Pulling the Trigger-Shot

There I was, bright and early this morning, sitting in the waiting room at Dr. M's office - just like I had for the past 3 days. And today was no different.  I was back for yet another ultrasound and blood work to see where we were at and determine if I had gone too far past the brink of hyper-stimming.

As the ultrasound tech. called me back, we both kind of looked at each other and chuckled as she said good morning and "good to see you again"... I then made a comment about how it's like deja vu all over again because we keep getting to see each other every morning.

The ultrasound was routine and after it was done, the tech. was getting ready to walk out of the room, and said, "Not sure if you will be back tomorrow, but if so I won't be at this office so good luck!" I smiled and said thank you so much to her, secretly hoping that I would not have to be back yet again tomorrow... and then I went to get my blood drawn.

From there is was the infamous waiting game for the phone call to hear my fate about this cycle.

As I sat in a planning meeting at work earlier today with my boss, my boss' boss, the director of HR, and a few other administrators and colleagues, I kept eyeing my phone waiting for the call to come so that I could briefly step out and take it. But in true fashion, of course when the call came in, we were in the midst of an important discussion that I couldn't quite step away from at that moment, so I had to let it go to voicemail.

At this point, I'm dying to just hear what was on that voicemail... but had to wait another hour until our meeting was over.

As soon as it was I ran to car, settled in with my pen in hand and the little note pad that I've been using to jot down my results over the past few days, and let the message roll...

"Hi Tiffanie, this is Kristen from Dr. M's office and I was just calling with your results from earlier today." She then went on to rattle off all of my numbers. As of this morning, I had 15 total follicles (9 on the right and 6 on the left)... ranging in size from 17.8 mm down to 9.1 mm. My Estradiol was now at 2,281 and my lining was up to 10.2 mm.

And then, it was the moment of truth. I fully expected and quickly prepared myself that with those numbers the whole thing would be called off... She went on to say, "So with that being said, Dr. M wants you to go ahead and take the HCG trigger shot tonight and come in on Sat. morning for the IUI."

Whaaaat?!?

Praise God!! All the prayers worked and we are officially moving forward with this cycle! I couldn't believe it, but was so so happy! Seriously, thank God!

Shortly here, I will be taking the trigger shot and then looking forward to Saturday.

Seriously, thank you so much to all who have been praying for us - it means the world! And all goes to show that in the end, even during the rough patches and trialing times, God is good! Of course, none of this guarantees a pregnancy, but that's besides the point at this moment. To me it's just a small (well, pretty big actually) reassurance that God is still in control and that all things will work for His glory and good... So here's to a prayerful thank you to the Lord, and to all who have been praying and sending positive thoughts and love.

From here on out, it's still one step at a time, but the small victories are always worth celebrating...

Cruel Tricks

To recap, waiting for a possible Christmas miracle (aka: to find out if our IUI had worked) was more than sheer torture. Anyone who is TTC, and especially those who are struggling through infertility, know the agony that exists during the time after ovulation and before either getting a positive pregnancy test or getting your period... this time is also known as the "2 week wait" (2WW). Well, long story short, exactly 2 weeks after our first IUI (which was done on Christmas Eve), I went in that morning for my Beta Blood Pregnancy Test. From there, of course it was another waiting game throughout the day while anticipating the call from the office to find out if the test was positive (or negative for that matter). Of course after starring at my phone all day, the moment I step away, I miss it. Onto to listening to the voicemail it is... "Hello Tiffanie... we are calling in regards to the results of your pregnancy test from earlier this morning. The office closes in about 15min. so if you could please give us a call back right away."... Uhhh, half way through the message I thought, "ok, this is weird, please just get to the point - it's either positive or negative, right? How hard can it be to just give me a straight answer?"... Well, as you think I would have learned by now, apparently life's not always black and white, nor are pregnancy tests - as I had to learn the hard way.

The rest of the message went on to explain that when HCG levels are tested during a pregnancy test, anything over 25 is a confirmed positive and anything below a 5 is a confirmed negative. So for me, of course, of course I had to find my way into the freakin' gray area. My HCG level was at 8.5 and my progesterone was low, so they wanted me to double up on the progesterone suppositories that day and then come back for another blood test in the morning to, "...see if they can figure out what's going on." Really?! Are you kidding me?!? Come on, how hard does this have to be on us? It's like a cruel trick being played. Having a confirmed negative would have been hard enough, but to have this tiny, minuscule glimmer of hope (even though I knew in my heart that it wasn't going to be positive) was simply an inhuman, heart-wrenching joke that wasn't humorous. God, why are you doing this to us??? We're barely surviving this trial as it is, why does it have to be taken to this level? So, for the next 24hrs, my husband and I had to live in yet another, even more devastatingly difficult state of "not knowing."

Long story short, the test came back negative the next morning. They think it was just trace levels of the HGC left in my system from the trigger shot. So again, it all seemed to be just a cruel joke designed to make this whole fiasco of a journey even more difficult... Well, it's not funny... and I'm not laughing...