ha ha, faked you out!

That would be my left ovary mocking me in the subject line. After 2 days of tightness, fullness and pain over my left ovary, I got up this morning (conveniently forgetting to take my temp) and it was ... gone. I headed off to my early morning sono and bloodwork with my emotions around my toenails.

Uber-cheerful Wandi (what I have dubbed the sonogram tech) tried to happily talk me down from my cliff ,asking if the sperm was in, and I ducked behind the curtain to jump into a sheet. She then talked to me through the reading, saying I had a big 20mm and another 14mm follie on my right ovary. Left ovary came into view ... with nothing. No follies, no fluid, no cysts.

Um, guys, what was all that commotion down there about?

And bugger, 2 follicles, only one of which useful. (but as Wandi reminded me with a big smile, but it only takes one!! ::grumble -- I don't want to hear it right now) I headed home to sulk and wait for the call from the RN on my lab results. I could tell with a 20mm one sitting there I was going to trigger tonight.

And so I did. My estrodiol was in the high 300s, and my LH was already at 18. Surging on Day 10. Great. Nice way to bake a healthy egg there, body. < / sarcasm > So I'll be heading over to the back-up location of the urology office that has the lab with my sperm tomorrow, and one of their RNs will do the IUI at 9:00am.

I'm not thrilled, with the IUI so soon after the trigger. Then again, I could be popping that follie at anytime, so who knows.

I'm going to get back to surfing for potential donor embryos to console myself.

okay, my body is responding to *something*!

I feel like my left ovary is going to explode. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed this is good, and that no follies decide to pop early or anything. Everyone behave until tomorrow's sonogram, you hear me?

Also, had to search to see if "raging uncontrollable libido" was listed as a side effect of Gonal-F. May go nuts over the next few days. Please forward any cute men with a lot of stamina to my address.

Oh, and just to finish up the TMI, can we say copious EWCM?

Obviously my fears that a medicated cycle would be too rough on my body and I wouldn't respond well were completely unfounded.

huh. Didn't expect that.

Then again, there were a lot of things last week I didn't expect. Like finally having enough of the strum und drang of the workplace drama and informing the powers that be that hey, I'm already a full time student, they don't have work for me, mind if I leave on Friday?

Of course any doubt I had of that decision soon was worn away. On my way to class Thursday (about an hour after saying, "yo, you all are crazy here! Move my lay-off date up please.") I got a call from the new RE's office. seems that my appointment scheduled on the 30th needed to be bumped up to the 23rd. Seeing as how I had been wondering how in the heck I was going to talk my way into being out of the office on the 30th, I know ad to figure out how to do it on the day I was leaving. Decided that a half day as my last day would be the perfect solution, and sure, I could be there for 11:30.

Of course I thought this follow up would be on the sad state of my body and talking over donor egg/donor embryo possibilities. Knock me over with a feather when new RE suggests we do on last IUI with injectables. Only a 5% chance, but in comparison to the other clinic I was going to, paying for all out of pocket (meds, monitoring, IUI) it was a bargain.

Mind, this was a snap decision that had to be made. I was on CD3 after having done a full 2 weeks of estrogen priming for the prior cycle. I was also freshly (and yet blissfully) unemployed. I was also caffeinated.

(Did I mention that after the call on my AMH number a couple weeks ago that charting, monitoring, and coddling my body had gone out the window?)

But then again, let's add up these signs:

1. appointment rescheduled for what happens to be my CD3.
2. I just quit a highly stressful and miserable making job.
3. I just did a cycle of estrogen priming.
4. I had one vial of IUI sperm left.
5. I had treated my body like crap for the last few weeks.

Yeah, I didn't need a sledgehammer to tell me let's go for it. This was the one last hurrah I wanted to give my body. Yet without the stress of IVF.

RE was quite amused with my shock and awe at all of this, and began to type of the blood requests and send off all the various forms that needed to run through the Big Practice system for pre-payment and all the rest. She then got a grin on her face and said, "Won't it be great if you get pregnant on this cycle?" Uh, yeah. Let's go with that thought.

