Waiting Just Plain Sucks

It's been awhile since I've been around so for a quick catch up...IUI #3 was a bust (which I completely expected - I'm not even sure we got the timing right), therefore we started moving forward with our first IVF cycle, which included taking a 1 month break. RE wanted a few months break, but I barely have any patience left and waiting 1 month has been a killer. I can NOT imagine doing this for a few months. I will say it was worth it in terms of having time to figure out insurance coverage, get our bloodwork done and IG had to freeze a sample. All of that is now done. All that is left is the waiting. My period should start sometime over the next week and I'm dying for it to start. Funny how that's the exact opposite of the last two years where I was hoping/praying for it not to start. 

We have our prescriptions for the birth control and the antibiotics and will likely do 21 days of BCP before starting Lupron. So not only do I have to wait for this period to start, I have to wait 21 more days before starting anything real. I understand it and I get that it's the protocol and I know everyone going through IVF goes through some form of this same schedule, but dang it, it's hard. Like always, I do ok for the first couple of weeks and then the last week just drags and drags. Maybe after starting birth control I will be able to relax. Assuming my subconscious lets me, because there is nothing I can do for the next 3 weeks but take the pills and wait for the next step to start. It'll be interesting to see what it's like to be back on birth control, I've been off since before Q was born (obviously) so that's about 5 years at this point. I used to take the lowest dose, the mini pills, because it would make me so sick and so crazy. That is not what I got a prescription for so this should be interesting. 

I'm so anxious for this process to move forward that I created an excel calendar with project dates of when I think everything will happen. I won't get my calendar from the RE until my period starts, but I'm such a planner I couldn't help myself. Right now we are looking at ER and ET somewhere near the end of May. Which really isn't that far away, but feels like it might as well be next year at this point. I'm also starting to get seriously nervous about everything going ok. What if I don't respond to the medicine? What if we don't get a lot of eggs? What if none of them fertilize? What if they do fertilize, but all of the arrest? What if we do end up with beautiful embryos and this whole thing still doesn't work? I am already going crazy. 

I know I will be devastated if this doesn't work. And I know there is just as much chance it won't work that it will. I don't know how to prepare myself for that. I look at Q and feel this indescribable emotion, it is beyond love it is something that transcends love and I can't picture a world where I don't get to feel that again. He's started asking me a lot about babies and will randomly ask me if there is a baby in my belly or where his brother is and each of those questions breaks a little piece of my heart. I'm failing my precious little boy and it's chipping away at my heart. 

I started with a summary so I'll wrap it up with a summary: 

I'm anxious

I'm excited

I'm scared shitless

I'm hopeful

I'm crazy

and I'm desperately trying to focus on a positive outcome. 

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.

Still Around

I haven't posted here in awhile, but I'm still around and still not pregnant. IUI #2.1 was a BFN and both IG and I took this one really hard. We both felt very optimistic this time around and I would have to say this was the hardest BFN to date. It was especially frustrating because my period was late (is this normal for IUI's?) by like 4 days.Every failure has been heartbreaking, but for some reason this one was worst than the others. I did break down and buy some FRER's and it is unbelievable the amount of anxiety I feel now every time I take a test. And it's the complete opposite of the type of anxiety I would've felt in my earlier life, which was anxiety over it being positive and now I have anxiety over it being negative. Like a serious sweaty, shaky mess waiting for the longest 3 minutes every to elapse. Which probably isn't healthy, but I've never been good at controlling my nerves. And this last failure has put me into a really negative head space, like I just don't feel like anything will work because both times our numbers have been good and it doesn't seem to matter. I know I need to think positive and I know that there is always (regardless of size) a chance that this month will be the month, but it's hard to stay positive after 22 failures in a row. It takes it's toll, you know?

So next steps are IUI #3, which is consequently tomorrow.  This is later than all my other IUI's. I went in on CD 9, same as last two attempts, only to see next to nothing happening in there. There was only 1 follicle of any significance and that was at 14mm- this was on Friday so triggered last night and will have IUI tomorrow morning. Which is an absolute bitch with my work schedule, Wednesday mornings are the mornings that are like crucial for me to be at work because I run a status meeting presented to my entire program and asking someone to cover it is a real pain. Especially asking someone to cover it without going into much detail around why I need them to cover it. But I'll make it work, because I have to and I don't want to miss the entire month because of 1 stupid meeting.

At first I didn't even want to go forward with a third IUI, I was convinced it would be a wast of time and money (maybe I'll be wrong, maybe I won't), so I initially called in and asked if we could move onto something more aggressive.Apparently that requires a consult with the RE and apparently he books those weeks in advance. So I immediately scheduled the consult, which was today, and agreed to move forward with the IUI cycle. Yeah a lot has happened since the last time I posted here, but I think the break did me good. I felt sadder for a lot longer this time around and I needed the space and time to feel that and deal with it and move on.

So IFV consult was today and we were all in agreement that if this doesn't work then next step is IVF, we also agreed that a lap surgery, while might give us some answers, wouldn't really be fruitful. Assuming the lap comes back positive, I'm not sure we would do anything to treat what is found there as IVF bypasses most areas impacted by endo. And in my opinion it just adds additional time into our timeline. And the RE thinks there is only about a 15% chance that the lap would come back positive anyways, so with those odds I say move forward. RE was pushing for a two month break between this IUI and IVF because he said sometimes the body bounces back after re-setting from all the fertility drugs and people have gotten pregnant during those types of breaks. July marks two years of trying for us, so I really wasn't interested in wasting anymore time, but I did agree to a one month break in between. With that schedule we are looking at mid-late May for egg retrieval and egg transfer. Nurse is getting my IVF packet ready so that I can start filling out all the necessary paperwork and get all the necessary blood work. The RE gave us an estimate of about $11,000 all in per IVF cycle. Luckily my insurance will cover at least 80% of that (100% as soon as I meet the out of pocket maximum, which I should after this first cycle). I'm not sure however if they will cover the estimated $3,000 to $3,500 for meds. They didn't cover my trigger shots, so who knows, but I'll have time to figure it all out before we get started. We are fortunate enough to not only have insurance coverage, but to also be in a pretty financially stable point in our lives, so while it will suck to pay that mount of money it won't bankrupt us.

