Cycle 4 came to a screeching halt this past Thursday. I already knew we weren't pregnant, but like every infertile, I was holding out hope until AF showed.
To add insult to injury... DD and I were at a marriage conference at a beautiful resort this weekend. I had "my friend" the entire weekend... UGH. AND every single session of the conference, no matter where we sat in the ballroom... I was surrounded by pregnant women.
I'm happy for these women... I really am. I don't know a single thing about their stories. Did they conceive the first month of trying after spending their entire adulthood avoiding pregnancy? Did they struggle with infertility? Were they "surprised" by this pregnancy? Wanted, unwanted, planned, unplanned, 1st baby or 12th?... they all have what I long for. I feel guilty for being jealous of their pregnant state.
Sometimes, I feel unjustified in my hurt over infertility. I did bring 3 beautiful children into this world and I gained 2 more via marriage to Devoted Daddy. I am the Mama to 5 kiddos... I will always be insanely busy... I will never have to make the choice to "live child free"... I fit in during the parenting sessions of the conference... I'm an infertile with a full nest.
And I'm still incredibly sad. I long for a child that I can look at and not see my ex or DD's ex... a child that I can look at and see the reflection of this man I love above all else. This man who is my glorious gift after so many years of destruction and heartbreak. I long for a child that will provide all of our children with a joint sibling... a child that will "close the circle" between His and Hers. I would desire these things even if I didn't absolutely adore children... if I didn't love the feeling of being pregnant (even though I was violently ill every time)... if I didn't believe that children are a blessing...
Devoted Daddy is convinced that we will have a baby together in time... I'm losing hope. I know that God is real... and that He is good. I also know that we live in a fallen world where bad things happen. Maybe God's plan for us is to love the orphans... to foster and adopt children that are unwanted... maybe God's plan is that I need to learn patience and that things don't come in my timing...
Or maybe, we just have the rotten luck of faulty plumbing. I've put my reproductive organs through all kinds of trauma since my first bout of (resolved) infertility.
In other news, I asked to be added to our clinic's embryo adoption program. The wait is long (two years or more) because there are many waiting families and not many embryos available. DD and I know that enlarging our family via embryo adoption would mean that the resulting child(ren) would not be of our DNA, but we would be granting life to a child suspended in time... and we would love that child(ren) with every fiber of our being. The irony is... we can go through a FET with adopted embryos for $3800 whereas a round of IVF would cost us $8850 + $2-3,000 in meds.
On my mind... IVF. It was something I wasn't sure I'd ever seriously consider. BUT, here we are... four failed cycles later. We are resting for at least this cycle, maybe two depending on finances. I've crunched the numbers... we have about $2500 left in insurance benefits and on October 1 our FSA account starts over. We could increase that to the maximum which is $5,000 (annually). This would enable us to have $7500 toward the $8850 cost of IVF in October (two months prior to my dreaded 35th birthday). IF (and it's a big IF) we can save the remaining $1350 and start rounding up the medications... maybe, just maybe... we could give it a go. If round one doesn't work BUT we have embryos remaining, we could wait a couple months and pay $1250 for a FET.
I know without a doubt, that even if we conceived triplets on IVF #1, we'd have to proceed with FET of any remaining embryos at the earliest possible time. I cannot allow the start of life to stay indefinitely suspended in time or be destroyed. We'd have to give every embryo (no matter the quality) a shot at life. Our only other option would be embryo adoption... but I think I'm one of those women that is attached to my eggs and would have a great sense of loss over allowing them to be raised in another family... and if none became children, I'd wonder if they would have had a different outcome if I had chosen to transfer them... Because I'm crazy like that. :-)
I have a prescription here for 10 vials (75iu) of Menopur + 15 clomid pills + 10,000iu of Pregnyl. I can buy the Menopur cheaply via IVFMEDS.com for $187.50, this is about a fourth of the cost of an American pharmacy. My clinic recommends the generic HMG and even gave me the order form, so I am comfortable using it.
However, I have to make a decision... try Menopur + clomid + HCG (in April or May) with IUI and potentially waste another $1500... or wait and save... and pray and hope...
Either way... I'm taking March off. Who knows, maybe we will get lucky on our own. I started the OPK today (First Response Daily), I like that this kit watches (and remembers) my personal levels of LH to detect my surge... since I have a short (and possibly weak) surge this is a good thing. I'm also diligently tracking my BBT, cervix position and CM. By taking March off, I can skip the day 3 ultrasound at my clinic and shave $470 off the next cycle. My RE only requires baselines in back to back medicated cycles.
Our next cycle will consist of a call on CD1 to let them know my new cycle started... clomid days 3-7, Menopur (if we decide to use it) CD7-12+, a monitoring scan on CD12 followed by a trigger (if my eggs are ready to go). Technically, this could be a tad cheaper than my previous cycles because of skipping the baseline scan... but if my scan on CD12 reveals follicles that aren't ready to trigger, I could end up with another scan (or two) before we can trigger.
Honestly, if money weren't a factor right now... I'd be forging ahead into the next cycle as we speak.
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