On To Chapter 3

I've had a week to get comfortable with the idea.

On Monday, Dr Shivani called to tell me there was no heartbeat on the ultrasound - at 6 weeks, 5 days - since egg retrieval. We agreed to wait until Saturday (which was yesterday) just to be sure. Again, no heartbeat.

I was away on an extended, 8 day business trip when the news arrived Monday. The timing was rotten for Steve and I to be apart, but we managed to support one another via phone. Steve is always positive and rarely dwells on disappointments, but this time around I could tell he was having a hard time. He held onto hope all week.

It would be really easy to feel sorry for ourselves - super easy. I can't lie and say we haven't asked aloud 'why'. At the end of the day, though, there are a ton of people in the world facing far greater difficulties than this - it is important to keep perspective. We are strong and so is our relationship. We knew it wasn't going to be easy, and we also knew we were in it for the long haul. So, we will keep trying.

I feel so badly for our surrogate, but Dr Shivani assures me she is doing well. We will now wait for her to be prepared for another cycle. Remarkably, this will likely happen within 5 weeks or so. Given that we didn't have any embryos frozen (same story in both our 2 cycles), we will be selecting a new egg donor.

So, there you have it. Not great news to report, but we are doing just fine and feeling very positive. I do wish we had a crystal ball though - so we could see how long this journey will take - but, as I said in the last post...Patience.