Soooo close...

When we spoke with our RE's nurse yesterday, it appears that the retrieval date will most probably be this Thursday. To fully explain what this means for those of you following our journey, that means that will be the day that our donor goes to our RE's clinic for the egg retrieval. She will be put under a light sedation, and they will essentially "vacuum" out the mature eggs from the follicles. They "wash" the eggs, and inspect them for quality. Then they add the eggs to Jeff's sperm, and let them run their course for the next 5 days, in the hopes that we end up with some really great quality embryos to transfer back into my uterus. Because Jeff and I believe that life begins at conception, we are blown away at the idea that as of this Thursday, we will have our children developing in a lab. It's very exciting. :) But as has been our journey, it doesn't come without some major speed bumps along the way. The newest hurdle we have to overcome is the realization that Jeff won't even be able to make it to my transfer date. He begins a new job next Monday, so he can't rightly ask for a day off, when it will be only his 2nd day at said job. (If our calendar stays true to how it's looking right now, we would be having our transfer date next Tuesday.) It's the most important day of our entire journey. It's what we've worked so hard in the past year to get to...and he's going to miss it. My friend, Fred, will be there. But that's like if Jeff had missed our wedding, and had to have a friend stand in for him. It's enough to bring me to tears. But I have to remind myself that we've done so much to try to create this family, and I can't allow emotions to ruin it for us.