No workey.

For those of you who are unaware, we unfortunately caught the short end of the stick on our IVF cycle. No pregnancy and no babies - just a bunch of doctor visits, daily shots, and good ol' fashioned American cash down the tubes (no pun intended).


The truth is it's absolutely devastating. It's exhausting - physically and emotionally for both husband and wife. It consumes you - day in and day out - it's all you think about - both work schedules and intimate lives are governed by alarm clock reminders for shots and doctor visits. Money is no object - you shell it out daily like you own the US Mint, being a crack or meth addict would be far cheaper I'm sure.


I wish I could somehow describe it. Those of you who have been through it can understand. The good news is that we can temporarily take a break and lift our heads out of the drowning sea of infertility to briefly catch a breath of air. We'll likely begin our next IVF cycle in a few months, depending on how Kate's body recovers from the recent overload of medications and hormones.


Here's a quick rundown of how the whole thing played out: We started out with a 60%+ chance of getting pregnant (based on my sperm being awesome and Katie being a young skinny white girl). By the time the embryos were transferred we were looking at a 45% take home baby rate (due to the poor quality of the embryos). Wow. 45%. Seriously? That's not even good enough for an "F" in high school. I could flip a coin or blindly throw a dart at a wall full of balloons at the county fair and have better odds. I swear you should be able to buy a higher percentage than that - unfortunately, infertility is one thing that money cannot buy or fix. Anyway, we transferred two embryos then went on 4 days of bed rest and prayed for the best. Even though I looked at and talked to the embryos daily (through Kate's belly button) they didn't stick. And that's pretty much it.


Here are a couple of highlights from our first IVF cycle:


1. I got to draw awesome tatoos on Kate's behind a couple of times a week as a reminder of where to give her the shots.
2. Katie drew tattoos on my behind so we could match.
3. We got pictures of our embryos.
4. I fertilized 15 hamster eggs.
5. Kate got to take some Valium.
6. We got to eat at Cafe Rio after the bed rest.
7. I got to talk to our babies every day through Kate's belly button - apparently they weren't listening most of the time.
8. Katie was pregnant with twins for at least 15 minutes.
9. Kate got to experience hot flashes every night because of the meds - our house was like an igloo and she thought we were in the Sahara desert.
10. Our sharps container is nearly full.
11. We shared with the doctors a great view of Kate's uterus and other reproductive organs on a regular basis.


Thanks to all of our family and friends - we appreciate your prayers on our behalf. So, we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope for better results next time!

PS - If you comment and guess the exact answer to the poll on the right you will get an awesome prize. Jen Cheney - you are responsible to send the prize.