BFN

Results are in.

At least I can stop the meds now, and maybe that will help me get my emotions back under control, because right now I feel like a complete mess. Emailed the the Greek clinic. Asked how soon they would recommend we try again, asked how much a third attempt would cost, and asked for another Lupron prescription.

Starting over. Again. Alone in a hell of infertility that only Kaitlin knows about, while everyone else around me goes on merrily with their happy, fertile, normal, baby-rich lives.

This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. If what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I should be freaking Wonder Woman by now.

But first I'm going home to have wine. Hoping AF shows up soon, because in spite of the crazy progesterone I am feeling cramps, like my body is desperate for one... I am, after all, only like three weeks overdue. At this point it almost seems like it would feel like a relief.

IVF#2 12DP5DT - Beta Day

Another BFN on the HPT last night. Got up early this morning, let Kaitlin give me my heparin shot, took my meds, and went to the doctor's office for the blood draw. Just waiting to get the results this afternoon so that I can stop taking the medication. I have never wanted confirmation of a BFN more than I do right now. I know that we failed. But I wish I was wrong, so badly, that I am desperate for that piece of paper that tells me I can stop going through the motions. Stop taking the medication, stop wondering about every little twinge, stop worrying about cold medicine and coffee and alcohol and just get on with my still-childless life.

I don't remember the other BFNs being this hard. I don't remember being in this much pain while at work even during the miscarriage... probably because in that case, I took days off through the worst of it. I don't feel like I deserve days off for just another BFN. It's not like my life is over. I'm not even physically as uncomfortable as I am during a normal AF. I just feel a whole lot of nothing. A whole lot of empty. My emotions are on overdrive because of the estrogen, and I can't wait to be able to stop taking it.

My heart is so broken. I feel so broken. Thirty thousand dollars later, we are no closer to having a baby in our arms than we were when we started. I am tired and bitter and more sad than I know how to put into words. I don't know how to give up on this. Yet I don't know how I can keep going, either. How do people do this? How do they get through years and years of this? How do they AFFORD it?

All I want right now is retail therapy. After months of scrimping and saving and forgoing every little thing I wanted in order to add pennies to our TTC savings account, all I want is to buy anything that seems like it might make me feel better. And it's probably the worst and most self-destructive thing I can do, because money is what makes the TTC journey go round. I'm going to be paying off the debt we're already in for the next ten years, and we didn't even get a baby out of it.

Today is a sucktacular day, and all I can think about is getting to that test result - just a few more hours now, I can make it that long, right? - so that I can go home, hate my life, drink a bottle of wine, cry until I can't think anymore, and wake up tomorrow without meds, without injections, without hope. Right now the greatest happiness available to me will be hopelessness. At least if there's no hope, it doesn't hurt so much.

So I realize that writing all of this out, the fact that this is the way my heart really feels, the fact that this is, I guess, the whiny, bitter, self-centered person I actually am, is pretty revealing, isn't it? I don't like the person that I am right now. I don't want to be this negative. I don't want to be this angry.  I don't want to be such a diva about things that aren't going right in my life. After all, the world doesn't revolve around me. And I should be spending this time caring for other people's problems and sadness instead of wallowing in my own. One of the girls at the RE's office today called me a "trooper." I wanted to hug her and punch her at the same time. It's nice that someone might think of me that way, but I know it's a lie. Because I'm not trooping, I'm drowning in self-pity and failure and pain and jealousy and anger and tears.

I want to be a strong person, a courageous person who faces disappointment with love and kindness and selflessness and grace, but I'm not. I'm tapped out, I've got nothing left. Today it's all about surviving through the next ten seconds. And then the next ten seconds. And then the next. Until life has moved on enough that I can move on too.

So.

Once I get the results I'm not waiting for the Greek clinic to tell me to stop the meds, I'm just stopping. When I send them the results, I'll ask them for another Lupron prescription, so that I can order the meds again  - it will take a month or more to get them so I might as well get them ordered now. That will be another $537. I'll also ask her to tell me how long they would recommend I wait before trying again, and how much their fee will be for a third attempt. Then I spend the next couple of weekends selling everything possible on Ebay and Craigslist. I avoid driving anywhere I don't have to drive, I eat as little as possible and avoid grocery shopping for as long as possible. I don't buy anything else for my little doll or sewing supplies. When I get my next royalty check the whole thing goes into the TTC savings account. I just literally don't spend ANYTHING, don't buy ANYTHING, that is not absolutely necessary. I avoid seeing my family, especially my pregnant SIL, as much as humanly possible - which is going to be really difficult over the summer, since that's the time when we all have birthdays and get together monthly, and I don't know how I'm going to get out of all of them.

