3 totsicles!!! :) :) :)

Good morning! 🙂 Today I am 6dp5dt (11 dpo). Only 4 more days until my Beta blood test!

I just called our RE’s office to schedule the test for Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. I also asked what the status of the remaining embryos was and the nurse I spoke with told me that 3 made it to the freeze this time!!! WAHOO!!! YAY!!! YIPEE!!! That is just so amazing to me that there are three that were high enough quality to freeze this time, considering what happened last cycle (with converting to IUI) and only having 1 to freeze after our first cycle!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 So now we have a total of 4 frozen embryos (or “totsicles,” as some women I have met online affectionately refer to their babies in waiting)!

I find this news to be so encouraging, as they only freeze them if they are of the quality that they deem worthy of transferring, which I believe to be grade 2bb or better. That said, we may not find out the grades of the three until our follow-up appointment with our RE, regardless of how this cycle turns out, though I may try to find out sooner. We know that the one that was frozen from our first cycle is a 2aa and at the time of our ET this cycle there was at least one other 2bb, in addition to the 2bb the RE put in me. As for the grades of the other two, we will find out eventually. This also reassures me that our RE knows what he is doing in terms of converting our last cycle (when the odds of a good number of quality eggs/embryos weren’t looking good) and in developing the protocol for this cycle! 🙂

As much as I want this cycle to work out, and for our 4 frozen embryos to be on deck for the future, when we would be ready to try for more children, I feel so blessed and lucky to know that if this cycle does not work out, that we will be all set to try our first frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle, which is a lot less involved and invasive, then a fresh IVF cycle! 🙂 With 4 frozen, there is a good chance we could get through more than one FET now, or later if we get pregnant soon, before we would have to try another fresh IVF cycle. Besides being less invasive, our insurance covers unlimted FET tries! So that would preserve two more fresh IVF cycle tries if our FETs don’t work and/or for the future, if we needed or wanted to use them.

I still really want this cycle to work, but find a lot of hope for the future if our little embryo doesn’t stick this time around, knowing that we have 4 amazing little miracle embryos waiting for when the time is right! Last night, the waiting, to find out if our embryo implanted, was really getting to me and I was thinking a lot about our situation and praying like crazy. I just want so much for this to work and for us to be able to move on with our expanding family. I know that Sean will be an awesome big brother, Bob will continue to be a wonderful Daddy, to any more children we might be blessed with, and I feel such a strong calling to mother more children. Knowing that there is tangible hope, if this cycle doesn’t go our way, makes these next four days much less daunting and more bearable… That and having three episodes (tonight, Wednesday and Thursday) of “So You Think You Can Dance” during this finale week of my favorite summer TV show! 😉

For any of you that may watch SYTYCD, Sabra and Neil are my top two right now and I am pulling for Sabra to win it this season! Neil was not my favorite guy all along, Pasha was and Danny was a close second. However, Neil has really grown a lot in the competition and over the past few weeks has shown his depth as both a dancer (as far as his technique goes) and as a performer. His duet with Lacey, that he did two weeks ago, choreographed by Mia Michaels to “Time” by Billy Porter, really moved me. Lacey was great in it too, as Mia Michaels meeting her deceased father in Heaven, but Neil just really seemed to play the character of Mia Michaels’s father so well. From that point on, I have pretty much loved anything Neil has done between his duets and solos! As for Sabra, I have loved almost every performance she has done on the show from the beginning! 🙂 Sabra’s technique and character when she dances seems so genuine and it is amazing to me to know that she has only be dancing for four years!

Anyway, can you tell that, in addition to my fantasy of being a contestant on the show (if I were only a few years younger, I think you have to be under 30 years old, and not married with a family, I totally would audition), that I also like to pretend to be judge?! 😉 Bob likes to tease me and my mom for how seriously we take ourselves each week when we watch the show! We try to talk on the phone between each routine, at commercials, and discuss what we thought of each dancer and their performances. At the end of each show we rank them and then discuss who we plan to vote for, so that when possible we can make our votes “go further” and have more impact on the outcome of the show. Though we usually don’t vote more than 8 times for any contestant we like and realize that SYTYCD fanatics probably hit redial closer to 100 times or more. So who knows how much our votes really matter, but we like to believe that they do! 😉 Also, thanks to one of my awesome neighbors from across the street on our block, who logged in as me to Ticketmaster on Friday (while we were in MI on vacation) and ordered tickets for my mom, my sister and me to see the SYTYCD live tour when it comes to Chicago in November!

Okay, I am feeling really positive right now, which feels really great! Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your continued support, positive thoughts, sticky vibes and prayers!!! Only four more days…