My Journey Begins

"This too shall pass"...

I'm slowly driving myself insane. My journey through infertility has been a short one so far (comparatively anyway), but the grieving, worrying, and waiting has seemed much longer. I'm creating this blog as a form of therapy; to get all my thoughts that are swimming around in my head, onto "paper" and out in the open. The outcome, I hope, will be less stress and a more organized thought pattern.

Background:

I had a feeling, every since I was about 12 years old, that I would struggle with fertility. When expressing this to friends and family, they called me crazy and pessimistic... but i just KNEW. Unfortunately, I was right.

My husband and I got married in May of 2014, and immediately started trying to conceive. I didn't change anything about my lifestyle, we just went into it saying "if it happens, it happens!". How I wish I could go back to those days of hopeful, naive, bliss. Turns out, things didn't "just happen" for us. After more than a year of many failed attempts and even more negative pregnancy tests, we turned to a specialist.

I am extremely lucky to have a coworker who is very outspoken about their own infertility issues. Through him and his wife, we found a great doctor! They currently have 2 precious little girls through IVF. We went in with high hopes. Through much poking and prodding, we had the diagnosis: PCOS. Turns out I have MANY (almost double the usual) follicles, but none which are maturing and releasing an egg. The good news: my husband has an unusually high number of sperm, all of which are highly mobile.

Current Treatment: IUI

Started out taking clomid (orally) during the beginning of my cycle. Follicles were maturing nicely, and on 12/16/15, I administered (very nervously) the trigger shot. A couple days later, I went in for my IUI. The doctor was EXTREMELY happy with my husband's sperm sample: nearly 81 MILLION (10 million is a good sample according to him) sperm to work with.

It was absolutely amazing to be able to see the sperm injected into my uterus. My (hopefully) future child(ren) was/were about to be created, and I saw it!! Little did I know, I hadn't even BEGUN to go through the hard part.

The waiting, waiting, waiting ,waiting...:

My husband and I have been acting like I'm already pregnant, even though we aren't sure yet. No fish, sushi, alcohol, and minimal caffeine (coffee addict). The worst thing about this is, a negative result (or a big fat negative, BFN, as the infertility community refers to it), is going to make my world coming crashing down. I'm trying to stay grounded - hoping for the best, but prepared for the worst. 

Today is 12dpIUI (12 days post IUI). I've been obsessing over blogposts and forums where women have posted their postive (BFP) test results after only 11 or 12dpIUI. I couldn't take the waiting any longer, so I took a HPT (home preg test) this morning. BFN. Disappointing, but not the end of the world. My beta blood test is scheduled for Monday, Jan 4th, and there is a reason - many HPTs cannot pick up the level of preg hormones this soon. So I'm still staying optimistic, but prepared for a negative result now.

I will be devastated with a (now expected) negative result on Monday, but I have to keep in mind that this is only my FIRST IUI. Many women have had 2 or 3 failures. I can't get discouraged after only one. And maybe we're due a couple of failures. Maybe it's not supposed to be a "one and done" for us. But, God willing, I hope, pray, that it is.

It's in your hands now, God. We will get through this. We will be successful in one way or another. Just have to keep plugging along.