And maybe, just MAYBE, we'll be able to take another stab at this in July or August. It will be the last. If it doesn't work... It will be a year before I can even begin to hope to have enough money to do anything else. Of course, I keep saying that, and as soon as failure strikes I seem to come up with another way to find money. I suppose a fourth try could go entirely on a credit card, but that just seems really stupid. Though adoption fees... If I spent money on an adoption and home study before the end of this year, I think I could get it all pretty much back in taxes next year. So maybe that's what we'll have to do... try one more IVF, and if it doesn't work, sign up with an adoption agency, charge the whole fee to a credit card, then write it off on taxes so that we get it refunded... and wait to see if there's any birth mother out there who will choose us.

Funny, how all the IVF bloggers I've found and followed never really seem to talk much about the money part of their attempts. Maybe they have insurance covering them, or have a partner who's footing the bills, or someone lending it to them, I don't know. But I don't have any of that, and it's maybe the biggest stressor of this entire process, worse even than the hormones and the injections and the TWW.

And the only thing that keeps me going right now is knowing that if we ever DO get a baby out of all of this, it will all suddenly seem more than worth it. It would be something I would do over again without question, if I KNEW the outcome was going to be eventual success. But right now we're in that uncertain limbo where never-succeeding is still a very real possibility, and then all of this is going to be the biggest waste, the biggest losing bet, of my life.

Break's over. Have to get started on some actual work now... the last thing I need is to get fired on top of everything else.

IVF#2 11DP5DT - Still negative

Got another BFN last night and didn't even bother testing this morning. I'll probably test once more tonight but I know there isn't much point. Also, the Greek clinic hasn't sent me the letter I need to even have the blood beta tomorrow. I've asked for it three times. So I'm going to have to ask the doctor himself, because I can't actually even be seen by my doctor without it, and I can't stop taking the meds until the Greek clinic says so, and I really don't want to do any more injections.

Kaitlin and I are talking about pulling out all the stops... and by that I mean maxing out the HELOC and selling everything we possibly can and maybe floating the rest on a credit card... for one more shot over the summer. And if that doesn't work, I don't think we have any hope of getting pregnant. We can't afford to keep throwing money at this, at $8000 a pop. We may have to look into adoption - but I don't know if we'll have the money for it for a long time.

I'm going to work late tonight so that I don't have to go have dinner with my family. I just can't sit there with my pregnant SIL and pretend like I'm okay. I kind of don't want to see her, at least not for a little while... at least until I feel like I'll be able to do it without my heart shredding with envy and self-loathing.

Never in a million years, when we started this a year and a half ago, did I imagine it was going to come to this. I never thought I'd pour this much money and heart and time and physical bodily strain and stress into something and still come out of it as empty handed as when we began. Never did I imagine that I wouldn't be the first to give my parents a grandchild. It never occurred to me that we would actually FAIL. I guess I always thought at some point, somewhere down the line, we WOULD have a baby... we just had to keep trying.

But you can't make something happen just by trying. This is one of those times when the cheery "if you believe, you can achieve!!!" bullshit is exactly that. No amount of believing is going to give us a baby. Only money. Money, and luck. And even when I've been able to scrape one together, the other continues to ignore me.

Kaitlin's going to ask her Mom today to try and find out how serious this acquaintance of hers is about adoption. We would do it in a HEARTBEAT if she's serious, but it's such a delicate, uncertain thing that it doesn't seem possible it's going to pan out.

Anyway. That's where life is today. Empty, tapped out, and tired. But maybe we've got one more round in us. Just one...

IVF#2 10DP5DT - BFN is Imminent

Tested all weekend, all BFNs. Was super duper sick, too - don't know if it was allergies or a cold, but could not stop sneezing, itchy eyes, horrible headache and congestion, runny nose, the works. I've stopped peeing every ten seconds, which was one of the first signs during the m/c that told me it was over. I no longer feel nauseous, or really anything at all. All symptoms gone, and stark white negatives twice a day.

We're still doing the meds until my blood test on Wednesday, but I have no hope left. I know in my heart that it didn't work. And I feel... so defeated. So empty and exhausted and bitter. I'm supposed to go to two family events in the next week, where I will have to sit at the same table with my newly-pregnant SIL and listen to the family gush over her, while I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to scrape together enough money to go back for a third -- and likely final -- attempt. I don't want to go to the family things, and I'm probably going to chicken out and come up with some kind of excuse. I don't think I can handle it.

