Princess Days

The day of the transfer and two days after I was instructed to have my "princess days". After a 5 day embryo transfer, it's expected that the embryo will implant some time in the first 48 hours. The embryo is only about 2 millimeters in size so even the smallest uterine contractions have the potential to throw them off course. I was told no exercising; anything I couldn't talk through was way too hard. It was suggested I Netflix binge, take some naps, and basically lounge around dreaming of our little embabe.

I was looking forward to these days. I work 6 days a week and am on call basically 24/7. Having scheduled days off designated for my pampering sounded like exactly what I needed.

The first day, after Isaac left for work, I hurried into my swim suit. I've been dying for a pool day and thought this was the perfect chance! Tying up my top it occured to me that the chlorine water is probably not the best thing for me after having all sorts of crap (and a precious, floating embryo) up in my business. So I crawled back into bed, putting on comfy  PJs and and a marathon of "Snapped". That was great for 2.5 seconds....

Typically, on the days I finally have to myself, days where the house is clean, the laundry is done, and we have plenty of snacks, I relish in the self care opportunity. But this? This was hell.

Give yourself two whole days in the house with nothing entertaining enough to keep your mind from wandering in and out of all your deepest fears.  You'll go crazy pretty fast. This is either it or it isn't, he/she is here to stay or we do a frozen embryo transfer in a few months.

So I sat there. Thinking about whether or not it is... Or it isn't.

Today, the second day, was probably the worst. I began to feel some cramping after running through the house to catch my cat. For the 5th time this week he had dumped all the water in his automatic water fountain dish. I was determined to use his fluffy fur as a damn mop, so I chased him in circles for like, a minute.

I hope you're laughing and not calling the cops on me for animal abuse.

Anyway, when I had finally cleaned the water and got back into bed, I felt some very, very minor cramps. They only lasted a few seconds, a minute a most. Any other time in my life I wouldn't have thought for one more second about them. However, this wasn't just any other time. This was THE time.

I began to ball my little eyes out. Saying out loud to no one but my good for nothing mop cat, "please stick baby, I am so sorry!"

The idea that I could have done something to dislodge our implanting embryo made me sick to my stomach.

You're probably wondering why I'm even sharing this. It's kind of embarrassing to admit I was wailing and saying these things to a cluster of cells that absolutely cannot hear me.... But this is infertility. It's complicated, but to me, this is my baby. This is the closest we have ever gotten to parenthood and the only thing I had to do to help it stick, was to stay relaxed and calm. It's irrational and logically I know that I can't blame myself if this cycle doesn't work. But at the time I felt like I had done something to harm my child.

I was able to calm down after I did some meditations and almost immediately I felt positive and happy that this could still work.

It's a bizzare place that I am in right now. Still have the IVF hormones coursing through me and it won't be long before I have pregnancy hormones to replace them. I'm exhausted because trying to relax my mind and my body (anxiety totally manifests in physical ways) takes up all my energy. I'm desperate for time to fly but terrified for it to speed up. I can only say "I'm pregnant!" for so long until I'm not any more.

A time so magical is also so scary.

How am I going to survive the next few weeks?

Infertility sucks.

Oh, and if you were wondering, Opie made a really bad mop.