Breathe, Michael, Breathe!

This week is all about holding my breath, then breathing, then holding my breath, then breathing, then holding my -- well, you get the idea.

The breathing is going pretty well so far. We all know now that the doctor retrieved 15 eggs from the donor. That number was good, but there are still so many more hurdles to jump over.

On Thursday the nurse who is my contact for the egg donor left a message. She started out by saying it was good news. I was happy to hear that. But her idea of good news and my idea might be different.

The first number I heard -- holding my breath -- was that out of the 15 eggs 13 of them were mature -- breathe! That is a good percentage. I was happy to hear that.

Now I had to inhale again and hold my breath. There was another number I had to hear. The second number was how many eggs fertilized. This time the nurse said there was very good news -- hurry and say the number since I'm turning blue! Out of the 13 eggs we got all 13 fertilized!!! That was very good news. How exciting. I think my swimmers really outdid themselves this time. I am thrilled to -- wait...exhale first! OK. Better.

So things are good. Very good.

Today, about 5 minutes ago, I got a call saying it would be a 5 day transfer. I asked how my 13 embryos are doing and the nurse said she had no information about them. We'll all just keep praying that they're dividing and dividing and becoming stronger and healthier every day...or hour...or minute. I don't know how fast these things divide.

The big question now is how many embryos to transfer. Two is pretty common. But in my head, I'm starting to be open to transfering three. I won't know much until we get in on Monday and I learn more about the quality of the embryos. I'm OK with twins (and Derek is excited about twins) but triplets really increase the risk of health problems for both the babies and the surrogate. Plus, Derek and I would be outnumbered. No playing man-to-man defense. It would have to be zone defense. I'll have to find out about the chances of triplets and how Chloe would feel about that and how I would feel about it too. I hope to talk to her this weekend so she has time to consider it and we won't have to make a decision in five minutes on Monday morning.