I might be able to pull off a third attempt over the summer. I sold some rims and tires this weekend on Craigslist for $200. I have an expensive doll and some handmade clothes and a ton of accessories that I bet I can get about $400 for - maybe more. I also think I might start designing, making and selling American Girl doll clothes on Etsy, as I think I can probably make some decent cash with it. Add to that at least one more royalty check, and maxing out my HELOC by pulling out the last remaining $5000 (putting me the full $20K in debt) and being as stingy as possible with money for the next three months, I think I can put together enough to go back again this summer.

The earliest I could go back would be probably July, because once the Greek docs tell me to stop the meds I have to wait for AF. Usually about 11 - 15 days into AF, they have me start Lupron - I'll need to order it and pay an extra $100 for shipping to get it in time. Then I wait for AF again, and start estrogen/progesterone right after, and I keep that up until the donor's cycle is lined up with mine and her retrieval happens. Then I go out there, get the transfer, come home... and do the TWW again.

And if it doesn't work... I don't know. We'll be completely tapped out, money wise. Maybe when we get a tax refund next year we can use it to start the process of adoption.

There's one very, very pale glimmer of another possibility - Kaitlin's mom apparently knows a young woman who is pregnant and considering giving the baby up for adoption. We told her to please, please let her friend know we would absolutely love to be considered as adoptive parents for her baby. It would be an open adoption, I'm sure, but the child would know who both his/her birth parents are pretty much their entire lives, and while that might be inconvenient a little for us, it would be invaluable, I think, for a kiddo to grow up with that sense of identity and self.

If this were to pan out, we'd have to do a home study, and probably a ton of legal/attorney fees. We might help the birth mother with her birthing expenses too. But there's an adoption tax credit that could then reimburse us maybe for the cost of everything, since we wouldn't have to pay an adoption agency to find us a birth mom. Travel expenses wouldn't be too bad, since I guess the birth mom is only about 5 hours away from us.

I guess it just sounds too good to be true, and I'm trying not to get my heart too set on the idea. But here we are with a pregnancy that's HERE, that's HAPPENING right now, and if there was any way... ANY WAY... that she would choose to give us this gift I would do anything to make it happen.

Anyway. Sitting at work now, trying to get back into the swing of childless day-to-day life. Wishing for a miracle. Wishing for another chance. Wishing to win the lottery.

BFN #6

AF showed up yesterday, making it BFN#6 for the year. And we've now used up all our vials of swimmers. I'm not pleased with how this last cycle went. Between my work situation being so stressful I could barely eat or sleep throughout the injections, to asking the doctor to run an ovulation test on my blood sample because I was SURE I was ovulating early (and lo and behold, I was right), to having the IUI done two days after the positive ovulation test (when I pretty much always ovulate within 12-24 hours of a smiley)... I wasn't holding out much hope for this one. And sure enough, just 9DPI, AF showed up again. Cycle's the most expensive one yet - somewhere around $4000 - and it was a complete bust.

I'm so tired of throwing money at this and ending up with no results. I'm so tired of being poked with needles, and probed with scanners, and being crazy hormonal all the time, and having cycle after cycle where we don't even get to make an attempt because my body's not cooperating. Having a baby is supposed to be a delight. It's supposed to be something that happens out of love and joy and pleasure. And this is getting ridiculous.

So that's it. I am DONE pussyfooting around. I emailed the Greek clinic today to find out how to get the process started, and I was approved by my bank for a Home Equity Line of Credit that's going to front me the money to pay for an overseas donor embryo cycle. I think the process is going to end up looking something like this:

-Greek clinic emails and requests information and doctor tests.
-I have tests done, send results and info to the clinic
-Greek clinic sends donor lists. Kaitlin and I look them over and send our choices back.
-Greek clinic contacts our chosen egg donors, and we figure out which one is available and willing.
-Egg donor begins her cycle at the Greek clinic; goes on meds.
-I have my clinic here monitor me and put me on any meds needed to sync my cycle with the donor's.
-Clinic lets us know what date we'll need to be there for a transfer; I buy plane and hotel tickets and make arrangements with work to take the time off.
-Egg donor goes in for her retrieval, while we arrive in Greece.
-We spend 9-10 days exploring Athens and nearby islands.
-We go to the clinic and have the transfer. Still debating between 1 and 2 embryos. My little voice of reason says that 1 is the wisest choice, since their success rates are 70%. But my little voice of impatience is stamping her feet in the background, so we'll see...
-I spend the next couple days on bedrest (This isn't a requirement, from what I understand, but it sure couldn't hurt.)
-We get back to the States and I return to work.
-We find out in a couple of weeks if I am pregnant. If not, we gear up for one second round, using any frozen leftover embryos from the first cycle. That one will cost us about $4000 or so, as it will be a short trip.

