For those following along at home...a recap

The funny thing about online communication is that you speak through written words with friends all the time and never, never NEVER speak with them on the phone..."gad as IF!" This rule got broken a lot over the two months I was out of service by those who happen to have my telephone number. Of those friends I can't tell you how many thought that I was hiding out because my IVF had gone awry. This had me laughing because if anything an IVF failure would leave me full of words, many very nasty, but full of lots of things to say and heck, lets be honest an outlet for it. No, it wasn't that at all.

The IVF is still going on. I think it's probably the longest ever in the history of modern and cave medicine combined. It has taken two long months to get to transfer. A small eternity in IVF time.

Everything was going well back at the end of May, normal and fine, until suddenly my local doctor, the esteemed Dr. Stonehenge took off for ten days holiday to god knows where and left me scan-less and doctor-less and with only two choices: go to Lyon three times in the next week for prescriptions and scans or draw out the treatment a little longer. I chose to wait for him to get back rather than drive and drive and drive for two weeks and so they put me on a continued dose of Decapyptyl for his leave time and I took an appointment for when he got back.

When Stonehenge finally did get back and I was to start stims, my scan showed a cyst the size of a golf ball or bowling ball take your pick, and I couldn't start stims until the pesky little sucker was drained and laid to rest. This all involved what turned out to be an initially scary hospital trip where the staff told me they wouldn't be using any anesthesia and then promptly produced the large IVF needle that most doctors try to avoid letting you see for fear it will make you run screaming through the automatic doors, gown flapping open behind you in your haste. Honestly though the mega needle though frightening to look at, only hurt a little bit and the staff was very nice and talked to me through it all telling me how brave I was. It made me realize that the local anaesthesia would work fine when it came IVF retrieval time and I was happy for this because anaesthesia is the worldwide leading cause of death on the operating bloc and with statistics like that should be avoided as much as possible.

So the peskering "little sister" cyst was drained and then, I was told I'd be able to start stims in one week but that I'd be coasted on them for an extra two weeks. The reasons behind this two week delay were I imagined so I could regained strength from the cyst procedure or perhaps so that they could check for any new cyst growth in the coming weeks or maybe just because they had to do a seasonal cleaning of petri dishes in the laboratory, all reasonable excuses, or so I thought. But when we finally asked Mr. Nervous the intern of Doctor Dieu why we had to wait two extra weeks he simply shrugged and claimed quite candidly that they didn't have a place in the planning for me anymore. Thank you very much sir. I like knowing I'm injecting myself with synthetic hamster urine for two weeks because you have a government imposed 35 hour work week. I would have preferred the cleaning the petri dishes story.

So I've finally made it through all of this. The retrieval went well and 7 follicles rapidly became 4 embryos, which eventually became 3 and those 3 were transferred last Monday. Two were average Joes and though one was a potential serial killer, we insisted they transfer it anyway because after all it would be our little serial killer now wouldn't it, and we'd just have to keep a better eye on the cats that's all.

On Tuesday of next week I'll have a blood test to see what of it. I really don't feel pregnant at all and many things feel downright normal which is either good or bad or hey who knows. I'm very emotionless about all of this which kind of scares me because it's not really normal to feel like this. I certainly didn't feel like this last IVF cycle. I was very touchy and nervous and crying a lot and worried about things like the toaster popping up too slowly, "why is it taking SO long!" and making lists of potential IVF clinics in Bangladesh where they'd agree to transfer 10 or 20 embryos, I mean come on one would be bound to stick around right?

You can even see that the past few IUI's left me this way, emotional and crazed on the brink of losing grip with reality. But this cycle I refuse to get caught up. I'm not taking my temperature or studying symptoms or getting the least bit strunng out or in a frenzy that might end up sending me into some sort of tailspin spiraling out of control.

Right now I feel like on Tuesday if my beta is at say minus 5 or something horrid, I may react simply as if someone said "and would you like fries with your order?" But then again I may just duck in a shop alcove and ball my eyes out before I get home.