Lie back and think of...strawberries??

Well, now the longest wait of my life... (apart from the wait in 2005 for my then-fiance to join me in England and for us to get married!!)

The wait now is to see if the drugs, injections and unpleasant pokey-bits associated with the IVF were worth it, and the two tiny bundles of cells floating around inside me are going to hang on and become our children...

It all went fine, although I managed to get a bit of an infection, which meant the day of embryo transfer (when the requirement is for a very full bladder) involved me curled up on the floor of the hospital room, wailing and clutching my stomach and trying not to disgrace myself by throwing up all over the nice smart machines... My stand-in acupuncturist stood by helplessly, having had the whip out the needles before I passed out.

So typical! Having spent the past two months having organic tea, eating and drinking all fertility-related concoctions and mediating about perfect little babies, with images of myself floating on a little cloud of acupuncture and aromatherapy-induced bliss, I instead grabbed and downed a cocktail of antibiotics, pain killers, codeine, and would have reached for anything alcoholic if I wasn't already in enough trouble.

I felt stupid - and of course, the "kind" doctors and nurses didn't do all that much to help that feeling - the doctor commented to me "well, you weren't like this when you came in two hours ago". No s..t, buddy - I didn't have a bladder like a water-filled balloon and a fear of someone shoving something very uncomfortable into the very part of me that hurt like hell...

Anyway...

...full of drugs and feeling sick and sore and internally screaming "THIS IS NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!", I was told to lie back and concentrate on the picture on the ceiling - I know what you're imagining... a sea scape, with beautiful waves, amazing wildlife, soft sand? No? OK, then a gorgeous rolling landscape, with wild flowers and trees, and... I promise, you won't even come close.

Three strawberries, blown up to the size of footballs.

Really.

Strawberries.

I lay there, holding my husband's hand, staring at these huge red strawberries, thinking that they were probably meant to represent exactly how my ovaries looked and felt at that precise moment. Where were the friggin' dolphins and beautiful fish?? Maybe just one flower???

Then it happened, you know, one of "Those Moments". The ones that hit you in the middle of stress and crisis and makes your breath stick your throat...

As they put the two embryos back into me, the nurse said I might see a flash of light. I saw two, but not flashes of light, that didn't do what I saw justice - I saw two tiny glowing lights, almost joined but quite separate - I saw two stars. They twinkled in the darkness of the scan screen and somewhere inside me I felt those two tiny lives, sparkling and twirling, and showing my husband and I that they were real, and THERE. Our babies. Two tiny, sparkling lives, two hopes for Alex and I and the love we share.

So, now we wait. The infection has subsided almost completely, I am back at work today with two secret stars inside me that a handful of colleagues and friends know about. I try to picture happy things, and calm thoughts and know that really, whether you believe in positive thoughts, or God or anything, my husband and I, with a lot of medical intervention, have done all we mere mortals can do.

Our two little stars must now decide if they're strong enough to make it to the next stage.

All my dreams are that they do, with the knowledge they cannot be more wanted or hoped for...

Two Stars.. Two lives. Two dreams.