Fertilization!

Dusty and I can officially share that we have 8 embryos growing :)  They actually already received their first report card from the doctor that had a smiley face on it.  At least that is what the doctor said on our phone call update this morning.

Yesterday I went under anesthesia for Egg Retrieval.  This was the 3rd time I have been under anesthesia in less than a year, so I am pretty much an expert now. Going into ER we had no clue how many mature eggs we would get out of 18 follicles, but found out after surgery that they retrieved 12 eggs!

This morning we received the call that out of 12 eggs, 9 were mature and 8 ended up being fertilized.  After the eggs were retrieved yesterday and Dusty provided his "deposit", the embryologist cleaned and injected each of the eggs with the sperm and then left them overnight in a petri dish.  This morning is when they looked to see how many fertilized.

Our next report is on Sunday morning to see how many embryos are growing and will be able to reach the "blastocyst" stage. Usually not all of them reach that stage as some start dying.  Man God is TOTALLY TESTING OUR PATIENCE!  The doctor did state there might be a tiny chance they will have to freeze my embryos and transfer at a later cycle, but I won't get into that as I am PRAYING we can have a fresh transfer on Tuesday.

While I am very excited to be done with daily blood work, ultrasounds, and injections... I have now moved on to the suppository stage, which I will spare you the gory details.  I am hoping the bloating will start going down from all of my follies growing as Dusty agreed I looked very preggo just from the bloat.

So, the next stages are *hopefully* have a transfer of an embryo on Tuesday and then waiting to see if it magically implants!  I would have to wait about a week to see if everything was successful and we can have a little baby growing.  Man that is so hard not to get excited and too hopeful.  It has been hard trying to understand if I should just have faith and be positive or keep my expectations normal and wait.  Sometimes I don't have a choice as I try to balance my emotions.