Positive!

I went to the fertility clinic that Monday morning to get my blood drawn for a pregnancy test. I had no hopes for this and it made me laugh a little. They took my blood, said they would call me in the afternoon and sent me on my way. I drove to work and barely thought about it.

I told some of my good friends at my job, many of whom had been through all of this fertility stuff before, about the weekend and the drama and the blood test. Then I went about my business.

A little after noon my phone rang. It was them and it was positive. Huh? I made them say it again. It was positive, although the HCG level was a little on the low side (I believe they look for at least 50 at 2 weeks post IUI and mine was a little over 40). They told me to come back in a few days to repeat and scheduled an appointment for an ultrasound right around 6 weeks.

I hung up the phone. My mouth was agape. I was stunned. I had conviced myself that it hadn't worked this time and I would be going through yet one more IUI before we moved onto IVF -- which I was sure I would have to do.

I called my husband at work and my mom at home and rushed downstairs to tell my close friends who had been on this journey with me and knew more about my uterus and follicles than anyone should know ever! Seriously, they could practically draw you a picture of my lady parts!

I was in a fog for days. My second blood test came back and my numbers had gone up. I was pregnant!

Follistim - Round 2

We had done a 2nd round of IUI using Follistim in May of 2006 and I was waiting to see if I would get my period or get to go for a blood test for the very first time. It was a Friday and we had plans to get together with "the gang**."

**The Gang, at the time, consisted of my two best friends since the 6th grade (KT & MD), their husbands (M & G) - one of whom we'd known since the 8th grade, and Baby M - belonging to KT & M. These are people that I can't live without. There are now 4 more kids added to the mix.

During the day I started to spot. I was hoping beyond hope that it was implantation bleeding -- since the medical advice on the web said that it could be. We got to MD & G's house and on one of my trips to the bathroom I discovered I was bleeding -- like the beginning of a period. I was devastated. I pulled myself together and went back to my friends, where I mentioned to the girls that it had not worked, yet again. They were the best! In their silent way (without alerting the menfolk) they let me know it would be okay and this would happen for me. Like I said, I can't live without these people.

On the way home in the car I cried. I cried in bed that night. In the morning when I woke up I cried some more and then I called the fertility clinic. They told me to go ahead and start up my injections the following night (Sunday) but to take a pregnancy test in the morning -- just to be sure. I said I would and cried some more.

I called my mom later that day. Sunday morning we were supposed to attend the wedding of the daughter of my parent's best friends. Aside from my parent's friends and their children we didn't really know anyone else there. I knew I was not up for this event. I called my mom, in tears, and told her I just couldn't muster the energy to attend and be nice and friendly and outgoing to people that I didn't know. I just couldn't. She said she understood and would send my apologies.

This was the first time in this 18 month process that I had really just lost it. I had started to feel hopeless. I knew in the scheme of things, 18 months is nothing. But all of the stress, disappointment and fear finally crept in and I had it.

Sunday morning arrived. I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. While in mid-stream (I know...too much info) I remembered about the pregnancy test. I clenched, patted and waddled over to our linen closet to get the one test I had left. I peed on the stick and walked away.

I'm pretty sure I left it for more than two minutes. It's not like I wanted to rush back to the bad news that I already knew was facing me. When I finally remembered to go back to the bathroom I picked up the test and saw two extremely faint lines. I mean, these things were so barely there that I thought I had actually started to lose my mind and I was imagining that they were there. I grabbed Hubs and asked him to look. After careful consideration and about 30 minutes of staring at something that had piss all over it, we came to the conclusion that we both saw something. Natural sunlight, fluorescent light -- it was there, sort of.

I called the fertility clinic and told them about our science experiment. They said to hold off on the injections and to come in for a blood test the next morning. If it was negative I could just start my shots the next night.

You'd think I would have been excited and jumping all around. Nope. Didn't believe it was true. Couldn't be. I had started bleeding yesterday -- although that had sort of gone away by that point. I checked on-line about false positives all day long and found that they were very rare. Still...I did not believe.

Making babies?

I knew I always wanted to be a mom. And not only that, but I knew that I wanted to experience pregnancy and childbirth. It was a part of me and I knew that early on.

So, after getting married and buying a house my hubby and I decided to was time to give it a go. I came off the pill and started taking my temperature and counting the days of my cycle. Several months went by and nothing had happened. I wasn't too discouraged as I knew it could take people up to a year to get pregnant.

Then my periods got farther and farther apart. Then they stopped. I figured it was normal to miss a period once in a while so I waited. Three months in a row and I decided to call my OB/GYN. She didn't seem too concerned but ordered a few tests to see what the story was.

We found out...nothing. She couldn't give me a reason for why my periods stopped, but we all knew that if I wasn't having a period then I wasn't ovulating and it's pretty hard to get knocked up when you're not ovulating. Next stop -- fertility clinic.

Provera to get a period. Clomid to stimulate ovulation. Cancelled cycle and a diagnosis -- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. After researching on the web (which is where we should all get our medical information), I realized that I had so many of the symptoms of PCOS. I also realized that Clomid does not always work, there is a higher miscarriage rate, etc.

I tried to take Metformin (for insulin resistance) and Clomid together but that was a disaster. The Metformin made me so sick and I almost had an amazingly embarrassing gastro-intestinal "episode" at a very good friend's wedding. Off the Metformin, but continue with Clomid and IUI.

4 Clomid cycles and 3 IUIs later, I was still not pregnant. Then came Follistim -- shots. One round with an IUI produced nothing. But round two...