A Baker's Dozen.

Friday, January 8, 2010


It's official! Sunday is the day that all of my potential future children are going to come out, and Wednesday or Friday is the day that ONE of them is going to go back in. Chance of success: 50.4 percent. Chance of twins: 2%. I can absolutely live with those odds. We went in for our pre-op appointment on Wednesday and I expected the meeting to be solely about the surgery, odds, complications, etc. What I did not expect was a meeting about the custody of our potential children. In one hour my husband and I made more than a few decisions regarding what will likely be 13 leftover frozen embryos after we implant the one. What I now refer to as my "baker's dozen."

We had to decide things like:
  • Who gets the embryos if we divorce? (Me.)
  • Who gets them if only one of us dies? (Surviving spouse.)
  • Who gets them if we both die? (Science.) Although I considered leaving them to the LM in case someone wanted to make him a sibling, but that felt a bit odd.
  • How many years will we pay to keep them? (5 which is the maximum.)
  • What happens at the end of five years. We had options that even included a burial. (We again chose Science.)
  • And how often we can move them (Once.)
I can't explain to you how bizarre it is to think about these kind of things. While I have no emotional attachment to these embryos, I do feel like we are in some way responsible for taking care of them for the next 5 years. Going into this process I was under the impression that every month I would have to redo all of these injections, and that every month I would have to have another procedure until we were successful. I thought that if down the road we wanted to have another baby we would again have to try for a year, do the whole Clomid/ injection game, followed by another trip down IVF lane. It turns out I was wrong. If this cycle fails, or if a few years from now we want baby number 3 (which by the way I now totally do,) then all we have to do is call up the doc, get some estrogen, and implant one of my frozen thirteen. From what it sounds like is the whole thing would take less time/ pain than a routine trip to the dentist.

I am not only elated by this, but also completely relaxed and relieved. Even if this cycle doesn't work (which I have a strong feeling it will) then all we have to do is re-implant in March, April, and so on. Insurance will cover me for 6 lifetime cycles so the odds are definitely in our favor for at least one more baby.

So that's that for now. We remove, implant, and then two weeks later (while we are in Fiji) I can take an at home pregnancy test and then when we get back confirm any results with a blood test. Clean and simple, just how baby making should be!

I must admit it is taking all of my willpower to resist naming them all. But...if I combine the Bradys with the Partridge family I think I can come up with thirteen names! Let's see there's Marsha...Jan...Cindy...Bobby. Hmmmm I may have just gone too far.

11 comments :

Vicki @ Grams Made It said...

I think I should say good luck or something. Since I don't really know what's the appropriate wish, instead, I'll share the poem my mother-in-law wrote for me -

"I wish you luck, I wish you joy,
I wish you first a baby boy.
And when his hair begins to curl
I wish you then a baby girl.
And when she wears her hair in pins,
I wish you then a set of twins."

I hope everything goes well and you're hearing the pitter-patter of baby feet again soon.

sunrise said...

Best of luck!

13 names! We struggled choosing just one :)

Anonymous said...

Wishing you the very best of luck!!!

Melanie said...

Fingers and toes crossed! xoxo

Anonymous said...

Best of luck! I'm currently 4 days past a 5 day transfer, waiting to see what happens. (This is my 2nd single embryo transfer IVF, as we have twins from a previous IUI/inject. cycle.) Our first SET failed but I'm hopeful for this one. We retrieved 16 eggs, 12 fertilized, a bunch made it to day 5, we transferred 1 and have 2 frozen.

Hope things go smoothly for you! It's a roller coaster ride, that's for sure. I also live in MA.... we're lucky to have the best technology in the world to make this stuff happen! Good luck!

Me said...

Fingers crossed, Yum!!!

And I am so glad you are giving your extra eggs to science if you never are able to use them.

The whole IVF thing sounds like a much better deal than the Clomid. Hmm... Maybe if I do want kids in my late 30s, I will consider trying this...

Patricia said...

I just found your blog and I wanted to let you know that I have all my fingers and toes crossed for you and I'll even throw in some sticky baby dust for free!

Seriously though, IVF is amazing. Here's to hoping your party of 3 soon becomes a party of 4 or 5!

Julie Q said...

YM- Good luck, Good luck, Good luck :) Thinking good thoughts for you!

Anonymous said...

hoping today went awesome! cant wait for GREAT news really soon!!!

hugs and kisses - bri

Robin M Anderson said...

Thank you all for your well wishes! They are really making me smile on this not so great day!

katandkarl said...

Good luck - I def would have named as well!