7DPO - Ghosts of the Past

My cell phone rang today and my nurse's name came up on the caller ID. Just seeing her name bummed me out. I immediately pressed "ignore" and sent her to my voicemail. As soon as the voicemail notification chimed, I dialed in. She was calling to check on me and see how I am doing. She was curious to know what we have decided and what (if any) financial arrangements had been made as far as another cycle goes. She wants me to give her a call.

It's odd that this call came in right now. I was looking at the calendar and realized that as of Columbus Day, it has been 1 year since BJ and I visited the clinic for our initial consultation. What a great anniversary.

All my disappointment returned when I saw her name and listened to her message. All those feelings of my failed IUI's and my failed IVF came rushing back. These feelings are so intense but at the same time it feels like a LIFETIME ago. Like it happened to someone else and I just watched from the sidelines. At times during my treatment I felt like I was on the sidelines while someone else called the plays. I wish there was more I could have done to make my treatments successful. I'm beginning to think that I just have rotten eggs and that nothing I do can change that because I was born with them already rotten.

I read some information online about how a shortened cycle can mean egg quality issues. Well, I went from a clockwork 28 day cycle to a clockwork 26 day cycle a few years ago...actually right around my 30th birthday...the precise time I went off BCP and started TTC again. The article specifically mentioned dropping from 28 to 26 days.

Some research shows that a certain diet can affect your egg quality. I'm not sure how much credence I put into that. Most of what I read suggests it's purely hormonal and age driven. I wish I knew for sure what to believe. Having a husband and an 8 year old (a few nights a week) does not make diet changes easy. Actually, nearly impossible in my household. BJ cooks dinner most weeknights and he is not going to make me something special. We eat together as a family. When we don't have the Little Guy, it's even more difficult to try and eat something different as BJ is not going to make dinner for 1. If I were single, controlling what I eat would be no problem. But then I wouldn't be trying to get knocked up if I were single.

I don't know for certain that I have rotten eggs but it's the most likely scenario. I had 5 follicles, 4 eggs and 3 mature. One of those mature eggs was rotten because it let in 2 sperm. I'm guessing that the other 2 (that were supposedly "perfect, grade 1, 0% fragmentation embies) must have arrested after transfer. Either that or I have a bad uterus. Without another cycle and additional testing, I will never know. I can't afford any more IVF's. IUI's won't tell me anything about my eggs or my uterus so they are useless to me. Although I'd love to do another one since I at least know that my eggs will fertilize with BJ's swimmers. *sigh*

I need to get back to my nurse but I'm going to go the chicken way and just e-mail her. I'm going to let her down gently. Very much unlike the way BJ would handle things. He'd love to tell them all off for not getting me pregnant and taking all that money. Poor guy. He's just as helpless as me in this whole thing.

Oh...and I forgot to temp this morning. My alarm went off and instead of rolling away from me so I will get up, BJ rolled toward me and snuggled with me for a few minutes. It was a nice way to start the day. I told him that he makes it very difficult to get out of bed in the mornings. And then I had to jump up and get in the shower. I was brushing my teeth when I remembered about my temperature. I'm such a doofus sometimes.

And some good news....BJ got a raise at work! This is going to help us out so much with the new house. I'm so proud of him for being recognized by his boss. And in an economy like this, I am very grateful for what we have. I actually feel a little guilt about it sometimes. I mean, here we are having a new house built and he just got a big raise and there are people that can't feed their children. It breaks my heart.