Alterna-Transfer Day & Freezing Report

Since T and I already had planned to take the day off for the transfer, we didn't cancel our plans when the transfer was cancelled.  We instead decided to make an awesome day full of drinking and general debauchery - basically what responsible parents would NOT do on a Monday.  Hey - we're not parents today (it's not our day with T's daughter even), so why not?

The day started with sleeping in until NINE.  Seriously, I'm not sure the last time I've slept that late.  I have been on the couch the last couple nights.  That make T sound like an evil husband, but in reality, my APD (the progesterone allergy - same hormone, but unrelated to our transfer cancellation) was acting up.  Getting up multiple times in the night for trips to the freezer for my ice packs was pretty annoying.  So the couch is only a couple steps away from the freezer.  Blech.  I'll be glad when this part is over.

First order of business -- T made some phenomenal eggs benedict, I mixed up some bloody marys, and we settled in to catch up on last night's episode of Homeland (crazy awesome by the way).

After a little more relaxing, we went out to lunch at a local brewery.  Then went on to do what all classy people do on a Monday - GAMBLE!  :)  We had some twenties in our pockets and a casino calling our name.  I proceeded to lose it all, and T doubled his half, so we ended up even.  I call that teamwork at its finest.  We rounded out the outing with a trip to the roulette table with the plan to put some moolah on "2" (more on that).  We got confused with the betting process, and apparently did not put enough money on the "outside" when meeting the minimum.  Still confused on that, and she "cancelled" our bet after she had spun the wheel.  Sure enough, it lands on 2.  Dammit!  It would have been $1,000 if we had bet it all and had it count.  Oh, well.

Ended the afternoon with some appreciation for the fine weather -- and wine and cigars on the back deck.

Pretty sad to have to go back to the "real world" tomorrow.

The good news came while I was losing money on blackjack and slot machines.  TWO of our three embryos were frozen.  The freezing process the clinic has used for the last couple years is called vitrification, which is leaps and bounds beyond the "slow freeze" process used prior.  The process is still fairly new, so I'm excited our clinic uses it.  The old process had about a 50% success rate for frozen embryos surviving the thaw.  In vitrification, the success rate is around 95%.  Therefore, we'd have a great chance of both embies surviving the thaw.

In a way, we're happier with two than three.  If both survive, we are in the perfect situation of transferring both, as we'd be delighted with twins.  Three is a little more overwhelming, and I wouldn't purposely create a situation with triplets.  They generally freeze the embryos together, so we'd likely have to thaw all three if we had them.  And that would leave us in an uncomfortable situation with that last embryo.  Better that God decided it wasn't meant to grow anyway.

We weren't able to get a photograph before the freeze, which was unfortunate.  But we needed to name the two anyway, as we'll be thinking about them all the time.  Our mythology names didn't work out so well last time, so we needed something with a little more modern fictional oomph.  Multiple lives and surviving frozen situations doesn't hurt either.   So, if you think of us over the next couple months, be sure to think of Link and Zelda (from the Legends of Zelda video game series) as well!

I'll check in once in awhile, but certainly won't be posting often over the next several weeks.  It should be about 6-7 weeks before we can start the whole process again, so definitely check back by then at least!