IUI#5 CD26 10DPI – Today is not my day

I feel like I’m going to cry today. Super emotional, and of course it’s impossible to tell if that’s a pregnancy symptom or a PMS symptom because they’re both so similar.

Took a pregnancy test last night, and again this morning – both negative. Found out yesterday evening that Kaitlin’s contract ended, so she lost her job – thankfully my job is doing okay for now, but with that and Battlemoor coming up (I’m trying to be excited, really I am, but I’m just not feeling it…) and my brother getting married next month (they’re planning to start trying for kids right away) I’m feeling really depressed today.

It’s still really early – only 10DPI – so it’s entirely possible I could still get a positive test over the weekend or even into next week. But I am dreading spending Battlemoor on my period, with yet another failed cycle and $2200 on my credit card and another month of injections to look forward to with less income… I just feel like I could go home and cry my eyes out, but I can’t because I need to be here at work getting things done.

This work week has been insane; I’ve been hopping all day long, every day, with barely a minute to breathe, much less eat. I am exhausted and feeling kind of hopeless, like there’s really nothing to look forward to in the foreseeable future. I don’t have any vacation coming up; this next holiday weekend gets spent sitting around outside in the sun and the rain and the bugs with pretty much nothing to do, in uncomfortable clothes, just waiting for the event to be over… my brother’s wedding – while I am so happy for him and I love Johanna, my new sister in law, and am looking forward to being there for them on their really awesome day – I can’t help being frustrated. I want to be gracious and loving and just simply happy for my brother, and instead I feel so selfish and horrible.

Maybe I don’t deserve to be a mom??

Or maybe, and more likely, fate is just indifferent altogether. Women who don’t want and shouldn’t be having children have more than they know what to do with, while I can’t get pregnant with even one, not even after spending thousands of dollars trying.

I feel heartbroken and haven’t even gotten a BFN yet this cycle.

I can barely pay attention enough to answer questions from my boss. We’re shorthanded today at work. I am so depressed I can barely stand it, yet there’s nothing to do but keep marching on through the day.

One small glimmer of happiness is that my publisher set the publication date for my next book to March 2015. That’s much sooner than November, which is what they originally told me. It means I’ll have the book out in time for next year’s Pride. So I guess I do have something to look forward to, even if it’s seven months away. I’ll just have to hang on to that for now.

IUI#5 CD16 0DPI - ROUND FIVE!

IUI #5 kicked off this morning. Kaitlin came to the appointment with me today. And I'm feeling optimistic, much more so than last cycle. I have a very thick lining, and at least two good-sized follies; and our new donor's sample was nearly twice the volume of the last one (.9ml instead of .45) and had over 22 million motile swimmers (compared to 7.4 million in the last one). So with three times the swimmers and an even better lining, I am hopeful that we've got a good chance this round.

Plus, I had a dream last night about giving birth and breastfeeding. :P Good sign??

This one cycle has cost nearly $3000, between needing two 900IU vials of Follistim instead of one, and needing more office visits than last time, and having to order more swimmers. It would be really, really nice if this was the one that took. Most of the forum posters who have had success with injectables say that their second injectable round was the lucky one... so I'm holding on to hope. At this point it feels like we've been waiting for a BFP for so long that if it does show up it won't feel real. I've had so many dreams about seeing those two pink lines... if/when it happens I think it's going to feel like I must still be dreaming.

So let's see... if we get pregnant this time, due date will be May 5th. Cinco de Mayo baby! Even better, his/her birthdate would be 5-5-15. LOL... And hey, it also means that I'd have May/June/July off of work for maternity leave, and that's a delightful prospect.

The cramping hasn't started yet, but I'm expecting it to show up in an hour or so. I'm really looking forward to the TWW this time, as it means a reprieve from daily shots and every-other-day blood draws. The insides of my poor elbows are black and blue right now! The nurse also called in a refill of progesterone, so I'll be back to taking that this time around. Since my LP last month was only 10 days it seems like the smartest course of action.  Admittedly, it was nice to have my definitive answer sooner, as it meant we could move onto the next round more quickly. But if a longer wait is the price I have to pay to be sure I don't miscarry a potentially successful pregnancy, then it's worth it. So progesterone starts on Friday night... and then we just have to wait and see. Our test date will be 8/28. Fingers crossed!

IUI#5 CD15 - IUI Tomorrow!

Life has been a whirlwind the past week or two, and I haven't had much time to update.

I've been on the Follistim a little longer, I think, than last time, and the doses have been a lot higher - we never got below 125IU/night, which meant that I had to purchase TWO 900IU vials this time around. This cycle is a lot more expensive than the ones before, with double the meds and ordering more swimmers. SIGH.

But, I had an ultrasound yesterday morning (Sunday) and have three decent-sized follies; one of them is somewhere around 20mm all by itself. So they had us do the trigger shot last night, and the IUI procedure (with our new swimmers) will be tomorrow morning. Hoping against hope that this is the one, especially since it was so darned expensive.

If not, we have one more round of injectables before we start packing our bags and pinching our pennies for a trip to Greece...

In the meantime, I am looking forward to a week or two without doctor appointments and injections. Funny how the TWW starts to feel like a vacation from TTC. :P

We celebrated Kaitlin's unbirthday last Friday - I took her to an exotic car test-driving place and she got to drive a $300,000 fancy sports car. She enjoyed herself thoroughly. :) That was followed by alcohol-infused cupcakes, a movie, dinner at Joe's Crab Shack and a comedy show at the Improv. All in all, a very fun day. Saturday I had a writer's event with a local LGBT fiction group, held at a local lesbian-owned coffeehouse. We had a relatively small turnout, but a lot of good conversation. And I spent yesterday vegging out at home (after the ultrasound and a couple of hours of overdue yard maintenance.)

The work week has started again and I don't feel ready. I have several big pieces on my plate today, including coordinating a temp to work in our file room, and a ton of afternoon meetings. I don't feel like touching any of them, but I need to get started or I won't have enough time to get through everything. Off I go, then...

IUI#5 CD4 - Things are rolling again

I got a call two nights ago from the RE's office - still just CD2 - and they asked me to start my Follistim that night at a dose of 150IU. So Kaitlin's given me the shots, that night and last night, and I have an ultrasound/bloodwork appointment for Friday morning. I think I'm going to stop by the Avella pharmacy first and pick up my trigger shot, to minimize time that I'm out of work.

I also ordered the swimmers and had them shipped to my RE, but they haven't received them as of this morning when I called... I asked them to call and leave me a message once they do get them, just so I know they arrived safely. Two little vials, and they're so darned expensive. I am hoping that with this new donor, the samples may be fresher (he runs out of supply quickly, so he must be popular and currently donating) and maybe there will be a higher motility count. It would also be really nice if this donor's chemistry was maybe a little more compatible with mine.

In the meantime, stress at work is escalating again.

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....