Hello Lovelies,
So I am deep in the two week wait trenches. The time of evaluating the entire month, all your decisions, your hopes, your dreams… For signs that this might have worked. This is how I have lived for over two and a half years now. Month-by-month. The same roller coaster, with different scenery. This month went a little something like this…
Day 3-5 take Clomid: hate, hate, HATE IT! Feel like shit. Feel like a failure. Cry a lot. Drugs are evil. Drugs suck.
Day 13 go for an ultrasound: love, love, LOVE IT! Feel like the Clomid was actually fucking worth it. Watch my egg get fat, fat, fat. Count them. Measure them… Drugs are interesting. Drugs work. Big fat follie sitting at 2.1cm already!
Day 13 give myself trigger shot: hate, hate, HATE it! I sketched myself out. It took a long time to do. I don’t get it done at midnight because I hem and haw for too long. This month the freaking cap got stuck and then some leaked back out after the damn thing was injected. Worry, worry, worry that it won’t work. Drugs are yucky. Drugs are mysterious. Drugs are hard, especially shots.
Day 15 go in for IUI: love, love, LOVE IT! Excitement all around. Hubby is supportive. Hubby is adorable. We have yummy lunch together. We cuddle on the couch. We hope and pray and feel ready. Drugs do wicked cool things. By ovulation that egg must have been HUGE, Science rocks!
Day 16 start progesterone: Settle in to see side effects… remind myself that they do not mean I am pregnant. Try to be hopeful but not TOO hopeful. Wait, wait, wait.
Day 16 start of TWW: hate, hate, HATE IT! Hard to stay focused. Try to stay busy. Try to forget. Impossible on all fronts. Mostly I just obsess. I have no symptoms, not even from all the progesterone I am on. Try not to panic. Fingers crossed.
Day 25 blood beta: hate, love, hate, love, SCARED, SCARED, SCARED! So nervous I could vomit. Not from side effects, though. Still don’t have any. Try to pretend I won’t know in a few days if I’m pregnant. Try not to cry. Try not to smile. Try not to feel anything.
Yeah. So it’s been a super fun month, no? But this is the roller coaster I have become accustomed to. Month-by-month. This is my life. However, this is the last time that the roller coaster will look like this. This is the last time we ride this specific track. If we do not get off the ride this month the scenery changes… dramatically. There will still be ups and down on the ride but it will look very, very different. I’m trying to guard myself against pain and not feel hope… but I’d be lying if I said hope doesn’t creep in. It does. I feel it.
It’s the only way I can keep moving forward.
It’s the only thing that lets me picture getting off this ride.
And I am so ready to get the hell off this ride!!
Do you know what’s super cool though? Getting to see my eggs on ultrasound. I find it fascinating! Especially because the fertility issue we are working with, diminished ovarian reserve, means the small size and number of my eggs is our problem. Getting to watch them grow to be the right size is almost magical! This is one of the things I enjoyed about the IUI process. The getting to watch them as they grow and then knowing the actual size when I do the trigger shot.
This month was the best one yet. My little fat eggies were growing away, my dominant follie was 2.1cm when we triggered. YIPPEE!! Last month it was 1.9 at trigger. I know they continue to mature after the shot so this month my egg will be between 2.3-2.5 at ovulation! That’s so fat!! So hopefully it means that this egg will be more amenable to becoming a baby.
I’ll soon find out.
Fingers crossed.
Watching the eggs grow and get big makes everything seem so much more “real”. Like they are real eggs that I have seen, making it feel much more like they could turn into a real baby that we could keep as well.
This has me thinking about IVF. If we need to move on with treatment that is our next step. What would it be like to actually see the embryos we had created!? How cool THAT must be! This gives me hope that if we end up needing IVF I might find it pretty fascinating. It wont override the cost, and it wont override the needles and discomfort. But at least I can picture SOME upside. To get to see LOTS of eggs grow and swell. Then find out how many fertilized, hear about the development every day and then… SEE the embryos before they are injected into me! How freaking amazing is that?! Science really is so freaking cool!
Don’t get me wrong, I very much wish to avoid IVF. I would love it if this month was our month and that was that. But at least if we need to do IVF it will feel productive and a little exciting. After two and a half years of this crap it will be nice to feel like we are getting somewhere. And somehow are a little more in control of the process again.
But I am getting a little ahead of myself. We aren’t at IVF yet. Still in the process of second IUI. Deep breaths.
