My Favorite Month of the Year

Ever since I was a kid, June has always been my favorite month of the year. Probably because it's the month of my birthday... but also because it's the start of summer, my favorite season; it always meant the end of school; the weather is finally warm and sunny again; and for me it always feels like a new beginning. A New Year's, of sorts, even if it's six months later than everybody else celebrates it.

So I guess it's apropos that AF started yesterday, on June 1st, and my Lupron shipment arrived at the same time. That means we should be starting Lupron around the 21st or so of this month, and CD1 of our next cycle attempt will be around the 24th.

My birthday is next week. I love birthdays, though neither of us has money for much of anything this year. I think we'll go out to dinner, maybe go see a movie. Usually I like to do something kind of big on my birthday, a staycation or some activity I've always wanted to try, but I would gladly trade that for a successful cycle in July. I'm not going to take the day off work. Kind of a shame,  because my birthday's a Friday this year and it will be seven years before it's on Friday again, but I'm conserving vacation days for our next upcoming attempt and, with any luck, maternity leave.

I could sit around and feel sorry for myself, but I'd rather look at it as a trade... that my birthday present this year will be a sticky BFP in August. That's all I really want, anyway. Nothing, no other gift could compare, and I would trade every other present I ever have or will receive if I could just have that.

Still, I'm doing my best not to think too much about it this time. The roller coaster of longing, fear, anxiety and doubt is too exhausting. I end up worrying myself into a little knot of unfulfilled hope, where every breath I take is accompanied by a will-it-work-this-time thought, and I'm sure it's not doing anything but possibly making my body less hospitable for implantation. It certainly isn't *helping.*  I'm really not looking forward to resuming medication - the hot flashes on Lupron, the uncontrollable mood swings and congestion of estrogen, the constant peeing and meaningless pregnancy-symptoms of progesterone. Not really excited about the jet lag and the looooooong flight either.

But, I am excited by the idea of being in Athens in July. It will be hot, which maybe means a hotel with a pool, maybe even a trip to the beach. I haven't been to a beach in five years. But I am sitting on my butt with my legs up for TWO WHOLE DAYS after the transfer, this time. Period. There's so little that I can do to actually help make this work, and that's a simple one.

In the meantime, trying to distract myself. I'm selling what I can on Ebay, and helping Kaitlin do the same. She sold her living room set, the one that's been living in our garage for three years, so she can finally park her car in the garage again and she was able to put a little extra into savings so that she can come to Greece this time. I'm spending way more time than I should window-shopping online for cute, feminine, pink-and-lacy clothes (I wonder if all this estrogen I've been pumping myself with for the last eighteen months has fired up my girly-girl side?). I'm sewing cute little doll clothes, even put a set on Etsy to see if anybody would like it. I'm watching 24 with Kaitlin, and a new Korean drama series by myself. I'm putting together cute summery outfits to wear to work, and playing with my dog. I'm trying to keep the house clean, and planning spring-cleaning type projects. We even trimmed back our big lilac trees in the backyard over the weekend, and now there is a pile of branches hanging out back there that we'll have to spend this coming weekend breaking down into sacks for the trash people.

Just staying busy, trying not to think too much, and trying to pick positive thoughts when the thinking is inevitable. Trying to keep myself from feeling like this is our "last chance". Trying to remind myself that this won't be over until I say it is.

And trying to stay focused on how wonderful it is that it's finally June.

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.