We'll have an adopted embryo, meaning that the baby won't have a genetic link to either of us... but on the plus side, he/she will be something of a "designer" baby since we get to pick both the donors. So we will still be creating someone utterly unique, and just for us... and I'll still get to experience pregnancy and make sure I'm giving the kiddo the healthiest possible start to life.

So that's the plan now. And my brain is rushing into full-on planning mode. While I'm really frustrated and sad that all the attempts we've made thus far haven't panned out (we could have already done a Greek cycle for the money I've paid out so far this year) it's nice to feel like maybe we have the opportunity for greater momentum than we've seen all year.

I'm not giving up on my OLW for this year - CONCIEVE. There's still some time for that, right?

In the meantime, working on my next book and waiting for the edits to come back on the second Ithyria book. Daydreaming about how nice it would be to be able to be a full-time author, and knowing I'll never pay off the debt I'm about to leap into if I did that. Pfft.

CD3 – Another BFN, Another Delay

I’ve been feeling so down this past week I haven’t even bothered to blog. But here’s the scoop: Kaitlin got laid off on Thursday. On Monday, I got my period – even though I was on progesterone, which has never happened to me before. So, BFN. Then this morning, I went into the doctor for my CD3 ultrasound, and wouldn’t you know it, I have leftover follicles again. So three weeks of birth control now, before we can tackle our final injectables cycle.

I guess the delay is okay seeing as how Kaitlin’s laid off anyway and it gives me the chance to do a little catchup on the debt from last month’s $3000ish cycle. And it means we don’t have to figure out how to juggle injections and ultrasounds during Battlemoor (a big SCA camping event) this weekend.

But frankly, I am just so tired and sad. There’s drama going on at work, too, with members of my staff going through their own family emergencies and two staff whose roles I’m revising and training and my staff having basically sabotaged all of our managers’ efforts to get us another pair of hands to help us out next year… and I am just done, today. Just done. I don’t want to do anything except go home and bury myself in Korean drama, puppy cuddles, and absolute laziness.

But there’s another day of work to get through, and then two days at least of Battlemoor. I do want to see my Laurel and apprentice family, but honestly they’re the only reasons I’m going. And I’m probably going to mostly just lurk and do nothing for most of the time. I feel crappy and sad and tired. I’m not in an SCA-ing mood. And I’m always so exhausted after them. Even though we’re leaving on Sunday (and thank God I have Monday off for the holiday) I’m still really just going to get a one-day weekend before heading back to work again next week.

My boss also asked me this morning if everything was okay, since I’d had so many doctor appointments this year. So I just told her that we were TTC, and all the trouble we’d been having, and gave her a basic idea of our future plans: this next attempt is our last one, and then we take a few months off to recover financially and we’re going to Greece for a donor egg cycle.  She was supportive, which was really great, and it sounds like she had to conceive at least one of her kids via IVF so she knows what it’s like.

That’s good, I guess.

Kaitlin’s heading to Battlemoor this afternoon, so I’ll be alone tonight. I’m kind of looking forward to it, because I can go to bed as early as I want, I can watch K-drama all night if I want, I can eat whatever I want and be as miserable as I want without making her miserable too.

I just have to make it through the rest of this work day…

IUI#5 CD2 - Moving On

Yesterday was just plain awful. On top of being deeply disappointed about this fourth BFN, I am also stuck with a really heavy, miserable AF. The Clomid and birth control has made most of my past cycles really light, but since I had a nice fat lining on the Follistim, I am now getting to enjoy a full-on, cramp-til-I-want-to-vomit couple of days. Ugh.

But, my darling fiancee brought home yellow roses (my favorite color) and chocolate cake for me yesterday. After two shots of Grand Marnier and three tylenol I was still hurting so badly I couldn't get comfortable on the couch, so finally I just gave up and went to bed early. I wanted to be unconscious through the worst of it. The cramping is not as intense today, but still really unpleasant, and I am feeling cranky and not at all able to focus on work. But I can't exactly go home, because I have a meeting with my boss this afternoon that I have to make sure I'm "on" for. Dreading it, but I'll make it through somehow.

