But, what I am sure you are all even more concerned about is the health of Mrs. Re-Dan-imation. As the title of the post lets you know, she is definitely improving. After we came home from the hospital, it was a battle between her having to eat a "liquid" diet and what she really wanted to eat. The medicine she was given for her esophagus has really helped with her eating. The only real problem still lingering around her eating is that she coughs when she eats because the food is irritating her throat a bit when she swallows. That should continue to get better. Also, she has lost 18 pounds since she returned home!! That may sound like a lot for her little body, but she was holding so much fluid and it has finally left her system so her weight is actually back to normal. She is feeling a LOT better about the fluids she was holding and she totally does not feel like she looks pregnant anymore.
After returning home and getting things back to normal for a few days, we got a call from the fertility doctor's office. Since we have had complications in the past and she has not been able to remain pregnant for a full term, it was our doctors suggestion that we have our embryos genetically tested this time to absolutely make sure they are good to go before they are transferred back to her. Here is where the whole process gets really interesting. If you remember from the last post, the doctors removed 46 eggs from her. After the embryologist fertilized all the eggs, 33 actually became fertilized. Of those 33 eggs, the next test was to see if they made it to the 3 day mark. 26 made it to the 3 day mark. The next mark is becoming what is called a 5 day blastocyst. We had 15 make it to the point of 5 day blastocyst. That means that in the olden days of IVF (the 1980s) we would have had 15 embryos to implant at some point.
Well, with modern medicine comes much more accuracy. Of our 15 blastocysts, we had 10 biopsied and then frozen and had the other 5 frozen without being biopsied. It's an expensive process so testing the extra 5 was just not in the cards. Now for the results. Of the 10 that we had tested, 5 were deemed as non-viable. This means that implanting them would result in pregnancies that would not make it (they were all missing/had extra chromosomes). Of the other 5 that we tested, 1 would be a viable pregnancy but would have Turner Syndrome meaning that it would be a healthy person but would be sterile. That will definitely not be an embryo we will be using as Kristy could never live with herself knowing ahead of time that her offspring could never have a child. That leaves us with 4 perfectly viable and healthy embryos, but wait it gets cooler than that. The embryologist informed us that of those 4 embryos, 2 are boys and 2 are girls. HOLY COW!!! Didn't even think about them knowing that, but obviously since they are checking for abnormal chromosomes they would know. We have decided though, that when we do implant one, it will be randomly chosen by the embryologist and we won't know whether they have chosen a boy or a girl until after. If everything turns out healthy and great, I am sure we will choose to have the other implanted the next time. We're working on one thing at a time here.
Since, Mrs. Re-Dan-imation was feeling better and I had already planned a golf weekend in Michigan, I got to head up North. I headed out on Friday with friends and clubs in tow. The plan was to play 18 holes on Friday and 36 holes on Saturday. It just so happens that weekend was the hottest weekend of the summer so far. Surprise, right?! We did manage to get in all 3 rounds, and also enjoyed hanging out in the pool at one of my friend's brother's house. Thanks Mike for letting us stay at your place. I even had my best round of the summer at what was easily the nicest course we played.
Last week we had more big news come our way. Mrs. Re-Dan-imation accepted a 2nd grade position here in town at the end of the school year. She was obviously excited about the opportunity, but sad to leave her friends and coworkers at the building where she spent almost every day last year. Well, a kindergarten position opened up and after the principals talked, they contacted her to see if she would want to switch. She spent the evening thinking about it and discussing it with me and then chose to go ahead and make the move. This building and grade level are both where her heart truly lies and both principals knew it would be the right fit. I guess you could say it was lucky she had been sick, because she hadn't set up her room completely so it was a quick move of her stuff across town. Since then, we have been spending most of our free time getting her room set up.
However, this weekend was the Frankfort Main Street Hot Dog Festival. My mom decided she was going to have a booth at the festival this year to sell the wooden and canvas signs that she prints and paints herself. I was pretty pumped about the idea. On Thursday, I helped her set up her booth and then Friday and Saturday we spent literally every waking minute at the festival. I had a great time, even though it was pretty sweltering in the booth because they get pretty stuffy. She was pleased with how she did and is looking forward to having booths at other festivals in the future. I can't wait to help her again. You should check out her stuff here (she can make custom orders if you are interested).
That brings us up to this point where you are probably wondering about my weight over the past couple weeks. Well, not being able to eat the same meals as my wife the first week really put me in a bad spot. I ballooned up to 271.1 lbs. That's what happens when you eat fast food all the time and stay inside not doing anything except keep an eye on somebody that just needs to rest and recuperate. This last week, I did much better and my weight went back down to a respectable 267.7 lbs. I am still not down to my "high" mark of having lost 30 pounds, but I will get back there soon. I am looking forward to continuing the journey and sharing it with you. Thanks to all of you that read and commented on my last post (it has had over 2200 views...about 1800 more than any other post I have written). Mrs. Re-Dan-imation was truly touched by all of your support and still gets asked around town about how she is feeling. I hope that many of you that viewed that post keep following me on here. You can subscribe by submitting your email at the top of this page. I would love to have more of your follow me. With that I will leave you for the week. Until next week...Food, Feet, Water, Repeat.
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