Love,
Unpregnant Chicken
First of all, thank you for the kind and supportive words on my blog. I have read that fertility causes much of the same anxiety and depression as cancer, and coupled with my pre-infertility depression, it’s no wonder these feelings arose.
Ok, on to your blog! I always admire your outlook on infertility. You have turned the ultrasounds and minutiae of treatments into opportunities to learn about your body. It really IS fascinating all the things that hapoen in regards to reproduction. Sure gives me a greater appreciation for the miracle of life.
Don’t think too much about IVF yet. You have promising data from this cycle. But, IF it is the next step, I may be there with you as this will likely also be my last IUI before bringing out the big guns.
Nicole,
I have really loved getting to experience my fertility differently and learn more about it. Seeing everything happen has been amazing! I feel almost like I NEED to think about IVF, it gives me a safety net to fall into if this cycle is BFN. I lets me know it isn’t the end and that I have a plan. But obviously I hope it doesn’t come to that.
XOXXO, Unpregnant Chicken
Hi Kaeleigh,
I really wanted to say, I really like your blog. I have lots to say but am more of a talker then a writer!
Anyways, I am also in the 2ww, so right there with you. I should know within the next 2 to 5 days if it took or not. I say that because last time, I got my menses before I did the pregnancy blood test. Good f’ing times! Yah, I swear like a trucker too! I also wanted to tell you that if it doesn’t work for you that the needles aren’t that bad once you get used to them. Better then the trigger shot. That being said, I hope this is your month!!!
We did one IUI and it didn’t work so decided to move onto IVF because of my age, and I just had a feeling there was something more going on and therefore, IUI would not work. When we discussed with our doc, he said they can tell much more of what’s going on, especially with egg quality when they do IVF. So we wanted to take the money we were going to spend on IUI and just put it towards IVF. By the way, I was doing IUI with injections, not Clomid. During our first try at IVF, it was cancelled due to the quantity of eggs and the fact that they were growing too fast. Apparently, they don’t see this often and it is usually with women in there early to mid 40s. I am 36. So they reverted me back to IUI but percentages are lower this time due to having to take my trigger on day 6. So, it was good we decided to try IVF sooner rather than later because most likely we would have been wasting our money if we kept doing IUI. If this doesn’t work out we take two months off and they are going to try IVF but with a different protocol. They have a suspicion, there might be an issue with my eggs. We mis-carried back in May so it makes sense, which is such a shitty thing and is a whole different conversation!
It’s nice to be able to share and hear others journeys as I don’t have any friend or family member that has gone through this, so no one to talk to who truly understands. My husband is great but he is a man so doesn’t get everything, especially the physical stuff, and he is a man, oh right I already said that, which means he can only listen so much! Haha Forums like this, make me feel like I am not alone, that being said, I wouldn’t wish this journey on anyone to share rude with me and I would hope that we are all pregnant soon.
Good luck with this cycle Kaeleigh and I will say a little prayer for you.
Katrina 🙂
Thanks Katrina!
It is so amazing to have the online support, it has made a world of difference for me too. We already know our issue is my eggs which is why we will be forgoing a third iui and jumping right into IVF. Better odds and more likely to figure out our exact issue. So yup you guessed it. BFN so onto IVF for sure. I feel ok but it’s still all very surreal. How has it come to this!? LOL
XOXXO, Unpregnant Chicken
Kaeleigh, Sorry to hear it didn’t work. I know you will probably have a couple of sad days so hopefully your husband can help to bring a smile to your face. I am glad that you are going to try IVF, as they will be able to pin point things better, and since the not knowing is part of why this infertility thing is so hard, at least you will have forward progress finding out more. You and I seem to be on similar tracks and timelines with potentially similiar issues. And yes, so surreal. Wow, sometimes, I feel like I am in a dream, and I will wake up and be with child. It’s just weird when everyone else around you is getting knocked up. Anyways, if you ever want to meet and go for coffee, I would be up for that. I feel like we are on similiar paths and can relate with our journeys.
Katrina
Katrina
Hello Katrina-Katrina,
I haven’t really been sad yet. It’s weird. I’m just so shocked that this is where I am. Like WTF? I feel it lurking behind the surface but so far nothing. Hardly any tears. I suspect it will catch up to me. I wish I would wake up and it had all been a dream. But I feel pretty firmly cemented in reality right now. Shitty, Shitty reality. I’ll contact you directly to get to know you better. If you’re not a crazy stalker I’d love to do coffee 😉
XOXXO, Unpregnant Chicken
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