Was late to work again this morning so I could go have an ultrasound done, and there's at least one bright spot in all of this: I DON'T HAVE LEFTOVER FOLLICLES THIS TIME. [Insert the Hallelujah Chorus] We can actually start another round right away. There are no words for what a relief that is... it's been so discouraging to have to take nearly every other month off of TTC to go on birth control instead. I think if I'd found out that we were going to have to skip August too, I might have had to go home crying for the rest of the day.

So, there's a silver lining after all, and I just placed another order with NorthWest Cryobank. We decided we are going to switch donors, to see if maybe a change in swimmers will give us better luck. We're going with #9319: brown wavy hair, green eyes, ambidextrous, tall, artsy and science-y. I think his "baby" photo looks a lot more like Kaitlin than our first donor, too (she says he looks like her brother.) Also, one of the other forum users has already had a successful pregnancy (a girl!) with this donor. Since we have two rounds of injectables left, I ordered two vials. If neither of the next two attempts are successful... well, we're going to have to pull out even bigger guns, and prep for a trip to Greece for IVF with both donor eggs and sperm.

I also had to call the pharmacy to get a Follistim refill. Between the $819 in swimmers/shipping and the $740 in injectable drugs - in addition to the usual trigger shot, IUI procedure, and probably at least 4 ultrasounds at $45 each, this cycle's going to run us a lot more than any of the others - somewhere around $2800. Still a small price tag in comparison to what the Greek donor cycle will cost if it comes to that... but it's more than I can afford in one month, so we're going to be carrying a bit of credit card debt for the next few months.

Most of what I've read on internet forums seems to indicate that of the ladies who got pregnant using injectables, injectable cycle #2 was the one that worked. So maybe, just maybe - with a change in swimmers and a second round of meds - maybe we'll get our BFP this time.

I think this most recent BFN has been the hardest, and I'm not sure why. I wasn't feeling all that optimistic, from the moment we did the IUI and found out our swimmers had lower motility than expected... but I guess it's because the meds had been so expensive, and I'd made it through all of those scary daily shots, and it just seemed like after seven months of trying it should be our turn. When it didn't pan out... when I got up yesterday morning expecting to take pregnancy tests for the next few days and instead found that AF had arrived... it was just a lot harder than the other BFNs have been.

I think, after so many months trying, that both Kaitlin and I are feeling a little stuck. This process is so expensive that we can't really move on with our lives and do the other things we want to do - have a wedding, install a floor in the basement, take a vacation, not really anything - until we get our BFP. And most of our plans for the future revolve around the things we want to do after that BFP comes, after we know we're adding a new member to our family.  I'll be changing my name. We'll be eloping, probably, to another state to get married (we want a wedding here, too, but I don't want pregnant-bride wedding photos; I want the chance to have the baby and then work off the baby weight so I can feel pretty in my wedding pictures. So we're doing a legal elopement, pre-baby, and a legal, local full-on wedding in a year or so afterward.) And then there's family vacations, house renovations, and the like, all of which are dependent on when... and if... we get pregnant. It feels like life is on hold pending the outcome of this long, expensive, exhausting, emotionally draining process.

Part of me would like to take a break from TTC for a while, but there's no time. My eggs are already so diminished, in quantity and quality, that it has to be now.  If the next two cycles don't work, though... then we'll probably take a break for a few months, to pay off the remaining debt of these cycles and try to save up enough to get started on the donor cycle in Greece.  And in a way, I am hoping that if the trip is necessary, it will feel like a vacation and not just another battle in this infertility war.

If I ever have a daughter, I think the one bit of motherly advice I want to make sure to pass on is that she shouldn't wait too long to start her family, like I did. I hope she gets her fertility checked early so she knows how much time she has. I hope she doesn't have to go through any of this. Not that I want her to be a teen mom or anything, but... I wouldn't wish this agonizing process on anybody.

Moving on....

IUI#4 CD23 10DPI – BFN

I took a few pregnancy tests throughout the day yesterday, even though it was only 9DPI, just for fun. Last night we even had what might have been called a squinter – both Kaitlin and I could see it – so I was really excited to get up and take another test this morning.

But, not only were the tests negative this morning, it appears AF has started too. So another BFN, at only 10DPI. AF arrived earlier than usual because I wasn’t on progesterone this cycle. And while the BFN wasn’t a huge surprise, having AF show up this early kind of was… it means my cycle was only 22 days long.

Though a part of me is hoping it might be implantation spotting, this feels like AF to me, complete with preliminary ittybitty cramps. I broke out with acne last week, too, and was hoping it might be a pregnancy symptom, but no – just plain old PMS. SIGH.

