Still Cooking

What a great weekend it's been so far! Shoot, Brad and I are hard pressed to find a weekend that isn't great. We woke up yesterday morning surrounded by steam rising off the lake and the autumn temperatures in the air. I couldn't wait to get out for a walk while Brad did his 14-mile training run for The Chicago Marathon. If all of the fall is as beautiful as yesterday was, it's going to be perfect!

Working under the assumption that we'll be pregnant tomorrow, Brad and I decided to go out and find all the seafood for dinner that I can't eat when pregnant. Have you ever seen the list of all the restricted pregnancy foods? No big fish, limited shell fish, no soft cheese, no luncheon meat, sushi, and the list goes on and on. Did I forget to mention wine!??!?! Anyway, I searched almost every restaurant in North West Arkansas looking for steamers and sea scallops. Can you believe no one has steamers (for those of you who don't know, steamers are clams in their shell)? I even expanded my search up to Joplin and down to Fort Smith!!! I was bummed but changed my search figuring I'd look for liguini with seafood. Can you believe my options were only Olive Garden or Carraba's ? Being Italian, I just can't bring myself to going to Olive Garden very often, so Carraba's it was for us.

I enjoyed steamed mussels (not nearly as good as steamers, but they'd have to do) and a nice BIG glass of wine. Life is good. I really hope that that is the last time I get to indulge for the next 8-9 months =)

On another note, while we were at dinner, I recieved a call from my nurse who said "You and Brad make some beautiful embryos" as soon as I answered the phone. I knew it was going to be a good phone call. Turns out that we had 1-10cell, 1-9cell, 7-8cell, and 1-7cell embryo, all of which are what they hope for 3 days post egg retrieval. On top of that, she said the embryologist are rating most of them as Grade A - Prime Quality! "Maria, I'm so excited for you. This is going to be really good," was what she said before we hung up. Brad and I are trying not to get too excited knowing that a variety of factors play into a success, but so far we're on the right track.

Here's what they look like:




Thank you for all your prayers. Right now, please pray that...
...our transferred embryos love their new home enough that we get to see their beautiful faces in 8-9 months
...that everything goes smoothly in our transfer tomorrow.


I'll keep you posted from bed rest this week! That's going to be trying =)