A bad IVF gone IUI: Just circling the drain

"Right ovary, 2 less than 10, left ovary 3 less than 10" repeat scenario about two or three times. "You don't seem to be responding." I wait for my nurse to call me to tell me what I think is inevitable, that my cycle will be cancelled. After all of the injections we're still  nowhere, again. She calls later that afternoon to say, "don't get depressed yet, Dr. K wants you to stim a bit longer this time." 

"Oh, yes, thank you", I say. Inside I feel a glimmer of hope, small, but at least there. I am used to being disappointed so often now, so I cannot help the "waiting for the other shoe to drop" feeling.

I go in for more scans and blood work and find that the follicles decided to wake up and start growing. Three of them to be exact. Two larger mature ones, and one that still has a bit more growing to do to be considered "mature". (I guess you could compare that one to  a mildly disobedient adolescent.) Well, the cut off for my clinic to do IVF is 4 mature ones so, Dr. K says we are converting to IUI. I say to myself at least it's try. I try to psyche myself out, and remember the first IUI I had that resulted in pregnancy. I did miscarry at 8 weeks, but I did get pregnant. I so want to believe that this IUI will work. No matter how I try to not get overly hopeful, my heart is always invested, from that deep longing inside of me.

After the two back to back IUI procedures, I am sent home to wait until the following Monday to come in to get my progesterone levels checked. Monday comes and I get the call later that afternoon that my progesterone is normal, and I am given the date to come in for a beta test. The stressful 2 week wait begins. I consciously made an effort to ignore any symptoms of pregnancy that came around to taunt and tease me, and there were some, but I just pushed them out of my mind. I would not even answer my sweet husband who kept asking me how I was feeling, and kept, as he put it, trying to "read my signals". 

Then it happens. Three days before my beta test, I start spotting brown. I call the nurse and she calls back and says it could be implantation spotting, or it could be my period beginning. I am not hopeful as I never had implantation spotting with any of my pregnancies. Then the following morning, "a red tide at dawn". It's officially over. Maybe in the back of my mind I really knew that this cycle was circling the drain. I just had to wait for the "gurgle" for it to be official.

I am just so damned... no, fucking, hurt, disappointed, shattered, feel shit upon by life, and angry. I feel alone, at times misunderstood, and abandoned by God, whom I was taught to worship as a child. 

My husband is so sweet. He says to me on his way to work yesterday, "Maybe since there was more than one follicle, maybe one is still there hanging on". I so appreciated this from him, even though I know it is not the case. Later that evening he placed a card on my pillow, that said " Each day contains its own challenges, mysteries, and expectations.... Don't give up - the good stuff is just around the corner." He wrote a personal not inside to the same effect and said he believes that we have had enough disappointments and he believes that excellent things are around the corner for us. I love him for this.

I feel so beaten down. I miss my son so much each day, and I long to have another healthy baby. I feel so incomplete, and I cannot explain it to anyone. Looking from the outside in, people think I should be OK. I am not. I really don't want to get up in the morning, but I do. I really don't want to smile, but I force it. I want to cry most of the time from sadness and disappointment, but hold it in, as best I can. I love, hug, and kiss my living children, but someone is missing. My mind never gets a rest from that, and never will. 

At my job, I see a child in need and I try to fulfill their need, doing it in my Devyn's name because I cannot do it for him because he is in heaven. I try to make the children I teach feel happy, and loved because that is what all children deserve, and my heart breaks when I see the ones who are are abused or neglected. I do what I can for them, in my Devyn's name, be it getting them clothes, school supplies, kindness, caring, understanding, encouragement, whatever it is.

But I still feel the emptiness. The raw edges of the piece of my heart that is missing, and the raw edges of it's shattered pieces. 

Someone angry this way comes...

I am angry. Angry about everything and nothing. I know it might not make sense to some people. I am angry my son is not here with me today. I am angry that my body will not cooperate with my IVF meds, and it is looking like cycle #2 will be cancelled like cycle #1. I feel slap, after slap, after slap. My faith is totally shaken. I try so hard stay optimistic and positive but I feel beaten down with each disappointment that happens, one after the other, like there are waves washing over me, and barely letting me take a breath. Lately it is hard to see the shore. 

I know the the meds are probably adding to my feelings of despair and emptiness. I cried most of the day yesterday after my morning monitoring, when the RE said that I did not seem to be responding, with 5 follicles less than 10mm each. And I am on what they call their most aggressive protocol. When they cancelled cycle #1 saying poor response, my body later took over and I ovulated on my own, and did not realize it until an ultrasound confirmed it.

Why has my life turned out this way? All I can do is look at Devyn's urn and imagine what he would look like now, and how it would feel to have him in my arms and hug and kiss his sweet little face. 

Such a dichotomy, to long for my lost baby, and to hope and long to be pregnant again. I guess it's no wonder my heart and soul are so heavy.