I will have to call the doctor this morning, I’m sure they’ll want me to come in for a blood test. Then I have to order more swimmers and more Follistim, and we start this whole song and dance again.

On the other hand, because we have to order more swimmers, I'm going to try and talk Kaitlin into changing donors. We’ll order two vials, and do two more injectable cycles. If neither works, then it’s on to Greece to try donor egg IVF, I guess.

Feeling sad today.

[EDIT] So wait, hold the phone...
This morning when I wiped, I had what looked like a perfectly normal beginning period. Bright red, enough of a flow to indicate it was going to be more than spotting.

But I just went to the bathroom again (it's been about an hour and a half) and now the flow seems lighter in volume, darker in color. Also, it hasn't actually gotten onto the pad yet, and usually I'd expect it to be heavier by now rather than lighter. I am having very light cramping. Could it be implantation? I mean, I'm guessing that it's probably still AF, but I wonder... Either way I'll still need to call the doctor and get the blood test set up, because if it's AF we have to gear up for our next round of injections. I think I'll wait until noon to call, so that I can see what happens with this weird bleeding. Hoping against hope that maybe it actually goes AWAY in the next hour... which would feel a lot more promising :P

[EDIT] Nope. Definitely AF :(

IUI#3 CD28 17DPI – BFN. Waiting for AF

And… BFN is confirmed by yesterday’s blood test. I stopped the progesterone last night, so AF should show up again any time now… last month it showed up two days after stopping the progesterone, so my guess is that it will show tomorrow. I’m supposed to call the RE’s office on day one of AF, and will have an ultrasound and blood draw on day 3 to begin the injectable protocol. Then I have to go from the RE’s office to the pharmacy and pick up the Follistim prescription, which will run about $750 (supposedly.) I did get approved for a discount, albeit only a 5% one, so I take my coupon thing with me and that should make the cost $712.50. Still crazy expensive, but I’ll take all the discounts I can get.

If I’m lucky, I’ll respond well enough that I won’t need all 900iu, so that I can hopefully use some of it for July’s cycle if June’s isn’t a BFP.

In the meantime, Kaitlin and I both have my birthday off of work next week. I’m debating what I want to do – we could go to the zoo, or Water World, or we could go for a hike or something. Whatever we do has to be pretty inexpensive, since every penny I’ve got is going toward TTC right now. It’s also kind of sobering to realize I am turning 35. It feels like one of those milestones that, when you’re younger, seems an eternity away. I don’t think I ever really thought I would turn 35 without being a mom yet… and I never thought that at 35, I would have this much trouble getting pregnant. Even if I do get pregnant this year, I’ll have a five-year-old when I’m 40, and that just seems… well, it’s not how I imagined it.

Still, one of my staff had a child in her early forties, and that child is 5 or 6 now, and he seems to be doing okay. So it probably isn’t the end of the world. But I ask myself if I can really keep up with a 5 year old when I get to that age. I’m already noticing so many signs of aging in my body – changes in shape (grr) and I can’t wear heels anymore because of leg cramps… I am really going to have to focus on staying in shape so that I can keep up with a kiddo and give them the active childhood they deserve.

Assuming, of course, if I can even GET FRICKING PREGNANT.

Sigh.

On to the next round…

IUI#3 CD27 16DPI - Pretty sure it's BFN#3

Haven’t had much to report in the last week. Pretty much zero symptoms, and negative pregnancy tests every day. I had blood drawn this morning, as today’s the “official” test date, so I’m expecting a call this afternoon confirming I’m not pregnant so that I can stop taking the progesterone. At this point I’m ready to call it quits with this cycle and move on to the next… I was pretty much certain, after meeting with the doctor last week, that this round wasn’t going to work either.

Luckily, the blood draw this morning was the easiest one yet… I literally didn’t feel the needle go in or come out at all! Much nicer than I was anticipating. I faxed in our “FirstSteps” enrollment form earlier this week to see if we can get some kind of discount on the injectable meds for this month. Hoping that whatever dose of Follistim we need is in the range of $750 or less. I don’t know how much faith I have that the injectables are going to work either, sigh…  The RE didn’t seem super optimistic about our chances, and injectable cycles are pretty much the last resort before donor egg IVF becomes necessary. I’m also concerned that if my egg quality is equivalent to someone in their early forties, it might also mean an equivalent risk of genetic problems for any embryo that might actually be created from my eggs.

Sigh.

