Blogotherapy

I thought I'd be okay. Hearing the word negative yet again. I knew to expect it. But, really, I'm not okay.

I'm defeated. I'm angry. I can't get my head around the fact that I've done--I don't even remember the exact number anymore--something in the realm of 19 actual cycles, plus a couple cancelled ones.

The message on the phone, while gentle, said something like I'm not really sure what your plans are, IF you plan to do another cycle with us, give us a call. I'm not going to read much into that, as the last page in my chart includes reference to me getting a consult at another clinic (I do have my medical records, as you'll recall), and Dr. Gorgeous, anyway, knows very well what my plans are.

But the fact of the matter is I don't want to do another fucking cycle. Ever in my life. I want this last one to have worked.

I have one more shot at getting pregnant before I turn 38. I spent my 36th birthday completely pissed off about a cancelled cycle. I spent my 37th birthday hopeful that I might actually be pregnant, only to experience what was likely a chemical pregnancy a few days later. And here I am again.

I don't know what to do. I have plans. But I don't know that I want to act on them. I'm sure I will, because as much as I don't want to do it, not cycling, which is equivalent to completely bailing on the possibility of another child, is unthinkable. But really what I want to say is fuck acupuncture and Chinese medicine and IVF and put LG to bed and get really drunk or maybe take that valium I have from the IVF-that-wasn't. (I miss living by a recycling center. I miss smashing glass.)

I want someone to tell me what to do. I mean, what would you do, if you were me, and you'd spent way too much money on failed IUIs and donor specimens and two years of your life driving an hour away for treatment while your daughter asks almost daily for a baby sister and even your doctor doesn't know what to do with you anymore (it literally says in my chart "whatever tx she wants for dIUI") but you have an acupuncturist who is fucking certain that if you just change your diet and stop eating pretty much everything you'll get knocked up? What would you do?

Here's the nonhysterical reaction: I think I'm going back to acupuncturist #2, even though she's too dogmatic and this diet might kill me. I think I'm going to have E2/FSH/DHEA-s/testosterone checked on cd3 and make a decision about DHEA supplementation. I think I'm doing several months of unmedicated IUIs (w/Ovidrel, Prometrium, and Lovenox, that is). And then. Then, depending on what I hear at Big Clinic (which, for now, I'll name: AFC of Chicago), possibly one last big push with femara/follistim (IVF?), and then, if it comes to that, donor egg late spring/early summer. I also wonder if I need a consult with an even bigger clinic, like CCRM. Because I'm not convinced that using someone else's eggs will actually help me, if indeed there's some autoimmune wackiness going on (and the fact that I've been diagnosed, variously, with APA and MTHFR, and allergy/autoimmune problems do run in my family, suggests that there is likely autoimmune wackiness going on). Dr. G doesn't want to put me on steroids; I'm not sure I want to be on steroids, but part of me wonders if I should be on steroids, at least for a short while, like during an IVF attempt.

I just don't know. I don't want to waste eggs not cycling. I feel like doing unmedicated cycles is pretty much tantamount to wasting time/money. But at least it gives me a possibility, however remote, of getting pregnant. Part of me wonders if I should just dive in to DE right now, but I don't feel quite ready to give up on my body. And, really, I can't fathom spending that kind of money with tenure still up in the air. I just don't know. I'm tired. And I want this so much. And I don't understand why it's not happening. But hey, at least my diagnosis is officially not male-factor anymore.