your 24 eggs, 20 were mature and 17 fertilized which is outstanding. That is an amazing return." So as of this moment BJ and I are the proud parents of 17 2-4 celled embryos.  I started crying immediately because I was just so relieved.  Of course everyone thought I was in pain from yesterday's hoopla.  Once I corrected them, they were full of joyful tears also. My father was so thrilled to find out he started naming them.  His names included poached, over-easy, hard-boiled, yolk, sunny-side, etc.  Oh, what a sense of humor that man has...Well, at least you know where I get it, now. 

I'm ecstatic.  I know I'm getting way ahead of myself, but it's still my belief that fertilization was our hurdle.  I know we are far, far away from home free, but we are a whole helluva lot closer to being parents than we ever thought we could be.  We've got a ways to go yet, but I'm ready to keep trucking and get through the next step.  

So for the next few days, I'm wearing estrogen patches and taking progesterone-in-oil (PIO) injections. They're a nasty little IM injection that have to be done with a huge needle because the oil is so thick.

Talk about pain in the ass...

They've already set us up to do the embryo transfer Sunday morning.  So we will be headed back down to Chat-town Saturday night.  Then I'll be laid out for the next three days while I let my babies implant which should happen in the following 5 days if all goes well.  I'll take a pregnancy test on the 30th and we will know if it worked.  I hope, hope, hope and pray this keeps going so well!

I also want to take another chance to thank all of you who've been asking about me and checking up on me. I know it is your prayers and thoughts that have made this process so much easier and successful.  It really brightens my day and has totally gotten me through some pretty rotten moments. Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Feel free to name one of my 17 babies after yourself...anything is better than over-easy!

Peace, Love & Continued development!

MK