A New Beginning

The journey has been filled with love, pain, and hope.

But it begins anew...

I have decided to start detailing our journey with our latest burst of hope....9 eggs retrieved via the miracle of modern science. We have begun a new phase in our unexpected journey: IVF...InVitro Fertilization...Creating a family, well, in a lab...

So Tuesday we had 9 tiny eggs retrieved from my very hormone-pumped body. DH provided a very macho sperm sample. Eggs met spermies. Go spermies, go!!! And go they did. We found out later that 8 of the 9 eggs fertilized. So here we have HOPE...that the embryos will continue to grow; and PAIN...my suffering from the medical procedure (thank goodness for pain-killers!); and LOVE...Jody and I together trying to create our family...Jody taking such wonderful care of me as I recovered...

Friday we found out that 5 of the embryos are growing well...8-celled and nicely formed (technically Grade 3 and High Implantation Potential)...2 were growing, but not as nicely formed...and then poor George, our 3-celled, slow grower...I am pretty sure that we will soon be told that George is no longer with us...Poor George.

Now we are in HOPE mode. Hope that our tiny little embryos will live until Sunday when three of them will (I hope), be put back inside of me....Hmmm, HOPE, PAIN, LOVE...they really do seem to go together...

And so the journey continues...