On the plus side, I am feeling pretty good about my situation at work right now, and I’m looking forward to the Bold Strokes Books author table at Pride in the next couple weeks. I’ve actually spent way more on supplies for the event than I stand to make, even if I sell every one of my stash of books… but honestly, I write stories because I want to share them with other people, not to pay the bills. Writing is a passion and a hobby, and I don’t ever want it to feel like a job.

So anyway, just waiting for the doctor’s call so we can move on to the next battle in this TTC war. :P Fighting!! 

IUI#2 CD30 16DPI - BFN

Went in for a blood test this morning, to get the BFN confirmed so I can stop taking the progesterone. Got a call around four in the afternoon with confirmation – no pregnancy for me… and I can stop the progesterone now. They want me to call on the first day of my next AF. The nurse said we were “approved to do another Clomid round” although Dr. Trout wants a personal consult with us this time around. I’m not sure if that should make me nervous… Granted, this will be our fifth month since we started all this, but we’ve really only tried twice. Two BFNs seems pretty normal to me, but then, I do have awful AMH and FSH levels, so now I have to wonder if the doc’s only wanting to try clomid for us a few times before recommending we move on to IVF.

I don’t know what we’ll do, if we have to do IVF. I did a little research today and learned that IVF is far, far less expensive overseas – like $5,000 - $6,000 including travel expenses – whereas IVF with our clinic would be around $15,000. And hey, there’s an exotic foreign vacation in there to boot! So that may be the way we go, if we have to. SIGH.

Anyway, on to the next round…

IUI#2 CD28 14DPI - BFN on the horizon, sigh

Negative test last night, another negative this morning. No sign of AF, but that's not surprising given the progesterone. I called this morning and made an appointment for Thursday morning, to have a blood test done. Not optimistic at this point, but at least it will confirm that I can stop taking the progesterone so AF will show up again. IUI#3, here we come!

In the meantime, I did manage to go walking for 30 minutes at lunch both yesterday and today. I also managed to eat only my dinner last night, without all the late night snacking I usually do. And, I'm trying to commit to drinking more water throughout the day... in the hopes that it will improve my overall health AND fertility for the next round.

This afternoon I have to meet up with my family after work and have a group dinner. There are three birthdays and Mother's Day that we're sort of wrapping up into one thing... I'm thinking about buying flowers for my mom, my aunt and my brother's girlfriend, and then buying something tongue-in-cheek manly for my brother - not sure what, though. A bouquet of food or something. :P Guess we'll see what's available...

STILL NO IDEA WHAT CD THIS IS

So today is either CD30 of my January IUI cycle, or CD2 of a February cycle.

Yesterday afternoon I called my RE. The flow of weird-colored AF had gotten heavy enough to maybe be considered a light flow, or maybe it would still be just heavy spotting… Either way, the color remained black/brown and bizarre. The RE asked me to come in for a blood draw so they could do a pregnancy test, just to see if maybe I had been pregnant and had an early miscarriage or what. I left work early, drove downtown and did the blood draw (one of the least painful thus far). Then came home, watched a couple Netflix movies and went to bed. Kaitlin got home late from her SCA fighting practice, and when I told her about my RE adventures she just shrugged and assured me that we’re pregnant. :P Gotta love her stubborn optimism!

Now comes the really confusing part. I woke up this morning and it seemed like the spotting had stopped. The small amount that was still left is still brownish-greenish-black. I had to get up earlier than usual for an early work shift, to make up for the hours I missed yesterday. I often feel a little sick to my stomach when I have an earlier wake-up time, and I didn’t sleep that well last night, so on my commute and even now as I’m sitting at my desk I’m feeling a bit nauseous.

My temp is rising a little, and I think it’s a little higher than my usual coverline, which is somewhere between 97.3 and 97.5. Still, I find it hard to believe I could be pregnant after a temp drop like what I had the past few days. And if so, I’m worried that the low temperatures indicate not enough progesterone to sustain a pregnancy. Really trying not to get my hopes up. I haven’t taken a pregnancy test for several days now, because when the spotting started and my temperature dropped I just assumed it was a waste… But I guess there’s the chance the doc might call today and tell me I’m pregnant. Or that I WAS pregnant and now I’m not because of too little progesterone. Then again, she could also say that I was never pregnant at all, and my body is just acting up because I had all that Clomid last cycle. Of all those possibilities the latter is the most likely, of course.

