Inching Closer

Assuming that I don't miraculously get pregnant in these last two cycles, and assuming that everything goes according to plan, we are exactly two months out from our IVF start date. Believe it or not, my body seems to be cooperating. I know; I'm shocked too. Now of course by "cooperating" I don't mean that my body has suddenly decided to cycle normally, but rather my body is staying consistent in its wonkiness... I'm good with that. I am hoping my last cycle before IVF will start somewhere between December 2nd and December 9th... that would be between two to three weeks on the pill. Right now, my predicted start date is December 6th... PERFECT. Granted, there is still a lot that can go wrong between now and December, but I'm feeling optimistic that my schedule will work out. Hallelujah!

Other than monitoring my charts for signs of sabotage, things are pretty chill. I guess I should feel lucky that there are not a lot of tests to run, drugs to take, boxes to check between now and then, but it's kind of blahhhh too. I just have this sense of need to do something or IVF will fail. Ha. Haha. Hahaha. When will I learn that very little of this is under my control... it's essentially nothing.

Regardless, there's basically nothing to do other than an annual exam and one more trip down to Jacksonville sometime in December. Nothing to do, that is, other than think, and worry, and hypothesize, and dream, and pray. I keep running scenarios through my head:

• How many eggs will we get?
• How many should we fertilize?
• What will we do if there are no good embryos?
• How many should we put back if we have 5AA embryos?
• How many should we put back if our best is a 3BC embryo?

I of course want to be successful. I really want to be successful. But as I've already stated, we have some strict guardrails in place to help us navigate the murky waters of IVF. The number to transfer is really burdensome right now. Which is kind of silly. "Don't borrow tomorrow's problems," right? The answer could be made for us. But if it's not, I want to have thought through the situation. I want to have arrived at our decision with care and not from fear or a last minute response.

But preventing ourselves from making decisions out of fear is really, really hard. I want a baby so badly; some days I can't stand it. Our chances of having a successful IVF would obviously be greater if we put back two (or at least it seems that way)... but is that the best thing for us? It's pretty obvious, but if we put back one, and it fails, we will most likely wish we had put two. But if we transfer two, will we wish we had transferred one?

The idea of raising twins, of caring for twins, of being the mom to twins isn't that terrifying to me (maybe it should be). But honestly, I spent most of my life assuming that my odds of having twins was really high. I don't actually know how the twin thing works as far as genetics goes, but I do know that my dad is a twin and his mom was a twin... seems likely, right? Sam is obviously a little more leery of twins (I think it's a guy thing), but I'm pretty sure he'd be okay. The part that scares me half to death is the idea of carrying twins. Now sure, lots of people have successful twin pregnancies: Amanda, Amanda, Lisa. But the risks are kind of scary. I guess the multitude of PPROM occurrences isn't helping my psyche either. I just don't know how you make this kind of a decision! How did decision making suddenly become a full time job?

Historically idleness allows my mind to wander to some pretty terrible places. We are two months out, which is why I kind of wish I had more to do to prepare. Some days it seems like "oh my gosh! I can't believe this is happening! I'm not ready!" and some days I feel like a five year old kid thinking "Christmas will never get here!" Regardless, time marches forward. We have a lot of big decisions left to make, but I'm trying not to stress. "One day at a time" and all that jazz.