Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the couch and happened to glance down at my belly, and I was suddenly struck with a moment of I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT WORKED.

It felt like I was back in the procedure room of the ARTS lab, covered in toasty warm blankets (because it was fah-REEZING in there) and Velcroed into place on the table.  Joey was standing behind me looking like an Arctic explorer, covered in his white Teflon jumpsuit, face mask, and hairnet.  Actually, I bet Arctic explorers don’t really wear hairnets.  But the rest of him looked the part.

And there we stood, waiting and staring at a blank monitor, until the Embryologist walked in, carefully containing The Tube of Children.

It’s extremely surreal to watch your potential children come waltzing into the room in fertilized egg form, being carried by a highly educated (and highly compensated) individual in a long clear tube.

A few moments later, we watched the blank screen become not so blank as the end of the tube appeared, and POOF! there went the little eggs…floating away.  Hopefully to attach.  Hopefully to implant and thrive.

That time one did, one didn’t.

When you are so involved in the egg developing stage of your child, AND IT WORKS!?, it becomes super easy to feel like you’re not actually pregnant.  Because your level of micromanaging and visible involvement drops off drastically.  No more mixing Menopur injections…and accidentally losing one of the bottles containing the second day’s dose under the refrigerator.  We found it when we moved in June.  I considered giving it to Joey to see what would happen.  (He didn’t like my idea.  Plus the vial was really kind of scuzzy after being under the fridge for four months.)

Until she started moving around a LOT a couple weeks ago, neither Joey nor I actually believed I was really pregnant unless we were watching a sonogram screen and saw the actual baby.

Well, last night, she was being completely hyperactive.  We’d bought a cheapo stethoscope for $15.00 from Walmart a few weeks back to try to pick up her heartbeat, but so far we hadn’t been successful.  All we could ever hear was my stomach digesting my dinner, and when you’re looking for your kid’s heartbeat, the last thing you want to hear is your stomach munching on chicken alfredo.

But last night, we finally found her!

“I hear her, she’s right here,” I said to Joey, and ripped off the ear pieces.

He tried to listen but couldn’t pick her up, after a few seconds he repositioned the stethoscope and then smiled.  ”I hear her now!”

She’s very faint, but she’s definitely in there.

I still can’t believe it worked.