new title, same likely ending, but free

IVF #6--first natural IVF attempt--cancelled today on day 3. Too early to really be deemed ivf #6, so reserving the title failed cycle #45 instead. Big ole' functional cyst that is muddying the waters as to my egg situation--something to the affect of, where's the egg? If the egg is in the cyst my e2 is high enough (at 300!) for it be mature but it's only day 3, so it can't be actually mature enough. If the egg is still coming along, well the e2 is f-ing it all up and muddying the waters. Yeah, don't try to understand it too hard, but it's something along those lines and the doc said it just really is not at all the set up we want going into a natural ivf attempt. So cancelled. And I'm ok with that. A forced break after a failure is welcome b/c honestly I was just not feeling it this month and barely even called on day 1 and barely even made it to my appt today. So, yeah, there you go. At least were were cancelled without first doing 4k of meds or doing a few monitoring u/$'s. We'll try again in a month.

In the meantime, we're going to entertain ourselves fertility wise with a visit to urologist for dh. He went to one in the initial work up, what like 3 years ago or so, who found nothing physically wrong (but did not u/s exam to look for a vari.ocele and totally ignored his ridiculously abnormal testosterone). So, since his counts have gotten worse recently, even with a much improved quality of life and improved sleep schedule and lowered stress, I just want to make sure nothing was missed in the crap workup he got before that I (obviously) feel was lacking in thoroughness. Our doc rec'd a urologist who appears to be really in the know of mfi, so I'm excited just to see what he has to say. I expect nothing new, but I guess I'm just excited for the closure.

Because...I think after a couple (or one, we'll see) natural ivf attempts we're going to make the jump to iui donor sperm. If I can keep ovulating regularly that long (please!!!). It's a cheaper thing to fail than donor eggs of course, though obviously sooner than later we would have to go that route when I finally loose all mine. Either way, though, I just can't keep doing this anymore with our own screwed up parts. I'm exhausted, as is dh in every single way possible. I mean, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in life outside IF that someone would allow themselves to fail 45 times (cycles) or even 5 times (ivf). Long long before that they would have realized that it was time to find another way through the wall.

And finally....though I haven't commented myself on many blogs in the past week, thank you thank you thank you for all the comments that I've read and re-read on my empty post---the commiserating, encouragement, and advice to my emptiness feelings were all so spot on. I've taken some of the advice and am trying to get out more, while also realizing that maybe what we've been through is a bit more traumatic than I've given myself credit for (I give credit to other's journey's and survival...just not my own b/c I can think of far far worse things to "have" to go through in life...and thus my own journey just doesn't see that bad). As for getting out, I was volunteering a local museum one day a week but asked for more hours on another exciting project and started it this week. I also have started taking a couple classes a local dance studio--yoga seemed a bit overwhelming to me b/c I've never been and can't really relax on command and didn't relish all that alone time with my brain/thoughts. I danced years ago and have also regretted walking away from it. I loved it this past Saturday, and found it relaxing and brain stimulating at the same time (which is challenging, yet needed thanks to my constant fuzziness fog). I'm excited to live in a big enough city that offers tons of adult ballet and modern classes. So yay for steps forward! Not sure career wise what's next, but I'm getting out of the house and doing new things that I enjoy, so dh is very happy about this and I really do feel more energized, all good things.