wannabebe2

Not feeling overly optimistic, allowing only a tiny grain of hope within my heart. Hoping not to test this month before AF is due, to avoid the extra 4 days of disappointment. 3.1 per cent chance of conceiving this cycle based on our numbers. Not exactly a promising situation. I'm usually excited and hopeful and quoting authors who have written about miracles by now. This time I'm depressed, tired, sleeping a lot, weepy... perhaps it is partially due to the Gonal-F/clomid/progesterone cocktail I've had in my body this month. Also--death and birth announcements surround me. The extremes. I'd like some grey area, please.

At least this cycle won't be such a let down when AF visits. Hope is a double edged sword. It can lift you up on the wings of angels and then also make the descent so much harder once reality kicks in. I'm almost afraid to hope sometimes, but the appeal is so strong. It's addictive to live in a fantasy world. When I read "The Secret" it makes me want to spend all day visualizing my positive pregnancy test and my baby implanting and growing... except that I've literally spent years doing that and have crashed and burned every month. I grieve for the loss of one I've never known.

I need to focus on living in the present moment (or living "in the Now" as Tolle says). I used to live in the past, going over all of the things in my past that hurt me... then I stopped that and was a much happier person... but only until I started eagerly anticipating the future and placing my thoughts and energy on a maybe-baby future... once again I will have to train myself to be in the present moment through meditation, yoga and other physical activity that puts me in touch with my body and breath, and CBT techniques. The work is never done. It just changes form.

I'm secretly scared that God doesn't want us to reproduce. If IUI with injectables doesn't work in the next few months they want me to do IVF with ICSI. ICSI scares and confuses me, is WAYYYYY beyond our means in terms of cost, and is simply out of the question for DH... yet part of my secretly wants to try, with a 35 per cent chance (as opposed to the 3.1 per cent chance from this month). BUT... injecting a sperm into my egg? If the sperm is that dysfunctional that it can't penetrate my egg on its own, then maybe it was never meant to make a baby??!!?? If embryos are created through ICSI but then not implanted, what do I think of that? Can we face destruction of the embies? Can we face some other couple adopting them or them being used for experiments? Not to mention the "genetic load" thing... my RE says that couples who need ICSI have a higher "genetic load" and thus a higher incidence of children with congenital "defects"... Is that what we get for playing God? A child who doesn't live past her first birthday? Maybe nature makes it so that his sperm can't fertilitze my eggs on purpose to keep him from passing along crappy ass chromosomes.

Our ethics cannot keep up with our technology. I'm so lost... Who am I to play with nature like this? I'm already questioning my choice to do IUI with injectables and clomid... if I believe that life begins at conception, then how should I feel about how that life comes about? Is it still God's miracle if the hand of a lab tech is involved? At least with IUI the sperm enters the egg on its own... but is that any better? I don't know.

DH was happy to just "keep trying the old fashioned way" for as long as it took. I'm getting older. I don't have 10 years left to try to beat the statistics, and I'm so SICK of the monthly roller coaster. 3 Years... I want to get off of this ride!!! Now he's happy to keep on trying IUI as long as possible. :'( I'm ... so... tired.

I've always wanted to be a mommy... I've been reading books on overpopulation and the choice to be childfree and watching shows with bratty kids on TV to try to force myself to not want children. So many people are happy without children, including my siblings. I wish I didn't have this overwhelming biological clock thing... I'm so driven to procreate that even Kate Goselin's screaming 8 kids don't phase me! I've prayed for God to take away this urge to be a parent. I've gone to counseling and asked her to "fix me" so that I wouldn't want kids (ha ha she laughed at me).

One day we may adopt. If not baby 1 then baby 2. I am content with this fact... but I can't start that process until I have closed the door to bio-baby. I have to know that I've done all that I can do and waited out the process to the bitter end so that I have no regrets. I need to grieve the loss of my bio baby before I can go on to love an adopted child. It's not fair to start the adoption process until I am all done putting my life on hold for maybe-baby. I'm just not ready to give up that dream yet. I hate being in limbo.

I have always done well and been successful at ANYTHING I set my mind to, even when faced with discrimination or other challenges along the way. I have always worked hard... harder than my peers... and I always get what I want in the end (scholarships, grades, awards, jobs, house, car, etc.). This is one thing that I can't "work harder" to achieve. I can eat all the fertility friendly foods I want, take all the meds and supplements, do all the yoga and meditation and prayer, do the treatments... and still be barren. Type-A overachiever syndrome... the fall is hard to accept.

My mantras for today's sanity: I am not a statistic. I am an individual. I have done everything I can, and now it is time to let go and let God. One way or another I will become a mother.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. God grant me courage to change the things I can. God grant me the wisdom to know the difference.

Me 32 DH 35
TTC 3 Years
Started with our RE August 2010
September 2010 IUI #1 natural cycle, 2 follies, 1 insemination: BFN
October 2010 IUI #2 natural cycle, 1 follie, 2 inseminations: BFN
November 2010 IUI #3 natural cycle, 1 follie, 2 inseminations: BFN
December 2010-May 2011: BIG break (DH started supplements that take 3-4 months to show results while I battled AI issues)
June 2011 IUI #4 clomid 50mg, 2 follies, 2 inseminations, progesterone cream, DH on supplements: BFN
July 2011: IUI #5 clomid 50 mg, 2 follies, 1 insemination, DH on supplements: BFN
August 2011: IUI #5 clomid 50 mg, Gonal-F injections, 1-2 follies (?), 2 inseminations, progesterone cream, DH on supplements: praying!