The anxiety of hope.

These have been an interesting couple of days. The wife slept most of Saturday. She started to feel some pain from the procedure that evening. We were happy they harvested 12 eggs. The nurse informed her she had the most that morning and how one woman only had 4. Now we don’t know this woman in any way other than knowing she only had 4 eggs harvested on Saturday, but this woman has been in my wife’s thoughts ever since. That is just the type of person she is. She has been worried about her friend back home who suffered a great tragedy on Friday. She is just the type of person that cares about others. One of her many qualities that caused me to fall in love with her.

Sunday the pain wasn’t going away. That’s when the anxiety started to come back out of the cage. She works as a hair dresser for a living, which involves a lot of standing and bending over. And here she was struggling to make it to the bathroom. So I spent most of Sunday trying to help keep her calm and relaxed. I made taco salad for dinner, making sure to clean the kitchen to keep that worry off her mind. She had enough on it worrying about work. She really hates calling in sick. We hoped a good nights rest would do some good and she would be up to working her 4 hours shift on Monday. I could tell she was still hurting from the sounds she was making while she slept. And stupid me forgot about the alarm I set for Saturday. At 5:30 it went off waking the wife. She was not happy and couldn’t get back to sleep.

Since today is a holiday, the clinic office number kept telling us the office was closed when we called, when we were told they would be open.  The paper says to call on Monday at 10am if we hadn’t been contacted already. I finally said screw it and pushed the button as if this was an emergency which connected me to an operator. Thankfully they understood and Dr. Pain called us back in a few minutes.

Of the 12 eggs only 5 fertilized. We are scheduled for the transfer tomorrow at 9:30am. They feel they have a better chance in the womb than in the lab. Not wanting to give my wife something else to worry about, I withheld what I felt would be a good result. When we were told we had 12 eggs, my head calculated 4 as a realistic number. Based on what I’ve read from other people, that was my secret hope. So I felt 5 was a positive. My wife was hoping for a higher number and broke down crying. I should have told her. I almost lost it when my wife said how she hoped the eggs from the woman with only 4 are all okay. I probably would have if not for the expletives of frustration that surrounded the statement. The wife describes these attacks as wanting to say 1000 vulgar words in a single sentence. Yet somehow even in the middle of one of these attacks she is still concerned for a person she doesn’t even know.

We started her progesterone shot and she went off to get ready for work. She requested I drive her to work, and I was happy to oblige. But while getting ready myself, her nausea started. Talking on the phone was out of the question for fear of vomiting. I called her boss and explained the situation. Graciously she figured out another arrangement so my wife could stay home and continue to recover.  I’m grateful for that. The nausea finally went away 3 hours later and she has kept down the food she ate, so we hope this isn’t an ongoing issue. But she still feels really guilty about asking off with the shop already being forced into a short staff situation this week.

Now we are just hoping all 5 continue to grow. The doctor graded them as 2-3 and grade 4-8 are considered good. Which is why they are deciding on a 3 day transfer instead of a 5 day transfer. So there is cause for concern. We will find out more information tomorrow before the procedure.

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