Surrogacy can turn you into a professional wait-er. Even when there's a lot of fun stuff going on, the in-between is filled with more waiting. We're currently in one of the most difficult waits: The embryo has been deployed and everyone holds their breath until the bean signals back that it has accomplished it's implantation mission. With this being my third transfer, I am definitely handling the wait differently than I did after the first two transfers. Maybe it's the acupuncture; maybe I'm just getting older and developing a touch of the patience, but I'm really feeling a lot more zen about it, and the days are passing at a more normal speed.
Last Thursday, I packed up and flew out to the East Coast. It was a pretty easy travel day with no difficulties or delays. When I landed it was already evening, so I was able to grab a little dinner and settle into bed early for the 5 am wake up call that was coming the next morning. Although I didn't quite make it to the clinic at 6 am as planned (wrong clinic, Google!), I was able to quickly get my last pre-transfer blood work and ultrasound done, and head back to the hotel for a nice breakfast. The clinic called me back just before lunch to tell me that my labs and ultrasound looked perfect, and that we would be transferring at 1:00 pm. When I arrived, they made me comfortable in a procedure room, the acupuncturist came by to work his magic and somewhere around 2:00 pm, the RE and crew rolled in with an ultrasound machine and an incubator with this adorable little embryo. About 10 minutes later we were done and everyone rolled out as quickly as they rolled in. The acupuncturist came back to do a second round of sweet relaxation goodness, and I was out the door. The nurse gave me the usual instructions (assume you're pregnant, don't do dumb things), but I was pleasantly surprised to receive instructions for walking activity throughout the afternoon. With all of the recent research that strongly indicates that post-transfer bed rest is counterproductive, I'm very happy to be working with a clinic that is so responsive to the research data. After a leisurely afternoon of shopping and exploring the area around the hotel, it was back to bed in preparation for another full day of travel.
Saturday morning was very easy paced as well because my flight didn't leave until 1:30 pm, but I decided to get to the airport a little extra early to allow plenty of time for any TSA shenanigans that might come my way like the last time. Instead, I breezed right through security and to my gate an hour and a half before my flight time. As luck would have it, on this one isolated incident of my prompt timeliness, my flight was delayed due to a faulty aircraft. The airline had to find a different plane for us and kept pushing our flight time back until they were able to locate one. In total, we ended up being 3 hours late. To my advantage, it was a direct flight for me, so I didn't have a connection that I was missing due to the delay. I spent quite a bit of quality time with my Kindle and Hulu; thank goodness for technology.
It's now been almost 3 days since I got home; 4 days since the transfer, and we continue to wait. I have moments that I feel certain the transfer was successful, and just as many moments where I feel absolutely nothing at all. That is the true torture of the post-transfer wait. It helps to know that we'll have a clear answer in 6 days, and yet, it will only bring on another wait. This is the life of a stork, a professional wait-er.
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