My first post!!

How exciting to be entering the blog world! Although, I have to admit that it seems a bit odd, and a bit ego-centric to be so self focused, thinking that someone else actually cares about my piddly life and struggles. My goal in all of this it to use it as an outlet for my emotions, and hopefully in the process bits of pieces of what I say, do, or have done will connect with someone else and let them know they aren't alone.

I will focus mainly on my issue of infertility. Other obsessions of mine include lots of reading, making quilts, and my sweet dog Sierra:-) So you may hear a bit about those things too.

First, my infertility story. My husband Dan and I have been ttc for over 3 years. I have honestly forgotten the month we started, but it's been a.long.freaking.time. We tried on our own for about a year with no luck. At that point, my GYN gave me Clomid. Suprise of all suprises, I got a BFP with my first round! I thought it was my miracle drug. But as quickly as it happened, it was over, and we were told (on Dan's birthday no less) that it would result in an early miscarriage. I haven't seen a BFP since then. I've been through EIGHT more rounds of the devil drug Clomid. I began seeing an RE halfway through my Clomid treatment, and began IUI's. We had 2 of those with Clomid. No luck. At that point we moved on to injectible drugs, Follistim and Gonal-F. We did 3-4 cycles of those, all but one with IUI. No luck. Did I mention that Follistim and Gonal-F are given with a needle in the belly? Yep. Lots of needles.

In May, we moved on to our first fresh IVF cycle. This was after much debate, as my insurance does not cover any aspect of IVF (or most of the other IF stuff either). We borrowed $5k from MIL, my parents gave us $5k, and we took the rest from our savings. I knew I wasn't ready to stop trying, and once I finally came to terms with the financial aspect I was ready. Dan had already conceded that we were going to do it (he knows me too well), and just let me lead the way with the IVF cycle. I responded to the meds fabulously. Again, lots of shots, sometimes 2 a day. They retrieved 15 eggs, 14 were mature (meaning capable of being fertilized), and 10 fertilized. We transfered 2 blastocysts in a 5 day transfer and I (not so) patiently began the 2ww. My RE's protocol is to not do a beta until 14dpt. That's a long time! I started PIO, injected into my butt by Dan. That was fun. What a romantic nightly ritual. About 9 dpt I started spotting. My beta fell on a Monday. I called on Thursday and begged the RE to do a beta on Friday, to put me out of my misery. She complied, and Friday I got the negative pregnancy results. $12k down the drain. And nothing to show for it but an ass full of bruises from the PIO shots.

The only good thing to come out of our failed cycle was 3 frozen blasts, which brings us to now. I will begin my frozen transfer cycle (FET) as soon as AF shows. According to the calendar that should be Tuesday, but according to when I think I O'd last, she might not show until Friday. I cannot wait to get those embryos back inside where they belong. They are all frozen together, so they will attempt to thaw all 3. If all 3 thaw, all 3 will be transfered. My RE office has about a 70% thaw rate, so I'm prepared for only 2 of the 3 to thaw.