Embryo Transfer - Day 17 & 18 - July 26 & 27

Sunday 

Well...today was a rough day.  Brian and I were exhausted from the past two days of being in the sun all day and we really didn't want to do much.  But...we knew that we would be apartment bound for the next two days because of the embryo transfer and me needing to rest to allow the embryo to implant.  So we forced ourselves to leave the apartment today.

It took a while to get out of bed, we didn't end up heading into Athens until noon.  We decided to walk around the Plaka and then go to the Acropolis museum that we didn't go to when we visited the Acropolis because Brian had his knife on him the last time.

Plaka up first.  The plaka is basically a large area of town that is just filled with shops.  We got off the metro and started walking around.  The directions we had made it feel like we were going in the wrong direction.  So we just kept walking.  Follow people, turn, walk, turn, etc.  Suddenly, we arrive!  ha!  I told Brian I knew where I was going the whole time. :)  We walk around the shops, but really they have a lot of the same things over and over again.  We weren't really there to shop, we wanted to find something for the baby, but we don't really need anything else.  We don't buy little trinkets/statues/paintings unless we know exactly where it will go in the house, otherwise it will just sit there useless - we were more walking around for the experience.  We are looking at all the shirts and decide we want to find a onezie for the baby.  Can't find one.  Keep looking....nope.  Can't find one anywhere.  Where do the people of Athens get clothes to cover the kids??? We finally decide that all the babies must just walk around naked all the time because onezies do not exist.

As we are walking, we soon realize that we made it to the Acropolis on accident!  Go us!  We are hungry and all the cafes at the Plaka district are charging an arm and a leg for food that should be a lot cheaper so we ended up going to the same food place that we went to our last time at the Acropolis.  Pretty sure the cook recognized us because he didnt put the lettuce on the gyros or maybe it was just a happy accident.  Either way, they were delcious.

Then we headed up to the Acropolis museum.  They would yell at anyone who took pictures, so there aren't very many pictures - but we did what we could.  It was really need to see how they reconstructed things that had been destroyed over the years.  We decided as we were walking through and reading the plaques that we should have went there first and we would have had a better understanding of what we were looking at when we visited the actual Acropolis.  They had a video that was really interesting to watch and we learned quite a bit.  We did conclude that our historical knowledge of Europe was pretty lacking.  No matter what, we still enjoyed looking at all the historical artifacts.

After the museum, we came home and crashed.  We were both wiped, a really long vacation sounds great - but man, sometimes you just need a day off to recoup from the vacation!  Especially with this intense heat and sun!  When we we relaxing, we heard from a previous tennat of the apartment with Ruth who went through IVF and she gave us the key to netflix!! I investigated, got a VPN and voila - WE HAVE ACCESS TO NETFLIX!!!!  So freaking exciting.  Now we are back to watching The Walking Dead.  Yay Zombies! So we spent the rest of the night hanging out with Rick, Daryl and the gang.  :)

Monday

It's embryo transfer day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I get so caught up in this, that I forget that a lot of people who would read this, don't really know IVF and the process we go through...but this is the day that we all look forward to in an IVF cycle.  Its when the embryo has been growing in the lab for 5 days and now its time to put it back in me and hopefully it attaches, stays, grows and we get a baby!

So I woke up this morning and I was thrilled.  In a few hours,  I was going to be pregnant!  Throughout our whole journey with infertility, I've always hoped to be pregnant.  I've dreamt about it and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.  There have been times that I've thought I was pregnant if my period was a day or week late (thanks to irregular cycles) and I'd be hopeful, but I was never able to see a positive pregnancy test.  I've never been pregnant.

Until today.

In the infertility world, there is an acronymn that is PUPO which means Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise.  That's where I am right now!  I have an embryo inside me and hopefully it is thinking that it likes its new home and it would like to stick around until its a healthy baby ready to meet the world.  But no matter what the outcome is, the fact that I am currently pregnant is something that I will always have.  And its a pretty damn good feeling.

So little one, I saw your picture today and I already love you.  Please decide to stick around and meet your Dad and I in 9 months.  We are SO hoping this works so that we can all be a happy family.  You have a lot of people in the world who are anxious to meet you one day, so if you could just remember the process of mitosis and keep it going, that would be great!  I know at least half of you have heard me teach it about a million times, so you should know the process pretty well - you got this!  Keep growing little one, keep growing!!!!