Elliana has a airline pilot at her school last week and he told them something that caught my attention.
Apparently during the ascent to 10,000 feet, everything has to be very controlled and calculated.
Adjustments have to be made for all kinds of aerodynamic considerations that make getting up to 10,000 feet a bit of a challenge.
Once the plane hits 10,000 feet though, it can go as fast the pilot wants it to go.
I thought about how many times during take off, the plane seems to shudder and shake.
It’s the only time flying when I get a little nervous.
The seat belt signs are on, everything is stowed away, and depending on the weather outside, turbulence does a number on my stomach.
Then it all calms down. The plane settles into a groove, and before I know it, we’re landing at our destination.
Getting to 10,000 feet in our infertility journey took about five years.
So many rocky take offs, so much turbulence, and so many times we just never made it up that high, at least from what I could tell.
We tried different doctors, different procedures, different drug protocols, relaxation techniques, diet adjustments, but we could never get into that damn jet stream.
Until we got to St Barnabas.
After the first consult, we felt like we hit the 10,000 foot level. Our questions were answered, our questions about the answers were responded to politely and patiently, Lisa had a phlebotomist that didn’t vein fish, the front office staff helped us feel at home by suggesting places to go and things to do during our three week stay in New Jersey for our St. Barnabas IVF.
When the fresh cycle didn’t work, we were devastated.
But as it turned out, the frozen embryos from that IVF cycle would give us our first off the charts high beta, and take us full speed ahead to biological parenthood a few months later.
Compared to the five and a half years it had taken to get to that point, our path from the New Jersey IVF to a high positive beta was the blink of an eye.
Maybe things just hadn’t happened for us, because we hadn’t hit that jet stream.
Once we got to that 10,000 feet level where all of the protocols, doctors, drugs, hormones, embyro transfer technology and hope, love, blood sweat and tears all came together, we found out that it usually does happen as fast as you want once you hit that 10,000 foot level.
You just have to brace yourself for the rough ride to get up there.