That's where we are. I'm nervous about IVF and don't want to have to do it, but I'm not optimistic that this last IUI or a break cycle will get me anywhere. Universe feel free to prove me wrong at anytime.

IUI #2.1

As planned we had IUI #2.1 on Friday morning. This weekend was also my birthday so I was busy with doing a little of all of my favorite things and haven't had a chance to update on the IUI yet. This IUI felt different than the last one, in that I woke up Friday morning feeling definite pain/discomfort in my ovaries and even radiating around through my back. I'm hoping this is a sign that our timing was good this time and hoping that was the feeling of the follicles releasing the eggs. Last time on the day of IUI I felt nothing, felt like ovulation had already past. Our counts were a bit lower, only 35mil post wash this time (we had 50mil last time), I don't remember the motility, but RE said everything was good. I did have one more follicle than I did last time so sperm was lower but targets where higher - so maybe our odds are about the same?

The actual IUI went off without issue. IG was there with me this time, first time he's been to any of my RE appointments, but since it was a weekday we were able to drop Q off at school and head there after. IG thought Dr. Williams was a little odd, which he is, but if he gets us pregnant I don't care how odd he is. Dr. Williams was giving the "guys" a pep talk while injecting them. IG thought this was very weird, but hey I'd rather have a room filled with positive energy, so I didn't mind the cheering. As before, I didn't have any cramping or discomfort related to the IUI. I did continue to have pain in my ovaries and back throughout the day, I just kept thinking that was a good sign. We also were able to have sex that night, so we got another couple million guys in there. 

Dr. Williams said if this doesn't work we will talk about what we do next, IUI or not. My RE's office only does 6 rounds of clommid (I think this is pretty standard). I've only done 5, because I only did two clomid + TI cycles before asking them if I could move onto IUI. However, my RE's office isn't good with details like that and I think they think I've already done 6 rounds of clomid. I don't have any refills on my prescription and they can't remember that I didn't follow the normal path. I'm not that worried about, because while clomid hasn't been bad for me (side effects wise) if this doesn't work, I'd rather move on to a different protocol then keep spinning our wheels on something that isn't successful. 

So I'm officially in the 2WW. Doing B/W this Friday to test progesterone and then really would be able to find out on Valentine's day. All though I think I'm AF or bust so I don't think I'll test until AF is officially, officially late which would be like 2/17 or after. I don't have any tests in the house so that helps with this goal. Like I said before if the timing was ever good for us this would be it, having the IUI on my birthday weekend and being able to end the 2WW on Valentine's day, just seems to perfect to be anything but a positive outcome. 

In the meantime I'm keeping fingers, toes and everything else crossed. 

Status Report

So went in today for monitoring appointment and we are all good to trigger tonight!! I'm so glad I called and had the appointment moved from tomorrow to today, I had a +OPK yesterday and today and there were 3 good follies in there, 1 on the right (which I was surprised because I've been feeling everything on the left) and 2 on the left. The cyst that was on the right side at baseline is almost completely gone. Lining was 8mm. So we will trigger tonight, do the deed and IUI #2 is scheduled for Friday morning 9am.

Please keep all fingers and toes and anything else crossed. RE and nurse were very positive and optimistic, which makes me very positive and hopeful. And plus like I said before this weekend is my birthday and my 2WW will end on Valentine's day, so this has got to be our month right? Everything seems to be aligned.

Today I am grateful that my body is back on track and that we have 3 targets to hit for this IUI.

I am grateful for my ability to listen to my body and to have the drive to do what I think is right for my body.

I am grateful for my body's ability to re-set itself.

Status Report

This cycle is chugging along, I'm on what I consider cycle day 9.  Like my first IUI cycle, RE's office is counting this as day 8 because my period started late in the day for day 1, late being 4:30pm. I have no problem with them tracking it that way, but my cycles happen rapid fire and I feel like last IUI when I went on RE's CD 10 (my 9), it was a little too late. I had already gotten a positive OPK and my follies were really large. So I was originally scheduled to do my next ultrasound on Thursday, but called today and asked for it to be changed to tomorrow, because I'd rather be early and wait an extra day to trigger than be too late. I can't handle another month of missing out. I'm pretty sure I'm ovulating on the left side based on what I've been feeling. All though for the third month in a row my ovulation pain seems to be a lot less than what it normally is so that has me a little worried. Another reason why I'm ready to get back in there and see how things are going. 

If things keep on track then IUI should be sometime this weekend, which also happens to be when by birthday occurs. I'm taking this as a very good sign. It would be the best present ever. 

Gratitude Journal #3

Today....I am grateful for heated seats and 4 wheel drive in my vehicle.

I am grateful for the time spent playing with Q over the weekend in the snow.

I am grateful for my job. It helps to pay the bills and allows us to give Q what he needs.

I am grateful that my body seems to be back on track this cycle.

I am grateful that I get to karate tonight with Q and witness the pure joy he has for kicking and hitting things.

I am grateful that I had $3 in my wallet to buy a chia tea this morning.

I am grateful for winter and even these unbelievable cold temperatures because it make me appreciate spring more.

I am grateful for my parents who are willing to come this weekend so that IG can go with me to the IUI appointment.

I am grateful that in a few days I will celebrate another year of life that I've gotten to spend with the ones I love.