Paying rent.

This morning I was feeding Hartley when I got a phone call. The number looked so familiar but I didn't fully recognize it. When I answered and the woman said she was from the fertility clinic, the phone number clicked. I used to see that phone number on my caller id on an almost daily basis. Fertility treatment seems like forever ago but a year ago this time I knew that phone number by heart. 

She was returning my call about the storage of our embryos. Lately I have this bizarre anxiety. I think about the embryos, and I start to think, "what if the clinic throws them away?!"

Like everything in this world, you know no one will provide a service without sending a bill. Now that the embryos' year of free storage is almost up, I'd been looking for a bill for the next year of rent. I hadn't gotten anything and was oddly panicking. So I had to call. 

The lady was sweet. She almost acted like she'd gotten my question a million times. 

"We would never ever dispose of them without talking to you. We're just a little behind in billing, that's all." 

A few weeks ago I didn't have this anxiety. The doctor gave me hope that pregnancy would "fix" me. She predicted my period to come last weekend, and it was going to confirm the pain I had was ovulation pain. Even though my intial guess was ruptured cyst. Looks like I was right. And it feels like my body is going back to it's old self. I'm waking up to that. Brian and my mom both told me not to start thinking my fertility had magically been restored but being the person I am, I kind of fell in love with the idea that it had. I have a kid. That means I'm good at making them, right? Not quite. On the best study I found, conducted over 10 years, 17% of women achieve spontaneous pregnancy after IVF for their first child. The majority of successful women have unexplained infertility. 

I'm not sad like I was before Hartley. I have her. I am insanely blessed and lucky. 

But I want to make sure I have her brothers and sisters safe for the future. Because after knowing Hartley, I think about them being our little sons and daughters. I think Brian has the desire to meet them, too. Let me tell you that unless you've been in our shoes, you can never understand the feeling. And right now, I'd be devastated to lose them. Someday we'll be closing that door, donating whatever doesn't get used. But today isn't that day. And hey, maybe if we win the lottery, we'll meet them all. Don't discount the lottery winning. 

Ironic that yesterday was National Siblings Day. I love my siblings so much. If Hartley never gets to know that kind of love, that's okay. But for now, the possibilities exist. They are just chillin. Literally.