52 Days!

This is the first picture we have of Henry. I can't be certain, but I think he is the one at the top left. Just a hunch, really--as I'm deeming that one the "cutest" embryo and that seems to me to be the closest thing to an educated guess as to which of these tiny buggers is my dirt chomper.

I just got off the phone with Valerie. Valerie is a nurse at my fertility doctor's office. It was the first time I've spoken to her in over two years. In fact, they've had to dig my file out of storage. Nice. She gave me a time table and reminded me of all the details that go into this infertility mess while I filled her in on my cervix and its incompetence.

This is what we are about to sink our teeth into--

1. In about four or five days, I am to call Susan.
2. Susan will then set me an appointment which should be roughly 10 days after she receives the call.
3. At said appointment, I will be checked, measured, and have a "trial transfer."
4. Approximately 14-15 days post appointment, I will begin again the blasted shots. Nightly doses of estrogen and progesterone in my heiny. The hormones will be in a sesame oil mixture and will have the consistency of mayonnaise, so they will take a long time to flow through the large gauge needle that is approximately four inches long. If it is anything like last time, Sloan (who does NOT like needles) will throw up after each injection he has to give me.
5. Upon beginning the shots, I will then have blood draws and ultrasounds roughly every three days.
6. Within a week of taking the shots, my heiny will be black and blue, despite icing it with frequency. And it will itch at the injection sites. Like crazy.
7. Approximately ten days after I begin the shots, a doctor will "thaw" out 2 of my 4 remaining frozen blastocysts. It is possible that no one makes the thaw. Very possible. In fact, likely.
8. The next day, with the advice of our beloved Dr. T, Sloan and I will decide whether to transfer only one or both of our babies, depending upon how well they make it through the thaw.
9. Exactly 11 days after the transfer, I will have a pregnancy test.

In case you weren't doing the math, I may or may not be pregnant in approximately 52 days. If that doesn't make you want to scream, pee in your pants, and throw a party all at the same time, you obviously haven't been paying attention.

Struggling with infertility this time around is completely different than it was in the past. Of course there is a sense that we already have a child. My arms are not empty. So yeah, there is some comfort in that. Henry also has this uncanny ability to suck all of my time and energy so that I don't sit around thinking of the baby I don't have.
Conversely, my longing for a second child is not just about my or Sloan's wanting. It is also a longing for Henry. To watch him be an older brother and have a lifelong camaraderie with a brother or a sister.
We're planning on getting Henry bunk beds this summer. I cannot wait until Sloan or I have to knock on Henry's door saying, "Boys, be quiet!" or "I'm going to make your sister go back to her room if it doesn't quiet down in there!" All the while ever so thankful for the memories they will be making in the bunks, hiding their flashlights under the sheets from Mom and Dad.
But what is most different about this time at the rodeo is my heart. The first time around, I was so heartbroken with grief that I was completely incapable of seeing what God was doing. I was bitter, irrational, crying pretty much non-stop, and just down right depressed. I remember telling Sloan I felt like Jessica McClure--that I'd fallen down a deep hole and was all alone. I could hear that there were others above me and were trying to help, but that I was still alone, in the dark, in the hole. (I think I felt alone because really, how many heads can one fit up one's own ass?)
I still have grief. I still get a little itchy when I think about how with just a word God could change all of this, and yet He chooses not to. And His choosing not to make it easy is because He loves Sloan and me. That for our family, infertility is what His love looks like. (In fact, I sometimes imagine I'm at a party and I get to scream this in Michelle Duggers' fertile-face. Why we're at the same party, I don't know, because I'm not known to frequent parties that don't play music or serve booze.)
What is different is that I am confident. Confident that God intends to enlarge our family. Maybe it will be in 9 months and 52 days. Maybe it will be in Round Three. Maybe it will be through adoption. But He will do it. And how He does it will be beautiful. Not pain-free, but beautiful. Glorious even.
And glorious? Well, now, that's something worth waiting for.