how to flush money down the toilet

or up your who-hah, in this case. completely jumped the gun on the LH surge. with no temp spike this morning, and a now getting darker OPK test strip, i frantically called the clinic and asked to speak to a nurse regarding today's IUI to see if we could wait for my temp surge. i got no call back. after a half hour, i called the IVF lab to let them know and ask them to hold off prepping the sample.

literally 5 minutes too late. ::insert fouls language here accompanied by massive crying jag::

as i was curled up sobbing on my bed, ranting at the unfairness of the universe, i was really reminded about what sucks doing this on your own -- there is now one there to hold you as you lose it. there is no phone call you can make to someone who really totally gets it. it just completely and totally sucks. and makes you cry all the harder and rant at the universe for additional reasons.

so i went in for the hopeless IUI part deux. the nurse gave me a coupon for a free 300 pen of Folistim that i can use with the Bravelle protocol for the next cycle. that is, if i decide to jump right into medicated.

i came home and curled up with my laptop and a box of Kleenex and started comparing length of viability on ICI vs. IUI prepped post-thaw samples. the 4 hour window my IVF lab is giving me for their IUI prep makes me find it pretty flipping impossible that anyone can time an IUI correctly and have it be successful. i know i heard that the ICI samples do better - maybe even up to 24 hours. so once again, i got to thinking.

maybe i'll wait a few cycles before jumping into the injectables. yes, my ovaries suck and have hardly any eggs. but clearly, for the 18 months i've been off the pill, i am ovulating. my cycles are like clockwork, complete with night sweats during my leautal phase (which is quite long, thanks) which to me says oh, hai thare progesterone. gee, you're produced by a corpus luteum, right? you only get those when you actually ovulate.

so what if for the next few cycles i stick with the acupuncture and decide to do this on my own at home. what the hell -- the sperm alone is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as adding in another $1K for the office IUI, plus the cost of the blood work, and then the cost of the injectables. i know my donor has ICI samples, but i may also go back and check my other contenders against the donor sibling registry just out of curiosity. or, i wonder if the bank would tell me who out of choices had the best numbers.

it may be crazy, but something keeps pulling me back to this idea. i know after everything the doctor said, it shouldn't be an option, but why do i keep thinking it is? (oh, i know, because what i really need is fresh not frozen, and things would probably work!)

as always, feedback and thoughts on this are welcome.