Fertility Journey {March}

After the first two months of treatments were such a bust, I was eager to try something different. However, the doctor wanted us to start out with the Femara pills again at the higher dose just to see if we could avoid having to move to injections right away. I was annoyed and anxious. I knew the pills weren't going to work, just give me the darn injections. We've got babies to make around here. Stat. But I went along with his plan because obviously he has the medical degree and I don't. Plus, I did agree to go along with his conservative treatment plan so I better just let the man do his job. Well, we tried the pills again. Guess what, they didn't work. Shocker. But we can't say we didn't give them a good try before moving on to the next option. At the time I was annoyed, but looking back I'm glad we took our time and tried literally everything so that I don't have any of those "what ifs" in my mind. I know we did everything we could and I didn't miss out on any possible options.

Now, I was definitely ready to move to injections. I figured that if I'm injecting the hormones directly into me, then it's got to do something. Side note...I hate needles. I hate shots and especially getting my blood drawn. Which reminds me that I totally forgot this fun little story in my last fertility post. The first time I went to our fertility doctor, I warned the nurses that I am very difficult to draw blood from and I usually pass out. Well, she started poking and boom, I was out cold. Can't say I didn't warn her. From that moment on, I was infamous in our fertility clinic. Ok, back on track...so I hate needles. And now I was going to have to get an injection every other night in my stomach. Yikes. Oh and Jared was going to have to give it to me, or I would have to give it to myself (yeah right, not happening). If your husband is willing to stab you in the stomach with needles night after night, he must really love you. Especially when he knows that some of those injections are going to cause you a lot of pain, but he does it anyways because he knows that in the end it will be worth it. My husband really loves me, and I've got multiple sharps containers full of empty syringes to prove it.

We started doing the injections every other night and it took forever for my body to respond to the medication. My uterus is a stubborn little you know what. Finally, things started happening and my doctor said that we were ready to try an IUI this month. Hooray! Since I try to keep things on the blog as PG (ok more like PG-13 sometimes) as possible, I'll let the good 'ole internet explain what an IUI is if you are interested: Intrauterine insemination.

I got really excited about the upcoming IUI. Well as excited as one can be about possibly conceiving a baby in the romantic atmosphere of a doctor's office exam room with a doctor and two other nurses watching you. Simply magical. I had convinced myself that this was it. This IUI thing was going to work. I had done everything I was supposed to, the procedure went well and everything was great. Until the nurses left the exam room and told me to lie there for the next 15 minutes. Holy cow, I thought I was going to die on that exam table. I then experienced the aftermath of an IUI procedure, which felt like someone repeatedly stabbing me in the stomach with 100 knives for the longest 15 minutes of my life. I could barely stand up and walk out of the office to the car. The stabbing pain, cramping and general horror continued for the rest of the day while I laid on the couch in agony. Oh and the extra fun part is that you can't take any medications before or after the IUI. So no Tylenol or Advil to help dull the pain, you just have to wait it out and fight through it. But hey, I survived and I'm probably stronger for it.

I figure that women who go through fertility treatments have got to be the easiest patients during the actual labor and delivery. We've been through months of constant, severe pain without any medication at all to help, so delivering the baby is probably a piece of cake. But then again, I've never actually delivered a baby so I guess I'll have to wait and see. However, at least once your labor is over you have something wonderful to show for it. Imagine going through all that pain and labor and getting nothing in the end. That is how I felt after every one of my IUI procedures.

Once the actual IUI procedure was over, we commenced the dreaded 2 week waiting game. At the end of the two weeks, I was able to take a pregnancy test...which after you already taken a dozen of them with no success becomes quite a daunting task. Of course, that month I added negative pregnancy test #13 to my trophy case and once again we were back to ground zero.