What Do You See?

So years ago when some of our closest friends told us they were going to have a baby we immediately had the talk.  The talk about what everyone thinks but never says right after a baby is born.  “If our baby is ugly, will you tell us?””  We promised we would and they promised they would admit if their kid came out looking like something off The Walking Dead.

Yes they are cute and cuddly and tiny and new.  But some of these babes come out all cone head-ish and goopy eyed, and then the parents hand them to you and all you can honestly say is “ohhh, it’s a baby.”

Lucky for them they had 3 perfect and beautiful babes.  Having beautiful babes isn’t a contest (wink wink, momsters whose kids have a better wardrobe than mine.  Baby Zara, really?  I once bought 1 glove from the clearance bin) but if it was a contest, I think we’re down a few.  Even the very excited, incredibly loving grandma said “wow, they look like planets in outer space” (don’t worry mom, I’ll never tell them.  You never said it, like you “never smoked a cigarette”).  Someone else suggested a pile of dirt, so come on, don’t be shy, what do you see?  Best answer gets to name the first one out!

But to all 7 of my little frozen buns, let this be your first life lesson.  It’s only a stage, this will pass…and if you are ugly as sin forever I will always, always love you anyways-because when I look at you all I can see is the most precious gift I have ever been given…

…and moon craters, a little.

More Than One Frozen Bun

So I am the proud mother bear to 6 1/2 frozen buns!

6 are frozen and awaiting making their home in my uterus for 9 months & 1 is still “culturing”.  Which is doctor speak for “your kid is still growing in a petri dish, we’ll see how it works out”.

The egg retrieval went something like this:

“Good morning I’m Heidi, I’m going to be your anesthesiologist.”

“Good morning, can you try using my right arm for the IV, it never seems to work in my left?”

“Let’s just try…”

Digging in my left arm…NOPE.

Needle sticking out of my left hand, digging in my right arm…BYE.

The last thing I remember was asking, “is this from the medicine” and my overly energetic anesthesiologist Heidi saying  “Nope, Nope, No, there is just a lot going on right now, there is a lot of talking right now, there is a lot of emotions right now, there is a lot of energy in the room, there’s just a lot going on right now.  You’re doing great, you’re doing so good, look at you…”  Then she walked into the hall and said “she is gonna faint, I need the salt”.  And that was it for a bit, until the smelling salts and cool washcloths brought me back to life.  We were the life of the IVF unit, while my husband was laughing and taking pictures.

Next we totally changed our game plan from fertilizing only 7 eggs to fertilizing them all… After our two doctors had a theological debate about “God’s number”.  The devout Jew pulling for 40 and the follower of Christ anchoring on 7.  We somehow arrived at fertilizing them all, we checked with God and he gave it a go.  So we might not end up living in a basement, broke with 17 kids, just 7.

I have a bad habit of saying really weird stuff in awkward silence.  So while I climbed onto the bed with my awesome hospital robe exposing my backside to one half of the room, I got my legs up in the highest stirrups ever and gave the other half a gaze into my soul.  I thought it was the perfect occasion to share with everyone how much I loved getting my wisdom teeth taken out… egg retrieval, wisdom teeth, same same.  Someone said “well if you liked that, you’re gonna love this.”

That was it.  20 minutes later, while my husband thought I was still in the bathroom, they wheeled me in to recovery while they fertilized our 13 eggs!

After my drunken anesthetic haze of hugging my anesthesiologist, profusely thanking everyone for their services, interrupting my doctor every time he started to talk by asking if we got the whole family in the freezer and explaining to my husband (who video recorded most of this) how much I hated the cap they made me wear while they did the retrieval because it made me look like Mario, I was done.

They retrieved 13 eggs, 6 fertilized, 6 froze and we still have 1 a little late to the party, trying it’s darndest to make it to the fridge.  We’ll go back in May for them to transfer 2 embryos into my baby maker.

They said we had insane results for Mini IVF and better results than most conventional IVFers they see.

Maybe they are like Juan Pablo and say the same thing to everybody…regardless, 6-maybe 7 buns is something to wildly, wildly celebrate.