The Great Embryo Caper

Sorry I haven't been writing.  In all honesty, I haven't felt like it.  It's been a struggle not to give in to the sad lately.  There have been lots of wonderful BFPs around lately and it's been harder to watch this time.  I feel like I've been shifted into "veteran" status and it sucks.

But on to the embryo move, AKA "I hope I don't pop out a white baby."

It actually happened Tuesday.  The new clinic was short staffed Friday because of the holiday weekend and they asked us if we could move it up.  So first we went to the new clinic to pick up the shipper.  It looked like R2D2.  Fitting since we had named the embryos from this cycle "the Jedi."  We paid our modest fee for use of the equipment and the liquid nitrogen and were on our way.

Look at those calves on my husband!

We got to the old clinic and the embryologist took us back to a consult room.  We filled out the forms releasing the embies to us.  I guess I should have started to be concerned when he asked us, "How many of your embryos do we have?  I don't have your chart with me."  Umm, 7 dude.  Get with the program at some point, would ya?

He took copies of our drivers licenses, which sounded really secure and official, and had us wait in the waiting room.  He took the shipper off with him and said he'd bring it back out to us.

We waited for about 15 minutes and out he came.  He handed us the shipper and copies of the release we signed.  That was it.  No instructions.  It was a bitter sweet goodbye since I always imagined that I would leave that clinic pregnant with lots of thank yous to hand out.  Instead, I just couldn't wait to get the heck out of there.

We put the shipper in the car and belted it in.  I sat in the backseat with them. I probably didn't need to, but I was really anxious.  Don't judge.

They don't make car seats for embryos.

It was an uneventful ride to the new clinic.  I asked J to turn the Disney Channel on for them, but he wouldn't.  We hauled it upstairs and the embryologist came right out.  She asked us to come back with her to watch her get us checked in.  Cool!  She opened R2D2 and took out a canister that looked like the toner cartridge from a copy machine.  Then she asked The Question.  "Did they give you any paperwork?"

All we had was the copy of the release.  There was no paperwork in with our embies.  Nothing to say what was in there, who they belonged to, what the quality was, or that they were frozen on day 3. Again, NOTHING TO SAY WHO THEY BELONGED TO!  The embryologist asked us to hang out in the waiting room while she sorted it all out.

Now, we didn't open anything the whole time, obviously.  I knew that the R2D2 thing just held the stuff that held the real goods, but I still wasn't opening anything.  I did know there were supposed to be papers accompanying the embies, but you'd think that a reputable clinic that is supposedly among the top in the country would at least have the sense to include information identifying EMBRYOS and their "parents" before putting them in someone's sedan.

Embies get settles in their new home.

The embryologist came back out and told us that she'd had to take the straws out briefly to see if there was anything on them connecting them to us.  There was a date on it, but that didn't relate to anything in our cycle.  At all.  She said there was a series of numbers and letters that may be a medical record number of some sort.  Thankfully, I had my med rec number memorized (you know, since I had to give it every time I called the old clinic and leave a message rather than speak to a human) and it matched!  So hopefully, that's all the confirmation we need to confirm that these are our little hapa embies.

If I never see anyone from the old clinic again it will be too effing soon.