Picture it..Cape Town 2011...a beautiful mountain out of a James Bond movie,sex in the air, treacherous curves and sleazy feminine curves, fast cars, city streets, and a rush to save a life. I told you to hang on and buckle your seat belts because it was going to get crazy. Hair raising and white knuckles. Yes, don't you want to live my life. Sexy does not define my coolness. I could see Tom Cruise starring in the role.
Ok well my coolness is not in a suave sort of way more like I need a xanax kind of way. Truth be told there really was a beautiful mountain. And curves. Well that also could be redefined. There were treacherous curves without guardrails..yo. I took them kind of faster than my getting-used-to-the-other-side-driving would have liked to go. I prefer driving miss daisy for these roads. What? Ok ok ok the car was not a sports car but some little honda thing with a smooshed up trunk...and a kid in the backseat. OKOK OK I should have been driving a minivan but that could have been cool too especially if on a hairpin turn I took it too fast with bad guys chasing me and I swerved partially going over the side only to recover in some miraculous way. But of course that is not what happen. I did swerve for construction. And I guess in all truth the car was not fast...zippy but not fast with all of the luggage weighing it down in the back.
And I did take some choice pics with my iphone to help umm something along. All of us infertiles know that the men have but one contribution and it involves pleasure. Granted it is without lube but still quit the damn whining already. So in a quick ditch attempt to contribute I took some pics in the bathroom with my iphone in the mirror. I am desperately hoping they do not end up accidentally getting uploaded to facebook because that would be bad. Very very bad. But again I got to come clean about the curves. One to many pound type curves. Yeah well they are curves and my husband loves them ok. So it is not exactly a lie. Maybe not so James Bond sexy woman curves more like Lane Bryant goes on holiday at the food network curves. Step off.
So the saving a life part right! :) Curious right? We were trying to save the specimen that will produce the next savior of the world. Really my spawn could be important and shit. You dont know... Maybe they will be the next president of the United....oh who am I kidding I will be happy if they go to college and come home once in awhile. But anyway back to saving a life. So the specimen was produced at 8:27. Must be in the hands of the lab by 9:27. So Scarlett and I load the bags into the car and David disappears upstairs. I gave him a deadline of 8:30. Sexy right :) Perform on cue buddy or you are useless to me. Now go. Procreate. Or at the very least give me ya gametes biotch.
So the sperm donor (husband) heads upstairs while we sit in the car. The five year old in the back seat repeatedly asks where Daddy is. Umm he is upstairs making a call. He will be down in a minute. I giggle to myself. But then fear takes over me. Did I cover all of the rules for him? GOD FORBID MY SAMPLE IS MESSED UP!!! Just as he was going back upstairs to do the deed a couple with twins is in the garage and I am trying to communicate the instructions to him with an echo and every word likely landing on their ears. So not sure 007 gets my points.
My mantra...for everything with this cycle...it is out of my hands. Literally in Davids hands now giggle giggle like a ten year boy now. He emerges from his harem, hands me my phone back, and gives me the specimen to keep warm. Where might you ask? In the most suitable place for sperm outside the body. You guys willl love this. Between my breasts. Sounds raunchy I know but truly it was scientific. The closer to body temp is stays the more viable it is. Every infertile gal has had a specimen cup between her breasts. It just cums with the territory. Giggle 13 year old boy humor again! Sorry I digress.
We had to get from Camps Bay to Claremont. Camps bay is indeed a sexy little South African Riviera on the beach. Claremont are the suburbs over the mountain. The irony of rushing to the suburbs does not escape me. So up a windy, curvy, windblown, road over and overpass, through the city, onto the highway, and into the plush but busy suburb of Claremont. So here we are in little zippy with the specimen all nestled in between my mountains. It is rush hour time so I am nervous. I am driving on the other side of the road picturing my car breaking down, an accident, and plotting plan B. Of course I white knuckled it down the mountain and into the city.
Now usually I like to channel my native ancestral knowledge of direction and finding where I need to go with only a whisper of the past but I think the bluetooth was not working to my indian peeps because I got lost. In the city. While I figured out that my ancestors must have been having a meeting with google map executives and forgot to upload the latest data in my head I backtracked and luckily without their shitty help found my way. Off we raced. 9:05 Ahhhhhhhh getting closer to my spermies imminent death. This is the saving a life part. Small lives are important too.
Just as I thought we were goners, we screech into the underground parking lot. Delivering it to the lab in the most anti-climatic way. We stood knocking at the lab door sweating, fidgeting, frantic. Waited. Rang again. Waited. Hummed to the elevator music playing. Looked at each other. Waited. Rang the bell. Noticed the crack on the wall. Shifted our wait. Walked back and handed it to the secreatary at the front desk.
End of that story. In other news, my donor was on the premises. Just completed her egg retrieval and had eight eggs. I am cautiously content. My equation has always been cut the number retrieved in half that will fertilize and then cut those in half for what will be left. I wish I had had more but the fact that she forgot to take her trigger I am happy I have something. Last cycle, with my friend karole who is now pregnant with twins, the same donor got 15 eggs, 9 fertilized, and she had five blastocysts at the end. If this works karole and I will have siblings...how cool is that. But for now, I wait until tomorrow morning to find out how many fertilize. Can I just say how tempting it was to stalk my donor out of the office just to get a glimpse of her....so incredibly curious but instead we went and ate breakfast. Oh but how we plotted. Tertia please do not read the last paragraph. :)