Mission “Possible Symptom Obsess”

*blush* Ok, so I have been a bad, naughty girl and I need to be spanked…

I promised myself that I was not going to “possible symptom obsess” but I just cannot seem to help myself.  I don’t even know if it is physically or mentally possible to not “possible symptom obsess” during the dreaded 2ww but it seems that I sure as hell am not immune to the obsession… *sigh*

I am only 4DP3DT and I am already the super sleuth on the possible symptom watch… possible symptoms include:

• Very weird aching ovaries and uterus – this comes and goes, but when it hits I am like “ok, I have ovaries and a uterus”.  Sometimes it even feels like someone is sticking a red hot poker right in my poor vajayjay – thankfully these pains only last a few seconds…  I probably have always had these weird aching feelings but am now super aware of every twinge so am only noticing them now right?
• Boobs that have “come and go” sensitivity – when I wake up in the morning they are fine, but as the day progresses my nipples become increasingly sensitive, and my benign lump in my right breast becomes increasingly sore to the touch (and yes I know that squeezing and touching them will end up making them hurt but I.cannot.help.myself!). *hums “I touch myself”* Erm, logically I know that this symptom is a result of the progesterone but that nasty little worm in my head keeps saying “what if?”
• Bloated tummy!  Right, so I never had that whole flat iron board tummy thing going down, I have always had a little “pooch” right above my panty line (which apparently is sexy?  who knew?) but this is just too much of a “pooch” for my liking… If I don’t pull my tummy in, it is like I have an actual baby in there – really it is scary, mostly because when I see my tummy like this, I can imagine myself pregnant and until I know that I am, I cannot torment myself with those thoughts. Well maybe just a little?
• I am HOT – and I don’t mean in the gorgeous and divine way (although I am that too 😉 ) I mean in the my temperature is increased way.  Again, logically I know that this is caused by the progesterone but I think that one could probably fry and egg on my poochy bloaty tummy it is that hot…
• HUGE chorb on my jawline!!!  It appeared out of NOWHERE!  Yesterday I had perfect skin, today I have this huge chorb on my jawline… AND is it not true that chorbs on your jawline are caused by raging hormones in your body???
• What is it with the “pressure on the abdomen = really uncomfortable?” thing?  When I lie down and push on my abdomen (yes I KNOW I should not be doing this) it is really uncomfortable – like my uterus is expanding to make room for a baby or two?  Reaching?  Yes, sorry I am a pathetic fool.
• The constipation!  Ooi, not pretty, that is all I am going to say (yep, yet another thing I logically know I have progresterone to thank for)

Thank heavens we are packing up and going away to Clarens for the weekend.  I am going to keep myself SO busy with art galleries, Golden Gate, and the fireplace in our room at the guest house we are staying at, that I cannot possibly concentrate on mission “possible symptom obsess”.  Yeah right 😉 

 

Xenophobia in my beautiful country

South Africa has been victim to the most horrific xenophobic attacks in the past two weeks.  From what I understand this subject is not getting too much press overseas, but I think it demands it’s own fair share of time in the spotlight. 

It started as a few sporadic attacks on “outsiders” (those who live in our country but are not of SA birth IE: Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Nigerians etc etc) but to date the reported death toll is sitting at 50 and there are thousands upon thousands of people who have been displaced and thrown out of their homes.  People are losing their homes, their businesses, their lives.  This smacks suspiciously of a warped “apartheid” mentality and I am ashamed of my fellow South Africans who are part of this mob killing people.  I cannot fathom how human beings can be so bone chillingly cruel to one another and I shudder to think of the pain that our fellow African’s have been put through during this time.  In my opinion our government is not responding fast enough to this terror (it has taken our president two weeks to make an offical statement!) and I fear that if this xenophobic mind set is not nipped in the bud that we will face a civil war.

If you are local, please do what you can by donating clothes, food and blankets to your local churches or local office of the Red Cross, and if you are international please take a look at the United for Africa website to offer what ever support you can. 

But most of all if you are believers, please pray for the displaced, hurt and wounded.  They are our brothers and sisters.  But also pray for the people who perpetuated this chaos, they know not what they do.  I pray that God will deliver peace and hope to those effected most by this horrible, horrible time, and that He will heal our land.

