An Anxious Day...

On Saturday, January 23, 2010, we knew there would be little actual "activity" with regard to our IVF process.  Since eggs had been retrieved the day before, we were simply playing a new waiting game while awaiting a fertilization report.  From that news, we would know if we needed to stay in the city a little longer, or if we were free to return home.  Obviously, we were hoping and praying for the former!

Days like this tended to crawl in many ways.  But, as they say, "No news is good news," and as long as we didn't hear that there WEREN'T embryos, we could still believe that there WERE...

We did manage to sleep in until 7:30 in the morning, knowing there was no reason to awaken early.  Breakfast was eaten in our hotel room - a cinnamon roll that I had bought from the Roy Rogers on my way back to the city a couple of days earlier.  They have very good cinnamon rolls, but the freshness had definitely waned since the original purchase.

As the pressure of a cycle builds, with stage after stage being successfully passed, we made a conscious effort to hold back our excitement.  Becoming too enthusiastic would mean that sudden bad news would seem all that more devastating.  The psychological and emotional highs and lows were often challenging to deal with - at times when we really wanted to celebrate, it seemed "dangerous" to do so.  After all, we had been VERY excited with our pregnancy after IVF #1 in December 2008, and in February 2009, our world crashed around us.  Fool me twice, shame on me?

Lunch consisted of some snacking in the hotel.  Everything about this day was wrapped up in that report, the phone call for which we were waiting, patiently, and anxiously...

Why weren't they calling?  We really should have heard by now, right?  Let's check the phone to see if everything is okay, or if we missed anything...

What, the phone is turned off?  Well, we need to turn it back on!  Right now!

I don't remember all the details of why the phone had been turned off, but I'll never forget the knot in my stomach after the phone had powered up, and I saw that the voicemail indicator was on.  This awareness that the news was already in, but we didn't know it yet.  Should we check the message, or should we just wait?  There was such angst, as I've never experienced in any other circumstance in my 48+ years...

We called.  We heard the report.  I think we both listened with one ear closed...  They had, in fact, retrieved three eggs, but only two were mature.  Big sigh...  But, both of the mature eggs had fertilized successfully, and we needed to stay around for anticipated embryo transfer at 2:00 p.m. on Monday!  Despite our conservative approach, we had to celebrate.  We laughed.  We cried.  We thanked God for giving us another chance to experience the gift of parenthood, and we asked Him for His blessing that we would be able to meet our child(ren) in a few months...

Of course, this meant that a new round of injections had to begin, but those needles were only an inch and a half long, so it wasn't a big deal!  :)

After hanging out in the hotel a bit longer, we left around 3:30 in the afternoon, walking a few blocks to the station for the tram to Roosevelt Island.  We bought MTA cards, and took the tram ride over the East River to the island; it was like a different world, much calmer and slower paced!  We walked around by the water quite a bit, and picked up a few things at the pharmacy there before going back to the station for the tram ride back to Manhattan.  Once there, while walking back to the hotel, we stopped at The Food Emporium to get some supper.  When we arrived back "home," we were in for the rest of the night, our last at The Bentley Hotel.  Tomorrow was Sunday, and it was bound to be a busy day...