Continuing the journey

Well it looks like this latest IUI is a BFN. I haven't taken any tests yet, but did get some dark brown CM over the weekend, which is usually a good indicator that my period is a few days away - which would be right on schedule with this IUI. So I'm expecting my period to start sometime this week. I'm trying to process the fact that another cycle has failed. You would think it would get easier after 23 cycles and 23 failures, but that's not how it seems to work. I haven't cried yet, maybe there is still some part of me that is holding out hope that there is still a chance for a BFP, even though I know that really isn't likely. And there is a part of me that is just ready for this to be over to move forward to IVF. Which honestly I've felt all along would be the only way we would achieve success. But it still sucks to be here, it still sucks not to be one of the lucky ones with IUI, it still sucks that it was so easy to conceive Q and that for no discernible reason so hard this time. It. Still. Sucks. It hurts and it's hard and it's sad and disappointing and scary.

I have two baby showers coming up in the very near future. For friends that I've had for nearly my entire life. And my heart sinks just thinking about it. And I know that both of these events will be exhausting for me and I know that it's neither of these women's fault that I'm in the situation that I'm in, but still there is a part of me that is resentful. I have been trying to get pregnant for a whole year before they were pregnant and now both of them will have babies before I even have a pregnancy. One of the things that is often talked about in my yoga classes is the idea of focusing on yourself and your mat and not comparing yourself to others. Because their abilities and strengths might not be the same as your abilities and strengths. But it is so hard to take that and translate it into real life. How can I not compare my inadequacies to someone else's easy success. And I know that there are things in my life that I have that others are praying for, just as there is this thing in my life that others have that I am praying for. But knowing any or all of that doesn't make this any easier. I know that someday I will look back at this struggle it will be a blip on the radar of my life, but right now it feels all consuming and never ending. It feels insurmountable.

Anyways the next step in our journey is as follows; take the next month off and complete all testing required for IVF, complete paperwork, determine insurance coverage and deposit required in order to move forward after my cycle starts in April. From our initial consult it looks like we will do 21 days of BCP and then start Lupron (dose unknown at this point as waiting on CD3 bloodwork) and then about a weeks of stims. With that schedule, assuming my period starts this week and then again in 28 days (which is a conservative estimate, usually 26 days) we are looking at ER and ET somewhere in the last two weeks of May. I have such mixed emotions about starting IVF. I'm excited because I know it significantly increases our chances of getting pregnant and I feel good about our personal chances of success. But I'm scared out of my mind about everything involved and the intense ride that it appears to be. I'm not excited to put my body through all the craziness and I get sick to my stomach thinking about failure. I honestly don't know how I'll handle an IVF failure and that scares me. It feels like such a big investment and not just from a financial standpoint, but from an emotional and physical standpoint. And what if that investment doesn't turn out to be fruitful?

I've mostly taken a silent journey when dealing with infertility. A few friends and family members know what we are going through, but I don't talk about it often. It's just not me. IG and I barely even talk about it, even though I know we are both processing it. Sometimes I think this would be so much easier if I had a community to fall back on, but I just can't seem to reach out. Something holds me back. So for me this has been one of the loneliest times of my life. I feel like no one truly understands what I'm going through. What it feels like to have your body utterly fail you and to not have any answers as to why. I try to imagine our life as a family of three and it breaks my heart. I know I'm not ready to give up yet and that there are still things to try, but I'm starting to get frustrated with the timeline. Nearly 2 years of trying, nearly 1 year of treatment and not a single positive pregnancy test.

I've felt for a very long time that IVF was going to be the thing that was going to work for us. Somewhere along the line I've lost that positivity and I need to find it again, because the odds are greatly in our favor for this. And if the first round doesn't work then we will learn from it and continue to move forward. I knew this was going to be hard, but I could have never imagined.