Memories...

I was looking through old photos and came across these...

This was the drug delivery for our second IVF procedure. About 8 different types of syringes and 10 different types of drugs... some to shut your system down, some to ramp your system up, some to help the eggies grow, some to help the eggies mature. Some to trick your body into thinking it's pregnant, but all to drive you certifiably crazy. I remember when Matt was explaining his master's thesis to someone and was explaining why HCG is banned for professionally athletes... I bursted out with, "Hey- we have that in our fridge!". Some come with injectable pens, some require mixing with different syringes, some go into the belly, others the butt (they say the hip, but that's a lie), a few into the thigh or arm. And then there were the 15 pills I took daily, and the IV transfusion to help my body not kill the embryos (we have my IV pole in the garage if you ever need to borrow one). And the best part is that your dosage/timing for both injectable and oral drugs changes daily... our house was C-R-A-Z-Y, and run by a single sheet of paper that was kept on the fridge.

And this is why it's all worth it:

His first baby pic!! These are the three embryos we transferred during our second IVF cycle. We called them "Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail" (the three embryos we transferred in our first cycle were "Huey, Dooey, and Louie"). They were three days old at this point. They were all 8-cell embryos and considered "perfect" on transfer day. We decided that the embryo sticking out to the right was the one that implanted. The other two didn't make it, which is totally normal, but I do wonder what happened to them.

I absolutely love this picture... and to think we'll actually get to meet this little guy in only a matter of weeks!