The morning of the day

Thank you so much to everyone who's left me comments - it means so much to me to have the support of so many people that I've never even met.

Something else that means the world to me is that I sent an e-mail round my family yesterday to tell them about our three little embabies, and I had loving and supportive messages back from all five of my brothers and sisters (or their spouses, which is just as good). So I've gone from feeling a little bit unsupported to knowing that they all care and are all rooting for us - which I really knew all along, but lost sight of when I was feeling a bit hormonal and hadn't actually heard it from some of them spelt out in black and white.

When DH got home from work last night, I greeted him as he came in through the door with "Is that the Daddy?", and his whole face lit up. I then got a bit superstitious, though, and didn't like it when he called me "Mummy-to-be". I explained to him that the way I saw it, we were already parents to these little embabies, but I couldn't be comfortable in calling ourselves parents-to-be until we have at the very least a positive pregnancy test, because there's still so much that can go wrong.

Yesterday didn't go quite according to plan workwise. Although my normal speaking voice was fine, my 'teaching' voice when I tried to project it a bit was very hoarse after having a tube stuck down my throat. I also felt very sore by the time I'd taken the train into London and arrived at work, so my colleague very kindly agreed to do the full two days' teaching for me (she'd already agreed to do my share of today's). I just hung around to set everything up for her and introduce her to the class, then came home and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the sofa with a hot water bottle on my stomach, and really enjoyed the relaxation.

Last night was the best night's sleep I've had in a while, so I feel much better rested, and the cramps have subsided. I had lots of CM last night and this morning, which was streaked with brown blood - I'm hoping I'll get all that out of my system by this afternoon so I don't have to worry about it once the babies are on board.

My job for this morning is to have a poo - my bowels were quite loose while I was on all the injections, but I haven't been since I had my egg collection, and I really don't want to be doing any sort of straining after transfer. So I'm eating lots of fibre and drinking warm drinks in the hope that they'll do the trick in the next couple of hours.

I've read that research has shown that acupuncture can improve IVF outcomes. According to my acupuncturist, the optimal treatment times are the day you start stimming (done), then within a few hours each side of embryo transfer. So today's timetable is acupuncture at 11:30, embryo transfer at 3, then acupuncture again at 6:30.

When I told DH on Monday (which seems sooooo long ago now!) that egg collection was scheduled for Wednesday, he e-mailed to tell me he had booked the day off. I said I was planning to go into work on Thursday, and he suggested that I should take it easy on Thursday and book Friday off.

Biting back the urge to remind him how many times he'd been told that embryo transfer would be two days after egg collection, I mildly mentioned that I hoped to be busy on Friday.

He responded with an e-mail saying, "Oh dear, do you need me there on Friday? I've just rearranged a meeting from Wednesday to Friday."

I wrote back, "No, I don't need you there - as long as you don't mind that another man will hopefully be getting me pregnant while you're at work."

So I'm on my own today, but I'm happy with that - I know he's with me in spirit. I'm very nervous about the actual transfer procedure. It's no consolation at all to me to hear that it's "no more uncomfortable than a smear test", because I find smear tests almost unbearably uncomfortable, but I'll just have to grit my teeth and think of why I'm doing this.

I'll just finish off (gosh, this is another long one - well done if you've read this far) with the story of the big needle that Jeannie referred to yesterday.

DH sometimes has a bit of difficulty releasing his swimmers, and when Nurse Perfect was telling me on Monday about what would happen on Wednesday, I asked her what would happen if he was unable to perform on the day. She replied, "Oh, don't worry - if he really isn't able to do it, we can put a big needle in and get what we need." When I told Jeannie about this, she laughed like a drain - but my brother, and my DH when I told him about it AFTER he'd managed to produce his little potful, somehow didn't find it quite so funny.

I'm just glad we didn't have to use the needle - when he spent so long in there carefully checking the porn file, I was beginning to think I might have to call for it...

Update: I just had a call from the hospital to say that Rucksack and Ray-Ray are dividing nicely, but Viennetta is lagging a bit behind and may not make it. I won't know for sure what's happening to her until I get there and have a chat with Mr No Nonsense and the embryologist, as there's still a bit of time for her to catch up.

Transfer time has been brought forward from 3:00 to 2:30 - I hope that doesn't mean someone else's embabies haven't made it.

Oh, and my other job for the morning has now been accomplished...!