This morning at exactly 10:15am as scheduled, my fertility doctor called for the post-failed-transfer consult to talk about how to proceed with the sole remaining blastocyst that is deeply, deeply frozen and waiting to be transferred.

Today was beta day. This is the first hurdle/blood test to determine whether the transfer from two weeks ago stuck. My husband and I went to the local hospital to get the bloodwork done at 8am this morning, and they told me the results would probably be available sometime in the morning. Around 10am, I began checking my phone every 5 minutes to see if I missed a call

This has not been the best of weeks. On Sunday, I got the Day 2 fertilization report that was less than optimal…

A few days ago a friend asked me how I was doing, so I gave her an honest answer: I’ve been an emotional mess, especially this week.

The last few weeks have been some of the most stressful and emotional periods I’ve dealt with since beginning to tackle this whole infertility thing. Trying to reconcile my how-I-thought-it-would-be (my eggs and my husband’s sperm) with the what-needs-to-be (some other woman’s eggs and my husband’s sperm) was, and still is, extremely difficult to work through.

Several days ago, I woke up to a voicemail from my fertility doctor providing the results of the PGS testing done on the sole embryo that survived long enough to make it to that stage. Results were abnormal. Another cycle was a bust.

When I’m in the middle of an IVF cycle, the monitoring appointments mean I do a TON of driving (I’m fairly certain I added about 1,000 miles to our car in the course of 7 days between driving to Albany for acupuncture, Tallahassee for weekday appointments, and Jacksonville for weekend appointments), which is both an opportunity for me to do lots of car singing (so.many.musicals) and lots of thinking, since I attend all of the appointments by myself because my husband has to work.

Last year, I spent Valentine’s Day in the hospital recovering from the laparotomy (abdominal surgery) that had taken place the day prior. This year, instead of being miserable from post-surgery pain medication, I spent the day driving to/from Tallahassee (that lovely 5 hour round-trip drive) due to my “IVF Start Appointment” for Round 4.

For the first time since moving to Georgia in 2012, my husband and I did not make our usual December trip north to spend a few weeks visiting our family and northeastern-based friends during the holiday season.

I first want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who texted, messaged, emailed, called, dropped off “sorry life sucks” packages, or gave/mailed me wine, cheese, fruit, candy, flowers, and other goodies.

About a week and a half ago, my husband and I were in Jacksonville for the transfer of our lone, PGS tested and approved embryo.

This morning my husband and I drove the 2.5 hours south to Tallahassee for a second attempt at a pre-transfer scan. It’s a good thing I don’t fully believe in signs from a higher power, because there were no good ones this morning.

Three weeks ago I was preparing for the transfer, until the pre-transfer scan revealed that my uterus was not the happy, hospitable home our sole, fertilized embryo needed. The doctor thought the scan showed a polyp, or maybe a cyst, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he looked at it through a hysteroscope.

I suppose I should be used to delays. Last year, the start date of my very first round of IVF was delayed a week because of Hurricane Irma. Earlier this year, my laparotomy (fibroid removal) surgery date was delayed almost a month because the doctor came down with the flu the day before the surgery. This morning, I drove the 2.5 hours to Tallahassee for the pre-transfer scan

One year and six days ago, my husband and I trekked almost two hours south of us to meet with a fertility doctor recommended by my OB-GYN. He asked us a few questions, learned our ages, and told us we should get started with IVF immediately.

The third hurdle in the IVF process (at least for me) is the genetic testing of any embryos that make it to blastocyst stage. This is the step that we weren't able to get past during the first two IVF cycles because the embryos kept coming back

Five days ago the doctor's office told me that of the seven eggs retrieved, five of them took to fertilization. Today, I received the call about the second hurdle:

This past Thursday was my third attempt at an egg retrieval. By the time retrieval day rolled around, I still wasn't feeling quite as crappy as I did for the first two retrievals,

After a weekend of driving -- 3 hours to Atlanta on Saturday to see Hamilton, 5 hours from Atlanta to Jacksonville on Sunday, and then 4 hours from Jax back home on Monday -- the last thing we want to do is get back in our car for another long drive.

Tonight was morning #3 and night #10 of IVF injections (the morning injections start later than the evening injections). That's a whole lot of needles inserted into my poor bruised and sore abdomen -- one needle every morning and 4-5 needles each evening (when the medicine in one injection pen runs out before the prescribed dose, I start a new pen to finish the dose).