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I’ll start by putting it all out there for you.  Last week was hard for us.  We struggled to make it through the first half.  I have decided, after over 10 months of us trying to have a baby, to allow myself two to three days a month of utter devastation.  I know it sounds kind of morbid, but that is what I do.  I allow myself a few days to be sad, disappointed, and borderline pessimistic, unable to see how the future looks for our family.  I don’t let it last longer than those few days, but I think it’s okay to be sad.  We realize, though we may normally be optimistic, things may not work out the way we want them to.  I grasp at hope on most days, but once a month I am reminded that our plans may not be the ultimate plan for us, so for a few days, I don’t fight the sad.

As I mentioned before, the IUI didn’t work this past time.  I knew it didn’t–I was prepared for my visitor.  I took a pregnancy test on Sunday morning (January 24), and it was negative.  I was sad,  but held it together.  Looking back, I am pretty sure I was holding on to hope that I took the test too early, and it was wrong, but they never seem to be wrong.  Thus, I was not completely caught off guard when my monthly visitor arrived on Monday night.  At this point, total devastation hit home.  We were sad.  Before you ask yourself the question everyone seems to be asking–no, we did not exactly expect the IUI and meds to work on the first try.  (We get the fact that we are not statistically inclined for things to go in our favor.)  However, our reality is that this wasn’t our first try……it was our 10th.  This was just our first try with the medication and the IUI.  This was also the first really bad month.  Don’t get me wrong; there have been several other months that we have been sad or disappointed.  Maybe it was the medication and my crazy hormones, or maybe it was the unbelievable hope we had in the medical magic.  Nonetheless, this month was harder to bounce back from than any previous.  To make matters even better my “monthly visitor” decided to pull a disappearing act on Tuesday morning.  Then she returned again on Tuesday night, only to disappear again on Wednesday morning.  (We have now renamed her the Phantom Menace.)   She decided to reappear on Wednesday–late morning, and I was clear to return to my doctor.  The good news is that Wednesday morning I was at the end of my sadness allowance, so I was in relatively good spirits when I went to the doctor’s office.

The appointment went much like all of the others, but this time I got to have an ultrasound.  I imagine these are much more exciting when you are glaring happily into a screen to see if your baby has a peep or no-peep.  However, when you are just looking into your own empty uterus, it isn’t so much fun.  (It just looks like doppler radar–cloudy, unreadable, and bleak.)  The highlight of the appointment was I got to see three new rooms in my doctor’s office.  (Don’t judge me–it is the little things that amuse me.)  I realized that they have a room across from the ultrasound room where you can wait for the ultrasound room to come available, so it is kind of like the “green room” for the ultrasound.  Once it was my turn to go into the ultrasound room, the nurse took me in and told me to “Go ahead and take everything off from the waist down.”  It was at this point that I realized that I must be spending too much time in this office because I took everything from the waist down off before I thought “why the hell do I have to take off my bottom-half for an ultrasound.”  I have seen these on TV; I do not need to be pantie-less for them to squirt some jelly on my belly and rub the Magna-Doodle over my empty uterus.  Regardless, I assumed I had not heard incorrectly, and I sat for a LONG time in my sweater and paper, make-shift skirt.  Right before my doctor came in I assessed my situation.  I saw the tiny TV screen–ultrasound.  It had two things attached to it.  One was the identifiable ultrasound-thingy, you know the thing they rub on the belly (sure it has a real name, but who knows what it is).  Then, right beside that thing was another thing–a scary looking thing.  I thought “What the heck is that thing?”  Oh no, I had heard of this thing.  It was the internal ultrasound.  Suddenly, the whole appointment was coming together.  I was naked from the waist down because I was going to have to have an internal ultrasound–GULP.

As usual the doctor, burst into the room.  His first words were, “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to be pregnant the next time I saw you.”  Luckily for him, I was in a better place on Wednesday; if not he probably would have left the room with the internal ultrasound in a bad place.  Nonetheless, I just smiled and said–”Um, not so much.”  He gave me the good news.  My progesterone level was way up, which like we suspected means the Femara worked, and I was ovulating again.  YAY!  He said that he planned to continue on the same course of action this month as long as the ultrasound looked okay.  Luckily, I did not have to have the internal ultrasound.  He started with the external and decided things looked okay not to progress.  (I will save you the details of other reasons we did not do the internal.)  I left the office with the same plan as our previous.

I started a new round of Femara on Thursday, January 29th, and I completed the round on Monday, February 1.st  I don’t think it is my imagination; I think I am not handling the medication as well this month.  Last month, I had very few side effects.  The hormones didn’t seem to hit me until the end of my cycle.  This month I am tremendously moody.  I was also very nauseous feeling while I was taking the Femara, which is common.  Also, I have been very tired, but I’ve struggled to sleep well at night.  Chest and nasal congestion is apparently pretty common, and this seems to lead to the very common breathlessness.  I had a rather difficult time on my run this afternoon.  So far, the side effects are manageable, and hopefully, they will be worth it.

I will return to the office for another IUI on Monday, February 8th.  (All prayers, good thoughts, Hail Marys, whatever you got are welcome.)  I’m hoping the IUI (ie. Flavor Injector will go better this time.)  The upside is that Nick will be able to go with me this time, and perhaps be present when the child/children are conceived.  Also, Nick will be taking home directly following the procedure; I will not be attempting to return to work.  I only have plans to come home and lay in bed for the rest of the night.

We are back on the bus to optimistic city and  have vacated the land of desparation.  Hopefully, we will not be returning there again this month. I’ll update on the IUI after Monday.  (How soon after Monday may depend on how painful it is.)

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