A Weird, Vicarious Two Week Wait

We had an update on the embryo adoption process, around Labor Day weekend. They decided to thaw the blastocysts, which are my eggs and donor sperm. 

One didn't survive the thaw, so they did a single embryo transfer. 

I am trying not to read anything into that. Why does it seem that we are cursed with everything that touches our infertility journey? We NEVER had any frozens not make it to thaw and transfer. I don't know if it's just that particular embryo, or because these embryos have traveled so much. It makes me nervous. 

You know what else makes me nervous? That the transfer was going to be at the end of August, we got an update that it happened and wasn't affected by Harvey (because wouldn't you know the clinic is in Texas, but luckily not an area that was affected by the flooding). And now it's SEPTEMBER 14TH. 

Those were blasts, 5-day embryos (technically frozen on day 6). So, uh, that test should have happened by now, right? 

Going to the other side, I cannot imagine going through a two week wait knowing that some other couple with some small (miniscule, really) stake in game is awaiting your news. That you have to accept that phone call, process it, and at some point (preferably sooner than later) update Snowflakes so that they can update us. That would be real weird. And I might feel a mite resentful in the moment. 

But we haven't heard anything, and I find myself in the incredibly odd position of NOT being in a two week wait (not my baby, not my pregnancy), but also TOTALLY being in a weird psychosomatic two week wait because this is the last of my genetic material that has a chance to become something, and I can't stop thinking about it. 

I can't stop wondering...did it work? 

If it did, that will be bittersweet for sure, but it will be something happy for them and sad for us and happy for us at the same time -- one of them made it! It will probably create some level of feeling like WHY THE HELL COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN US, and wondering if all the people who offered us their uteruses (some posthumously offered  uteruses that don't exist anymore, "oh if only I hadn't had that hysterectomy a few years ago!") maybe had the right idea and it would be worth the legal rigamarole and tricky logistics of gestational carrier in NY state. But there's hope that something good could come of all this mess, although it would be good in the most vicarious of ways on our end. 

I am terrified that it didn't work, and that the last of my possibility for passing some level of my genetic presence on has left this world. Which puts another layer of finality into our situation. I think actually a negative test would feel far worse at this point, because it would possibly have me relive the losses that brought us to this point, and feel the terminal nature of our situation. 

But now I am awash in a sea of uncertainty. Waiting for an email (thankfully the phone is no longer my frenemy in the voice sense). I stalk the red M icon that means I got a new message, and am always disappointed when it's actually something from a shopping site, or a credit card reminder, and slightly less disappointed when it tells me that my latest Stitch Fix has shipped. Ha. 

I go through the old cycling thought patterns...if they are waiting to notify us, is it good news? Bad news? Is it waiting to see that beta numbers are strong, or not having the wherewithal to call and say that yet another cycle didn't work out? I can't imagine adding that layer of complexity. It was hard enough to deal with those calls when it was just us who were in the loop. But every day that goes by without news has me wildly speculating all kinds of scenarios, none of them really productive or helpful. 

I cannot wait for all this to be over, and hopefully have good results. I hope it works. I hope that we hear sooner than later. It would be nice to have this one last uncertainty in this arena come to a close.