Trying To Make Sense

I have spent a lot of time on my infertility journey trying to make sense of it all. Trying to determine where the curve was that moved us from easily able to conceive to a complete inability to do so. Trying to decipher my temperatures and analyze every little aspect of my cycle. Trying to navigate the lingo and world of infertility and specialists and protocols. And I still don't have a grasp on it. I've spent countless hours researching, lurking message boards, stalking blogs and trying to learn from others journeys, but I still feel lost and confused. There are so many aspects of infertility that are uncertain. I am uncertain if the medications or IUI or IVF or anything will help us achieve this goal. Being diagnosed unexplained there isn't even any certainty in what is causing us to struggle this time around.  And it all feels like a shot in the dark. Who knows what protocol will work, because who knows what's really wrong. And in all of it I always feel like I'm doing something wrong. That if I was just able to do it all right then we would be able to get pregnant. For the majority of this journey I have tracked my cycle with temperatures and OPKs and cervical fluid and all other things and even though on paper it looks like we've timed things right, I'm never confident we have. I'm uncertain that we did everything we could in each cycle to make us successful. I question my body, I question my thoughts, I question my plans and my Dr's and my husband. I question when to have sex and if it should be every day or every other day or abstain before IUI or not. I question if I even know when my period actually starts.

Prior to this journey I never questioned my body. It's always been good to me and I've always tried to be good to it. I feed it healthy foods, I rest it, I keep it limber and fit, I give it vitamins and nurture it when it feels run down. But now I feel like its my enemy. That it's blocking me from achieving my greatest desire. That it's mocking me and turning on me. When I was pregnant the first time, my body was amazing. Conception was easy, pregnancy was easy, labor and delivery were easy, recover was easy, breastfeeding was easy. But this time around my body is failing me and I don't know why and I don't know how to change it.

This cycle has been the most confusing to date and adding more things into the mix just muddies the water. Each cycle on clomid my period has gotten lighter and shorter. This time around I started what I thought was my period on Monday 12/9. Let me also say, I've never spotted before a period. Ever. I know my period is going to start by the fact that a day or two before hand I will see some brownish color CM, I do not consider this spotting as it is only visible when wiping and looking really closely. And I didn't even know this happened until I really started monitoring every aspect of every cycle when I started this journey. So it wasn't even anything I was aware happened before trying to conceive this time. So when I started to bleed enough to need a liner or a tampon (even though it wouldn't soak the tampon) I thought it was my period. Therefore, I assumed 12/9 to be CD 1, called the RE, got a clomid refill and started taking the clomid on day 3. I did however take a test on Wednesday before taking the clomid just to make sure because my "period" was so light, I wanted to make sure. It was of course a BFN, so I took the clomid and assumed that as previous cycles the medicine was just making the period lighter and shorter. Then Friday rolls around and definite heavy bleeding starts. I was completely unprepared, I was in Chicago for work and only had a single tampon that was in my purse, I hadn't brought anything with me because I thought at that point my period was over.

To confuse matters even more my trigger was 11/22 and my IUI 11/24, which I had two very large (26, 29) follicles on my right side. So if the trigger worked as it should and forced ovulation 24-36 after injection then I would have had to ovulate on the latest 11/24, but my period didn't start until 18 days later - is that even possible? In the 20 cycles that I've been tracking I've never had an LP longer than 15 days. So does that mean I never ovulated or did I mess it up by taking the clomid too early? When bleeding did start 3 days after starting the clomid, I just stayed the course and continued to take the clomid, taking the last one on Sunday 12/15. And I can't seem to get any answers.

Now let's get even more confusing. I had an ultrasound appointment yesterday (2 days after my period stopped and 3 days after my last clomid). Last cycle my ultrasound was on day 10 and my follicles where already huge (which I found out this time around they like to catch them before they are that large - great thanks for not telling me that last cycle). So yesterday would've been day 10 had my period started on 12/9 or day 6 if my period started on 12/13.  And what does the ultrasound show - looks like I've already ovulated - um WTF? There is a large cyst on my left side like 26 mm and a very small follicle on my right side at 12 mm. There is fluid in the cavity and what the RE called a whitening of the uterine lining, which was only at 7.7 and which is consistent with ovulation. Confusion. Utter confusion - when did my period really start how is it possible to ovulate 3 days after stopping clomid and 2 days after stopping bleeding. When asked the RE replied "yeah that would be really early" - um thanks for the information. So I was instructed to take my temperature this morning (which I haven't been tracking this cycle because I've been doing a lot of traveling, home 2 days in the last 2 weeks and thought I could give myself a break since I was being monitored with ultrasounds and would be able to get a good estimate of ovulation). He told me that if it was 97.2 or somewhere in there then I likely didn't ovulate and was just really early in my cycle, but if it was over 98 then that would indicate that progesterone was in my system. My temp this morning was 98.08, seriously? I went back and tracked all previous cycles, never have I ever, even with off times or sleep deprivation or alcohol had a temp outside of the 97s before ovulation. Confusion. Complete and utter confusion.

Needless to say IUI #2 is cancelled at this point. They said they don't really think it would do any good to bring me back tomorrow for another ultrasound and asked if I'd been having sex....well no because 1. I was out of town 2. IG has been really sick and 3. I've never ever, to my knowledge ovulated this early. But as I'm realizing in this journey, my knowledge isn't always so good. Who knows maybe I've been ovulating early all long and just never knew it. When asked if the follicles could still grow the nurse said they usually grow 2 mm a day so it's possible that by Friday the one on the right could be at 18 mm and they try to catch them between 22 mm and 24 mm. To which I asked, was I too late last time because my follicles were 26 mm and 29 mm?? And she said yes that is later than they like and that usually follicles of that size that haven't ovulated naturally aren't going to - what?!?! So if my follicles have been large in the past (which I wouldn't know because this is the first time I've had ultrasounds) then there's a possibility that I have had all the symptoms of ovulation but that it hasn't been happening. Thanks for sharing all this with me RE and staff. I'm new to all this so great to find this stuff out nonchalantly.

On top of all this, I don't feel like I've ovulated. I always have pains and back aches and this magnified since taking the clomid, so maybe there is still a chance that we haven't missed the window this month. IG and I will continue to have sex over the next week and I will track with OPKs and my temp, starting today forward ( I took an OPK yesterday and this morning, both negative). Maybe we'll be lucky, maybe we will get a Christmas miracle. We conceived last time in December so maybe this is our magical month.

RE is now going to bring me in early next cycle for a baseline ultrasound before starting the clomid again to make sure that the large cyst on the left side did dissolve and to see how things look before enhancing them with medication. It wasn't deemed necessary for me to have all this monitoring before, because I have no obvious signs of issues. I know many of you would advise me to run as fast and as far as I can from this RE's office and believe me I hear you, but the other RE's in my area are not considered centers of excellence as deemed by my reproductive resources insurance coverage. So if I don't want to pay OOP, then I'm stuck here. But I feel like every time I go, instead of feeling more enlightened or more confident I just feel more confused and disappointed.  

One thing I do know for certain, is that there is nothing certain about infertility.