IVF#9, the postmortem

Well, another cycle, another failure. And nothing to freeze. What to say about it? I had a great ER, got 16 eggs, 10 fertilized, but by day 3 they were down to 7 and by day 5 just two were still growing, an early blast and a morula. We put them both back of course. One stuck to the catheter and had to be reloaded and transferred again. And then there was the usual 2ww full of highs and lows, hope and despondency, symptoms which came and went. I guess my "women are super fertile after having a baby" window has passed, so we're back to facing the long haul.

Two things making me sad: firstly we are struggling financially and we can't afford to do another back-to back cycle. Who knows when we will scrape together enough money to cycle again. I hope in 1 month, but I just don't know. Secondly, each time we do IVF they are choosing the best sperm from what is left, so each time the quality is going to go down. So I suppose our chances are going to keep on getting worse.

Thank goodness for my beautiful little boy. If I didn't have him I'm sure I would have gone bananas a long time ago.

IVF # 9...up on the starting blocks

I finally got AF yesterday after my BFN (thank goodness for POAS and betas, otherwise I would definitely have convinced myself I was pregnant!), and, well, we're off again. I went for an ultrasound this morning, which was fine, bought my stims and the other shots in the afternoon, and took my first shot of decapeptyl this evening. We are using the same protocol as last time: a short protocol with the maximum dosage, 8 ampules of Menopur 75 every day and half a decapeptyl 0.1. Seems like a heck of a lot of hormones, I know, but I have never yet had OHSS and get an average of about 7 to 10 eggs usually.

Every IVF cycle from start to (usually) devastating finish takes about a month out of my life. So far, including the FET, that's almost 9 complete months where I have basically thought about very little else. This time I am resolving not to waste so much time and energy. I saw a post on facebook today which reminded me that Mozart composed the overture to Don Giovanni on the morning of its premiere, which kind of puts time into perspective when you're sitting around using precious moments to think about whether something that is completely out of your control is going to work or not.  Disclaimer: I exempt myself from this resolve in the final few days of the 2ww! If I even get that far. I haven't yet had nothing to transfer, but I like to remind myself that that could be an outcome. I did have one cycle when I only had one tiny little late fertilizer, which was a huge shock to me at the time.

Onwards!