The Morning After

First, a thank you for all the recent comments and support. I really appreciate it, as I'm working all this stuff through and trying to figure out where to go from here. This is sort of rambly, but I'd appreciate any observations you have.

Well, the reprieve from the bleeding did not last. After about fifteen hours of *nothing*, it started up again, with a vengeance. I think, N and Sprogblogger, that's a good thing. I really didn't need the mindfuck of my period coming 5-6 days early and then stopping altogether, making me question whether or not it's actually my period. As far as I'm concerned, the only good that can come of this at this point is clearing my body of hormones for a couple weeks and hopefully a quick resolution to the E2/lining/cyst problems.


I need time off from this project. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have attempted that November cycle, with the huge lining problem kicking it off, but I needed to cycle again before I turned 37. I don't regret doing it, but clearly it wasn't right from beginning to end. So here I am, taking a cycle "off." Originally, I was planning on taking Dec-Feb off anyway. Now, I think I'll try for Jan, if Dr. Gorgeous is okay with it, still take Feb off, and then go for March. I'm not sure about this, but my gut reaction to being told I can't do something is to find something new that I can do. Giving birth in late September/early Oct (I hope!) would close out two years of ttc from beginning to end. That's pretty much exactly what I had with LG, as well.

When I look over my timeline, it's becoming increasingly apparent that I can only cycle every other month. I'm not sure what that's about, but perhaps instead of getting mad every time it happens, I should just accept it for what it is and only plan on cycling every other month. And if for some reason my body is ready sooner, so be it.

A month ago, I was so gung-ho about this follistim plan. Now I don't know. Maybe Femara (with pre-cycle Estrace) really is the way to go (I did conceive, and that was a picture perfect cycle from beginning to end). But I keep thinking about what my first RE said, after I got pregnant and miscarried on a clomid cycle. She wanted me to do injectables, I wanted to go back to clomid. What she told me was if you'd gotten pregnant and STAYED pregnant then we'd say Clomid worked. What if there's something to that? What it's not just a coincidence but I don't make good embryos with Femara?

On the one hand, I feel beaten by this process, absolutely astonished that it's taking this long. That I will most likely be going into a fourth semester at school still doing cycles. That's incredibly stressful in itself. I feel like I've "wasted" so many months of work, focusing on this stuff, at the moment I need to be focusing on work as I'm coming up for tenure. I'm not saying I regret any of this, it just seems like a lot of energy expended on a project that is going nowhere.


But then there's the other part of me, the part that remembers it took **10 cycles** to conceive LG (and I started at 29!). When you count the IUIs I've actually done, I've only done 8, plus that IVF. Perhaps this January cycle, if I do it, will be lucky number 10 again.

Then I'm worried about what Dr. Gorgeous might say at our consult, that she'll say no to January, or no to Follistim, and want to get even more aggressive (though I can't imagine what that might look like). This is the first time she's "summoned" me to see her; usually I just make an appointment when I have a question or issue that can't easily be worked through with the nurses. I'm scared, mostly, that she'll say she thinks this is the end of the road for me. And what if it is?