Harvesting

The more we get into this surrogacy process, the more I'm amazed at the things that our medical advances can do nowadays.  Athena went in for egg retrieval today.  I was extremely disappointed that I wasn't able to go with her (dumb work obligations). I feel like I failed her at not being the moral support in the waiting room.  Nevertheless, it went great.  The doc was able to get 18 eggs, though at this point we aren't sure how many will make it through fertilization, and after that how many will grow into viable embryos.  The goal is to end up with 5 ish embryos that are good enough for transfer.  We will NOT be transferring that many.  This will not be the Octomom re-run.  I'm a waiting duck for now.  I'll start on my medications for the transfer cycle soon, and we'll be well on our way to some baby growing!  I'm getting more nervous, but a good nervous, not scared nervous.  The last 4 months have been so surreal.  Athena and I talk/text every day and it starts to feel really strange if we go a few hours without "talking".  Sometimes we don't really have anything truly important to say, but just knowing she's there as a friend, buddy, and partner in this brings a sense of calm in this crazy journey.  We laugh, we joke, we talk about the tough decisions regarding pregnancy that we hope we won't have to make.  It's really a strange kind of awesome when I think of how our relationship has progressed.  It's almost like a platonic marriage.  I have a bond with her now that I will never share with another friend and it's been really cool to enjoy that.

Antonio and I haven't sat down to talk with the boys about this yet.  At first, we didn't want to bring it up too early in case it didn't work out and because there would be several months until there was an attempt at a pregnancy.  Now that we are getting closer I think it's time.  I'm not worried at all about their reactions.  I think they are at the perfect age to be pretty neutral about it all.  Rocket won't remember it, and Gambit and Ninja are very logical thinkers which will bode well when we are explaining.  My intention is to put it as simply and matter-of-factly as possible.  They see Lincoln and Mouse at church every Sunday, and I don't think they'll have a hard time understanding that the baby growing in mom isn't *our* baby, but it's Lincoln and Mouse's brother or sister. 

So, things are still moving.  Aside from the surrogacy taking over our lives (in the best way possible), we don't have much else going on.  Antonio is busy at work with year-end reports and all that corporate business garbage.  My job at the hospital is wonderful.  I love the actual work, and I've pretty much figured out a good routine of balancing work, family, and church. Except for the fact that I can figure out when or how to potty train Rocket.  He's ready. I'm not.  I don't feel like dealing with it yet so I keep buying boxes of diapers.  Oh well, someday.