The Starting Line.

September 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm | Posted in doctor, FET #4, Infertility, Mythical #2 | 28 Comments

At my last meeting with Dr. HIT, he told me that yes, we were still infertile, as J’s SA was a mere 2 million total sperm with 0% morphology (great motility, though. 60%. So they move, just in circles). But we were cleared for a cycle, once the insurance paperwork had cleared.

Three weeks ago the billing coordinator called me – the insurance paperwork had cleared.

So J and I went about figuring out The Plan for the cycle.

Initially we decided that we’d go ahead and cycle whenever I got AF. Which meant a transfer at the end of September.

Which meant I’d either be in my 2ww or potentially pregnant for my half marathon.

Which, you know, wouldn’t be AWFUL. But we thought, well, since we only have two blastocysts and aren’t planning on a fresh cycle again, maybe we should try and see if we can manipulate the cycle for a later transfer.

We could, with the birth control pill, my nurse told me. She instructed me that I’d take the pill for ten days, then get another AF, then we’d start the meds and do a transfer 19 days after then.

Which would put a transfer smack dab into the middle of our visit to Texas to visit my parents.

Well that wouldn’t work.

Okay, so if we took a cycle off, we could just try again next month.

Which would put us near a transfer during the time where J and I were away for my birthday, just the two of us, in Nantucket.

And if we waited another cycle, it would be Thanksgiving. Then Christmas.

Or maybe we could stay on the pill for longer to get it to a point where we could have the transfer at some point AFTER we got home from Texas but BEFORE we go to Nantucket…

So when I got AF yesterday, I was COMPLETELY fed up with trying to plan and schedule the Perfect Cycle.

Truth is, the timing will NEVER be perfect.

Because we’re in the business of, you know, living our lives.

And every time I thought about changing something to make sure transfer falls on a ‘better’ day, I got really bitter.

Because 6 out of 7 couples DON’T think about the timing and whether it’ll be perfect. They just say “well, let’s see what happens.”

And I didn’t even want to fucking GO back to the doctor in the FIRST place.

But it’s our reality. We need our doctor and IVF to conceive.

So when I called my nurse today to report day one, I asked her for her opinion.

She said, “You know, Serenity, if a cycle is going to fail, it’s not because of anything that you did or didn’t do. It usually fails because it was going to fail.”

She went on to tell me that because this isn’t new – I’ve been running regularly for a year and a half now – there was absolutely NO medical reason why we should wait until after the half marathon for a transfer.

And then she said “Sometimes it’s easier to blame a particular thing we do as the Reason Why it didn’t work. Truth is, there isn’t much you can do that will affect whether or not it will work. It’s statistics and DNA and all sorts of things you have no control over.”

Have I mentioned how much I love my nurse?

So that did it for J and I. We decided to move forward with a cycle.

Now.

Not waiting until after the half, not trying to manipulate dates with birth control pills.

We’re going to do what the other 6 out of 7 people do. Move forward and see what happens.

So I started my estradiol this morning (2mg tablets 2x a day), and put on my patch (vivelle patch, change every three days). I have an ultrasound and bloodwork scheduled for 7am Sunday September 19. And if all looks well then, they’re targeting a transfer date of Friday, September 24.

So here we are, at the starting line again.