Our Very Own Red Hot Chili Peppers.....

The fertilization report is in! 14 eggs fertilized!

They did 9 with ICSI and 8 with "regular" insemination. All 9 of the ICSI eggs fertilized. 5 of the other batch fertilized as well.

We will know more on Friday morning when the embryologist calls with the 3-day report, but for now all looks good and we are planning on a 5 day transfer on Sunday.

I still am in disbelief that we are here. That our embryos are fertilized and growing. That in a lab, across town, my eggs and Mr. Spicy's sperm have finally united and created 14 little unique and mysterious beings. This is the first time that we are aware of that this has ever happened. It feels completely magical.

Mr. Spicy and I talked on the phone earlier and he commented on how well every step of this has gone. We are amazed at how smoothly it has all transpired. But it does leave us with this nagging question: "Why didn't it just happen on its own?" Because we have unexplained infertility and have absolutely no clue as to why we haven't been able to conceive on our own, we thought surely the IVF process would shine light on a particular area that may have been holding us up. Maybe there wouldn't be enough eggs, or they wouldn't be the best quality, or they wouldn't fertilize well..... Don't get me wrong - we are so incredibly thankful that everything has gone so well - perfectly in fact. And at this point we are desperately hoping our great fortune continues. We know we aren't out of the woods yet, by far. But, it does leave us wondering and a little nervous that the part that has been preventing us from conceiving is still to be revealed....


Because my blog name, and my family's nickname for me is Spicy Sister, my middle sister came up with the brilliant idea that we refer to our embryos as peppers. She even provided me with a short list of pepper names I could use.

So, I am going back and forth between calling them our "Pepper Patch" and calling them our "Red Hot Chile Peppers" - I think I like the latter the best...it suits my rock-n-roll roots and makes me think of our future children as becoming spicy little peppers (just like their mama) - adding lots more flavor to the world every day. What do you think?

We are also still picking our pepper-related names for the two that we will transfer. Poblano and Serano are at the top of our list right now....any other suggestions?

***Pepper picture borrowed from here.*** ***Day 1 Embryo picture borrowed from here***