Ready to Go!

Well, the day has finally arrived:  we're off to India this afternoon.  What a whirlwind few days we've had -- and we haven't even left yet!  On Thursday morning, Alan was talking to one of his colleagues at Emory who has family in India, and he discovered that we probably should have had a number of immunizations before heading to Mumbai.  Usually we are pretty good about staying on top of recommended vaccinations, etc. before traveling internationally - I think we both just assumed that since we won't be traveling anywhere outside of the city this time around, that we'd be OK.  However, this is not necessarily the case...so fast forward a couple of hours, and we both found ourselves at the Travel Well Clinic at Emory Midtown receiving a battery of shots.  I received shots for tetanus, polio, and my personal favorite, typhoid.  Alan received the same, plus a shot for Hepatitis A (I had already gotten this one before going to college).  We also got a prescription for Malarone (anti-malaria), and started taking those pills yesterday.  All in all, I think we are now sufficiently protected against any pathogens that may come our way during our trip!

We've gotten some positive news from the clinic in Mumbai - our egg donor is now on Day 9 of receiving her stimulation shots, and has shown good follicle growth so far.  Here's how it works:  in a natural egg production cycle, one egg grows/matures within a follicle on the woman's ovary.  The follicle grows, and when the egg is fully mature, the follicle ruptures and the egg is released into the fallopian tube.  The hormone shots being taken by our egg donor are stimulating her ovaries to grow multiple follicles simultaneously, so that on the day of the egg retrieval there are multiple mature eggs ready to be retrieved.  As of right now, the donor has about 10 mature follicles, which is right where she should be on the ninth day of shots. 

I think we are pretty much ready to go - we're all packed, and I'm attempting (with some success) to download some movies onto to the iPad for our flight.  Most importantly, Eddie's grandparents from CT arrived yesterday to begin taking care of him while we are away (thanks Mom and Dad).  We have a couple of long flights ahead of us, with a two-hour layover in Amsterdam -- for those of you who are aviation nerds like me, here is our flight path:



We arrive in Mumbai at 11:15pm local time tomorrow (Sunday), which is 1:45pm Atlanta time on Sunday - I think.  Our first appointment at the clinic is Monday afternoon at 2pm...so be looking for another blog post on that experience at some point on Monday!