And Then There Was One

I had asked the nurse about the quality of the two embryos that would be transplanted. After checking with the lab director, this is what she found out:

"One is unaffected, one is a carrier. I can only see the embryology info on one of them in the fields I'm permitted to view, but it looks good. Do you want to know the sex of the embryos?"

After performing the moves you see cartoon characters make after they are hit over the head by impossibly large wooden mallets, I read the e-mail again and again, focusing on one word: "carrier."

Apparently, just so's y'all know, a carrier is considered an acceptable embryo to transfer, because they won't actually have the disease, they'll just be a carrier of the disease. Like me. However, a small percentage (15%) may develop symptoms in their lifetime. Like my Mom. And Grandmother. So at the very least, having a daughter who is a carrier means they would have to go through this agita to try to have a healthy child.

Okay. How about, ....no.....?

The unaffected embryo, by the way, was a girl which we wanted to know but really - the gender just didn't matter - as long as it's healthy. After speaking with the nurse, the Big Guy and the brilliant geneticist, we opted to transfer the one, single embryo we knew was unaffected. We knew our chances wouldn't be as great, but if we wanted to have a child that was a carrier or affected, we wouldn't be spending oodles of money that we don't have (thank you credit cards)! We would have sex like regular people! Hell - we would have had Ben!

Being the responsible individuals we are, however, we did not want to afflict another generation with this disease. So it was just the one, then.
The transfer was on April 28, 2005. I stayed on self imposed bed rest for three days to try to get our little girl embryo to stick. I felt a little crampy, which I wasn't worried about - I felt that way with Ben. On the 5th dpt, I noticed my nipples were really sore - Oooh! Good sign! I got a bit of a fever and felt washed out, which my Aunt assured me was probably a good sign; sometimes, women early in their pregnancy get cold or flu like symptoms. We were positive and convinced this was working. There was no way I couldn't be pregnant! DH kept feeding me inordinate amounts of food, despite my protests that I was indeed not eating for two; the second was just a bunch of cells at this point!

I told DH I'd like tulips for Mother's day. May 7th, the day before mother's day, I went for my beta. On the way home we stopped at a British cozy spot for some breakfast. There was a crafts fair going on on the town so we wandered around and talked about future baby things; it was recklessly optimistic. When we got home, there was a message on the machine from the clinic.

"Unfortunately, I don't have good news, your test was negative..."

My jaw dropped. I would have bet my house I was pregnant. I knew I was. Clearly, I was wrong. Again. Rain check on those tulips, love.

So that was it. Our last cycle. We went through three fresh and one frozen. As we were out of frozen embryos, we were done.
I talked to my Aunt, who called my cousin. Bless her heart, my cousin "A" asked, "When do they need me to be there?" My jaw dropped again.