NaComLeavMo

I am so excited to be part of this global comment leaving phenomena… I have met so many new and wonderful people in the last day or so and am loving it.  I think it is a fabulous idea to get the blogosphere to know each other and to broaden their reading horizons… today a comment on your blog – tomorrow the world!!!! *evil laugh*

If you landed here via NaComLeavMo – welcome to my pad!  Come back and visit again soon 🙂  I will do my level best not to bore the shoes off of ya!

*whizzing off to make her comment quota for the day*

Back to the Mothership

We had a 3 day transfer this morning! 

Up early to get to the clinic, it must have been the miff weather, but Cliff and I ended up having a bit of a disagreement on the way there about the speed we needed to drive to get there and be on time… He thought he needed to drive at Grandpa pace and I thought he needed to drive a bit faster than that, so we ended up having a barney.  On the day of our transfer. Nice.  We got to the clinic and talked about our fight, so that we would at least be able to pretend we loved each other in the IVF suite and kissed and made up – sjoe, crisis diverted…

We went into the doctors office to discuss our embies, and my heart was pounding, I could kind of hear a “whooshing” in my ears it was working so darn hard… As you all know out of our 12 eggs, we had 10 that had fertlised and this morning we still had all 10 growing… Embie number 1 was T.E.X.T.B.O.O.K, they had written a huge T next to it on the page.  It was a perfect 8 celled beauty and I could see straight off that it was a goodie.  The next few were not as great, some at 5 cells and some at 4 cells and degenerating etc but then we got to embie number 11 which was also  T.E.X.T.B.O.O.K… At our lab they do not freeze anything that they do not consider even remotely viable, and we were blown away to hear that they thought we had 4 embies good enough to make the freezing grade…  Naturally we elected to freeze them, just in case they are needed for future use. 

Once we had seen all our beautiful embies, we went down the the IVF suite and I got dressed in the delicious theatre gown and got myself ready for operation bladder fill.  Three glasses of water and one big mug of tea later and we were ready for action… into the theatre I walked with Cliff in his pseudo scrubs at my side, hopped onto the bed and got all jellied up – hold the boat, madam, my bladder was this measly little balloon and was not full enough to start the transfer… Ooi wei!  So we ended up chatting to the coolest IVF nurse of the lot for about 25 minutes while we waited for the liquid to fill up my bladder while listening to classical music.  Once the liquid had traveled to the correct destination, we called down the doc and my legs got all happy with the stirrups.  Poor Dr J really battled to get the cathertre through my cervix (which apparently has quite a stubborn kink in it) and ended up having to pull my uterus down with forceps to get it through – one word – OUCH.  He even told me not to worry and that he would not pull my ute out completely… Yowza!  But finally he got it to the magic place and we got to see our beautiful embies “flash” into my uterus.  I leaked a few tears and think I might have broken some bones in Cliff’s hand, but our “babies” are back in the mothership…

I am so excited and am already SO very attached to number 1 and 11.  I pray that God will continue to bless this cycle and breathe the final bit of life into my little ones, and that He will continue to let them grow and develop in my womb. 

My heart is bursting with love and I have this burning desire to see who these perfect embies will become…  The next two weeks will be tough to get through, but the plan is to keep myself as busy as I can, to try not obsess about my embies too much and just to get through each day as it comes.

Testing on 06th June 2008. 

Made it

All 10 embies made it through the night, and are developing as they should be.  *Huge sigh of relief* 

We need to be at the clinic tomorrow morning at 07h30 to discuss the status of our embies and to make the final decision as to whether we have a 3 day or 5 day transfer.  At this stage I am thinking we’ll transfer tomorrow, which means test date will be 06th June – a mere 10 days before my 30th birthday – what a wonderful birthday present a BFP would make.

*imagining blowing out my candles earlier than normal to wish for the BFP*

Funny…

I think many of us can relate to this – made me giggle!!

83.33%…

…of my eggs fertilised!  Yay!  I have 10 embies in the incubator 🙂 

Need to call the lab again tomorrow to check their progress… So thankful that all is going well so far!!