So I got to hang around the office for the next hour or so as we did CD3 testing, met with nurse to go over injections, and got my samples of Gonal-F, info on the order that would be placed for me at the fertility pharmacy they use (complete with 2 for 1 Gonal-F pen special going on), how to get my sperm to the lab they use at the hospital campus for storage, and, oh, one last go at my veins as they realized all my virus testing was more than a year old and needed to be rerun. I didn't mind, but I felt bad for the techs since I had only had a coffee at 5:30 am, and oddly for me, did not suck down any water prior to getting there.

Looking back at the time there, and then down on the hospital campus to drop off my forms at the cryo lab there, I was *really* glad I wasn't having to freak out about getting back to work. Whew!

And yes, I am still researching donor embryos (really seems to be the way I want go), and will be following up with that this coming month big-time. I'm realistic about all this.

I'm on a low-stim protocol, with 150 of Gonal-F a night. I'll go back for an ultrasound and bloodwork on CD10. Ovidrel will be used to trigger. There was no mention of GnRH antagonists, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed my LH levels don't decided to do the wacky and start popping follies early.

Honestly, this fell into place to quickly and easily, I'm a little numb by it all. I think instead I'll focus on the rash of mid-terms I have going on this week.

a quickie

Just wanted to post a very heart-felt thankful for all the wonderful comments I've received. I Am okay, and I know that my baby, no matter how it gets here, is out there waiting for me. DNA has very little to do with it. After all, I did initially begin this whole pursuit thinking I was going the road of adoption. But I think the change to having the possibility of carrying my own child lit a little spark in me that was a wee bit stronger than I thought.

And being a gathering of our family and our identical looking faces this weekend added a fun little spin on it all. But I had my wine, I had my tears. Time to keep moving.

What I'm struggling now with is the stress of FINDING a donor egg or embryo. And not having to remortgage my house in order to afford it. Work blocking every non-business website these days is really cutting down on my research time! My sisters are all older than I am, and well past having any eggs themselves. I have some lovely nieces, but as someone said, I think that leads to some weirdness in the family! :)

The right little cell/collection of cells will come along. It is just being patient (not somethingI'm known for!) that is really hard.

Thank you again, for all the words of support. Where would I be without the internets?

crap

As I was sitting on a plane today, waiting to take off to Charleston for the weekend, my phone rang. I had a feeling when the number popped up as "blocked" that is was the new Dr.'s office.

In fact it was the new Dr. herself.

She didn't sound as enthusiastic with my numbers as I had been. That's because that missing AMH number came in.

0.22

I have no eggs left. The low FSH may indicate that they can get me to respond to meds, but the AMH means they will only get at most, 1 or 2. The chances of those 1 or 2 being healthy eggs? Really, really low.

I knew this was hanging out there. But after several hours, it is finally starting to sink in. adjectives like "barren" keep popping into my head out of nowhere.

From the get go, this was never about a biological child for me. But somehow getting diverted onto the TTC path has made me think more and more about the possibility of a biological child and how amazing that would be. We are a cute family with some really strong genes (my siblings and I and all my nieces and nephews look *exactly* alike). Picturing that has started to play in my mind.

I think it has also been playing in my mind to think of that with the added "as if" I had managed to get married. That happy little family unit, the great combination of our genes. My way of tormenting myself.

Now I'm thinking what that would all be in the context of the truth of my physicality. Barren. Infertile. How that can have additional impact when you are part of a couple. I think of what a failure I would be. Gosh, maybe it was better things worked out the way they did and The One That Got Away got someone who was fertile (even in her 40s). One more dig to that gaping hole in my heart.

Instead I have to fight this and start thinking donor embryos. Start doing research. Start finding a donor. Focus on the positive and what can be, and not what is not and never will be, right?

Right.

Still, I think copious amounts of wine and some tears are on the to do list this weekend.