Raccoons in the walls

This morning around 5:30, Heather and I woke up because of some loud banging next door.  We have watched too many TV specials about serial killers and both suspected that our neighbor had been subdued, bound, and left in a back room while his tormentor found pointy tools or stopped to pee.  The banging was our neighbor's desperate attempt to get our attention so we could save him, and I was afraid that, hours later, we would have to explain to cops and the man's grief-stricken family that we had heard his cries for help but ignored them because we were so sleepy.
Turns out that the guy actually was just banging on his walls because raccoons were nesting there and he wanted them out. 

Wednesday morning around 5:30, Heather woke me up to say she couldn't wait any longer to inseminate.  We'd agreed to wake up just before six to do it, but she couldn't sleep and we'd been holding back long enough.  I had spoken to Nurse Nina and told her how badly Monday's insemination had gone and how anxious we were about the next one; she said to either do it Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and I think both Heather and I felt safer waiting till the morning.  Nina reassured me about our first try, saying that we probably were okay, even though it felt very early.

Accordingly, Heather and I trekked through the dark to our kitchen, preparing the sample and the syringe we'd practiced with the night before.  We capped it carefully.
We didn't light candles, or turn on music.  In a way, for us, it was actually less stressful to focus all of our attention on the process at hand.  Surprisingly, the hour helped, too: the house and the neighborhood were silent, and everything was dark except for the bedside lamp.  It was just us and the syringe.

We did everything just right.  Heather lay back on her towel, the os and the mucus were perfect, and the semen arced against her cervix.
We didn't have sex.  There was no orgasm like we'd planned.  Instead, we curled up against each other in the dark and fell back to sleep, imagining her warm body welcoming the sperm.

Days later, Heather has been experiencing cramps, and our brief look at her cervix Thursday showed some blue-ish purple.  Doing a good job the second time has given us a boost of confidence and optimism, so any sign of fatigue or discomfort makes us inappropriately giddy, and I think we're both quietly, shyly convinced that it worked.

Two weeks ago when I ordered the tank, the guy at the Cryobank said our donor only had five ICI vials left.