2 little blasties sitting in my ute; blobs of cells that are so cute!

OK, so I'm still feeling pretty happy from the Va.lium. Everything went smoothly this morning -- thanks so much for all the good thoughts!

In case anyone's curious about the play-by-play, here goes:

We got to the clinic super-early (8:15 for a 9:30 transfer) -- so early, in fact, that the doctor called me on my cell phone with an embryo update when I was sitting in the waiting room! She told us that we had two superstar blasts, and then another 2 or 3 that we will likely be able to freeze either later today or tomorrow. She recommended we transfer 2 -- I relayed that to the Mr. and then headed off to acupuncture to think on it for a bit.

Acupuncture was fun today -- I had a different acupuncturist who'd worked for the San Francisco 49ers for a while, so we chatted about that. I got needles in different places -- on top of my head for the first time, which she called an "implantation crown." I chilled with the needles for about 30 minutes, said a few prayers, and decided that my gut was telling me to go with 2.

I debated whether or not I needed a Va.lium after acupuncture, and decided that my bladder discomfort alone was probably reason enough, so down the hatch it went. I floated on back to the waiting room, sat and snuggled with the Mr. for a bit, and then we headed back to the transfer room.

The tech took a quick look at the sonogram, and told me that I could go pee for 5 seconds if I wanted to. No need to ask me twice! I shuffled out and did my thing, went back and got told that I could pee even more. Apparently my 58 or so ounces were doing what they were supposed to do.

Finally, we got down to business. The doctor (a new one) came in and went over a few more details, and gave us a picture of our beautiful blasts. One was huge (I'd post a picture if I wasn't flat on my back), and the other was not far behind. We made the final call to do both.

By this time, the Va.lium had kicked in and I was feeling like a million bucks. Never have my feet so easily gone into stirrups, and I swear the speculum was not at all unpleasant. A miracle. The doctor swabbed me out with some cold stuff, which totally tickled (I told you the Val.ium was good), and gave the catheter a quick test. What happened next was the coolest thing ever -- the embryologist came in, confirmed who we were, and left while the doctor put in the catheter for real. You could see the little tube going in on the ultrasound. The embryologist came back with the blasts, handed them to the doctor, and then we watched them wend their merry little way down the tube and pop out into my ute. So frickin' cool.

The Dr. said it went "perfectly," and they all left me to lie on the table for a few minutes. The Mr. and I totally had a moment -- I cried, I laughed, he teared up. It was one of the most special things we've experienced together.

I went back for another round of needles, and conked out with a big smile on my face.

So now we wait. And wait. Beta is next Thursday the 9th at 7:00 a.m. I hope there are enough movies at Blockbuster to get me through. I'm sure I'll be blogging all about them here.

The most unrelaxing acupuncture session EVER

Yesterday's acupuncture adventure was like something out of a sitcom. On a day when I really really needed to relax and stop thinking about our little babes in a petri dish, three things got in the way:

1. I farted on the reproductive massage guy. Thanks, constipating PIO shots and subsequent excessive fiber intake.

2. I started awake during the acupunk and lunged for my ringing phone (could it be the clinic?), shooting two needles out of my belly and across the room. It wasn't the clinic.

3. A marching band kept walking back and forth down the street under my session room window. Seriously. WTF?

Needless to say, it pained me a little more than usual to fork over my $255 at the end of the session.

The Joy of Needles

One of the interesting little detours I've taken along this crazy infertility road is to the acupuncturist. I'd read some research showing that having acupuncture treatments before and after retrieval and transfer can increase blood flow to your lady parts and thus enhance one's chances of a) popping a good number of quality, mature eggs, and b) having the embryos implant after transfer. Do I believe this? Well, yes....and maybe no.

The bottom line is that it doesn't really matter. I tried acupuncture for the first time and was immediately hooked. First of all, there's something strangely seductive about the fact that I know NOTHING about how Chinese medicine works -- after all of the doctor visits of the last two years, and all of the endless research, and all of the questions I've thrown at all of the doctors and nurses I've encountered, it's nice to kind of just let it all go. Secondly, the treatments are just so effing relaxing that I don't particularly care how they work. The needles burn a little teeny bit going in, and then I am off to my happy floaty place. If all these treatments do is provide me with 30 minutes of floaty sanctuary every week during this process, they are worth every penny.

Yesterday, before my fourth treatment, I experienced the wonder of a "reproductive organ massage". While this definitely does not sound like something one should be able to pay for with one's flexible spending account, and definitely was not as interesting as my husband THOUGHT it was going to be, it was both weird and wonderful. I get "regular" massages pretty frequently, so have pretty much seen (felt?) it all, but this was totally different. I have never had my, um, midsection massaged quite so thoroughly. And the scalp and neck massage (not sure how this fits into the "reproductive organ" theme, but see previous paragraph about knowing nothing and not minding one bit) -- I almost slipped the guy a couple of twenties to keep on going. And then, the needles after that.....heaven. Floaty heaven.

All I can say is: with all this attention, my ovaries and ute had better step up! In the meantime, I'm going to keep getting needled and loving it.