But right now there’s nothing really I can do except wait for the doctor’s call to find out where we go from here. In the meantime I’m going to try and eat a little breakfast to see if I can settle my stomach. Kaitlin has a dentist appointment this morning, which is a pretty scary thing for her – she and dentists do not mesh well, but she has some pretty urgent dental issues that have to be taken care of. Hoping all goes well and she’s able to relax so that it doesn’t hurt too much. Also, need to go get her Valentine’s Day gift this afternoon...

NO IDEA WHAT CD TO CALL THIS

My temps have been nose-diving. Yesterday afternoon, around 1:30, I started spotting. But it was a strange sort of spotting – the blood was dark, lacked color, was almost black.  Yesterday evening I had a lot of cramping, like I do with a particularly bad AF. This morning the spotting continued, heavier, more like a light flow… but here we are at 1 in the afternoon and it’s still black rather than the nice bright red I’m used to.

First off, I don't usually spot. I just go from no-AF to HELLO-AF! pretty quickly. Secondly, I know enough about bodily function to know that usually when blood is dark or black, it’s because it’s old and the oxygen that makes it nice and red isn’t present. With my temperature so low, I’m not holding out any hope that I’m pregnant… but I do wonder if such an unusual AF means that I’m actually experiencing an early miscarriage… if maybe I did have some implantation a while ago, but then lost it because of the temperature drop, and wasn’t able to really start shedding the blood/lining until AF cramping started?

I don’t know. It’s really weird, though. I called my RE’s office and left a message with the receptionist, and she’s going to have the nurse call me back. I do want to figure out where we go from here – if this is AF, I’d like to be ready to go with Clomid in a more timely fashion this month, and start on CD3 if possible (which I *think* will be Friday? If today is CD1?)

So no Valentines baby for us, sigh. On to the next round!

In the meantime my tax refunds came in, so I put them on my credit card right away. Since we’ll have a round of TTC this month, my balance will be back up to around $1000 by my next paycheck, and it will take me at least until May 1^st to get it all paid off  (especially if our next couple TTC rounds aren’t successful either.) I’m debating what to do about my car, which is in desperate need of new tires. March and April are dangerously snowy months here, and I can get a new set of tires installed at Walmart for about $250. I’d really rather wait until I get my card paid off before adding to it again. But I’m not sure I’ll have a choice… right now it’s like driving a tiny hockey puck and I have such a long commute that it’s extra-dangerous not to take care of it now. I think I’ll probably end up having to get the new tires this month and it will just be that much longer before I can get myself out of debt again. (Although, if we could just get the next round of TTC to work it would be MUCH faster…)

A lot of stuff roiling at work, too, and it’s a little exhausting today because my energy levels aren’t up where they usually are. It’s one of those days where I really just want to go home, curl up in bed with my puppy and nap, and not have to think about any of the stuff here that’s demanding my attention. Of course, that will only prolong the problems, so the better tactic would be to buckle in and figure out how to solve them so they aren’t on my plate anymore, yeah?

IUI#1 CD27 12DPI - Oh, Monday...

I’m certain it’s a BFN for this cycle. *sigh* Yesterday and this morning my temp plummeted, and now I’m below coverline… AF is coming. I took several pregnancy tests over the weekend and they were all negative. I didn't even bother to test this morning after seeing how low my temp went - I’m just waiting for AF to show today. Since I will have had a mere 11 day LP, I’m going to really push my RE for progesterone next cycle.

Disappointed, of course, though I knew our chances weren't that high to begin with. Still, I had a little more hope than usual because of the two follies.  I've learned from experience, though, that the first TTC cycle is more of a roller coaster than subsequent attempts. I think the level of hope is just higher, having not yet experienced BFNs, and there's that sort of starry-eyed dream that I'll be one of the lucky ones to be successful on the very first attempt. But, combine today's disappointment with the general grumpiness of PMS and it’s the makings for a not so fun day.

Still, as soon as AF shows up I’ll call my doctor’s office to get things moving for our next attempt. My hope is that she’ll give me another round of 100mg Clomid, and that I can start taking it earlier – like, CD3 thru 7, maybe – so that we can get the IUI in a little earlier in the cycle than we did last time. Maybe a second cycle of it will also bring my FSH down further, too. And I'll be asking for progesterone this time. Three more vials of swimmers left, so three more attempts before we talk other options. 

In the meantime I got absolutely nothing accomplished over the weekend. So I’m behind in my house cleaning and embroidery project… Just generally feeling pretty cranky at life this morning. At least one of my meetings this morning was cancelled, so that I can get a little more work done today.

So glad that Monday only comes once a week…