100 Miles Away...But There In Spirit

This morning, an amazing woman we’ve never met will go to the fertility center, sport the awesome “cap, gown and booties ensemble” that I know so well, and will have her eggs removed…eggs she is giving to us (and another couple).  It is strange to know that this is happening…this monumental step in what could be the beginning of my happily ever after…but I’m not going to be there.  I should be so grateful that the hard part is being done for me but, instead, I’m feeling really sad that it’s not me in that room today.  I want my legs up in the stirrups (never thought I would hear myself say that).  I want to be surrounded by beeping machines and a flurry of release waivers.  I want to feel the lovely “sleep” wash over me as the anesthesiologist pushes the magic plunger.  I want to be physically close to those eggs, sending them love and willing them to find a nice sperm, settle down and get married (or at least fertilized) right away.  I want to tell the immature eggs to grow up and act their age like their brothers and sisters…immediately!  I guess I just want to be important right now…and I feel like I’m not.  I’m removed from this situation, and that makes me sad.

With that said, I am also filled with a million (okay maybe not a million…but many) happy emotions, as well.  I feel pride that The Prince has made the trip on his own this morning and is determined to show me that he can handle the tasks at hand (there we go again with the mastrubation puns)…I just need to give him more credit and have a little faith in him.  I feel gratitude, more than ever, for everything our egg donor has endured over the last month and a half.  I am humbled by her beautiful, kind and generous spirit.  And I feel joy that this leg of the journey is almost over.

I get sick on roller coasters (great transition, right?  Very smooth. Stick with me, it's worth it).  In fact, I have always gotten sick on roller coasters, ferris wheels, carousels, and just about any other moving ride (including swings).  Despite this fact, I have continuously tried…and tried…and tried to ride these things, believing that I would have “outgrown” my stomach’s violent response to spinning motions.  I am always…always…always wrong, and there are many unhappy people who have been on these rides with me in the past that will tell you just how wrong I am.  I tell you this because there is a point during these rides when I am trying so hard not to embarrass myself by tossing my cookies that my mind becomes incredibly focused…and I "will" the conductor with all my heart to please stop the ride.  For a long time, it seems as though my telepathic pleas fall on deaf ears and then…the magical moment occurs and I realize that he is slowing the ride to a stop...that I only need to hold on for a little longer and I can get my feet back on the ground and try to feel like myself again.  That is the exact feeling I have right now – after what seems like an eternity of intense focus on a singular plea that no one was answering, relief that the ride is coming to a halt and I am going to be on solid ground very soon.

You know what I don’t feel this morning?  Worried.  Maybe I’m too emotionally exhausted, or maybe there is no room for another emotion in my heart right now.  For whatever reason, even though I know that there are a lot of things I have no control over which could still derail this whole cycle, I am not worried or anxious.  It’s out of my hands right now.  I’m just going to jump right past thinking about how many eggs are going to be retrieved and instead focus my hope on this morning’s “The Dating Game – Embryologist Style.”  As many of you ladies have said to me in the past…it only takes one good embryo to make a baby.  So eye on the prize. 

And, litle eggs, if you can hear me from over one hundred miles away, please heed my earlier advice and know that the prize for getting this one right is a nine month stay in a luxurious uterus (recently redecorated in a fluffy pink lining which won the prestigious “triple stripe award”), with meals of your choosing, spa treatments, live entertainment (there's a prince who's a real comedian...even when he's not trying to be one) and all the love you can handle included for free.  So try little ones…please try!  I may not be there with you this morning, but I love you already.  Please try.