Going downhill...

The bad news just seems to keep coming this cycle. When I went in for the IUI on Saturday morning, the nurse told me that the doctor was not pleased with the results of the ultrasound from the day before. It turns out that the 5.4mm stripe is much less than he would like to see for an IUI. The nurse told me that they were going to attempt the IUI anyway, just so that they didn’t miss the window, but that the doctor wanted me to come in on Monday morning for another ultrasound. They normally like to see the stripe at a minimum of 7mm and the doctor was hoping that it was just slow in building. So, the nurse attempts the IUI, but at this point, I was completely deflated. I had no idea the results weren’t good. Here I was thinking that the 18.5mm follicle was a good sign and lo-and-behold something else becomes an issue.

I also got a peak at the sperm washing results and was able to jot down the numbers before the nurse came in. The total motility was 14.00 and when I asked her how the results were, she said that they were a little low and that normally the doctor likes to see them between 40 and 60. She said that anything above a 10 was still viable. So, now we're dealing with a low count too.

After the IUI, I trekked on down to school to sit in class all day until 5:00pm. When I got to class, the professor announced that our lunch hour was going to be a barbecue at her house. I don’t think that I’ve ever been invited to a professor’s house for lunch during class! It was a nice chance to get outside, but my mind was just elsewhere, as you can imagine. After the lunch, we spent the rest of the class going over the final project. When I left, I could feel a migraine starting and by the time I got home, it had hit full-force. I crawled up to bed at 6:00pm and didn’t get up again until midnight to change into my pajamas and take my contacts out. My head was still killing me so I crawled back into bed and woke up at 6:00am with E chatting his head off.

Sunday was a gorgeous day for our Thomas outing. We took our time getting up there, stopping at Wendy’s for lunch and getting there early so that E could ride the merry-go-round and play on some of the other trains. Our ride on Thomas was nice, and E was just so well-behaved the entire time. He didn’t even nap on the way home because he was so excited from the adventure. I was just plain exhausted, again. Four more weeks of school left… keep repeating that to myself…

This morning I went in for the next ultrasound to see if that lining had gotten any thicker and no luck. Still at 5.4mm. I asked the nurse what the lining was two months ago when my OB ordered the tests and the nurse said it was only at 5.9mm then. So obviously this is now becoming an issue, not just a one-time problem. The nurse said that he RE might recommend some sort of supplement to help things along, but she wasn’t sure if he would try it this month or next month.

And here I am. Thin lining, low count, IUI #2 and no way to know if this is ever going to work. I had the realization last night that if the lining doesn’t improve, it is highly unlikely that the RE will put me on any fertility drugs, since the side effects are often a thinner lining.

God. This just has to get better. This just has to work somehow. I just want to get pregnant. I'm so deflated and depressed by this news. I'm starting to lose all hope that I will ever have another child. I keep wondering if I could ever get used to the thought of adopting another baby. I just don't know if I could ever do it. I keep thinking how sad it would be for E to never have a sibling. But I still can't bring myself to consider adoption. Not after the childhood I had, not with the numerous step-parents and how it was to grow up without my 'real' mother, as screwed up as she was (and is).

I'm losing hope. I feel like I'm starting to hit bottom. I just can't believe that this is what my life has come to: infertility. I want so much to believe but I feel like there's nothing else to believe in. I feel like this is never going to work. I feel like I am destined to be infertile forever.

Edited to add:

I just got a call back from the RE's nurse. (As an aside, even though I bitch about having to go through this, I am at least happy about having a competent doctor's office. It's nice to have them call me back within a few hours; it's nice that they work every day, holidays included and are basically self-contained. I love the fact that the nurse called me back at 1:49pm; they return calls between 1:00pm and 5:00pm... so she called only 49 minutes after they started returning phone calls. It's just comforting.)

Anyways, the nurse said that the RE looked at my results and has decided not to do anything else this month. He said that even though the lining is very thin, it looks more mature today than it did on Friday and so he's going to leave it be. She did say "The doctor thinks that everything looks good, but if we're not successful this month, he'll most likely put you on Estrace for the next cycle. But everything looks like it's progressing as it should." Basically, I had a nice egg growing, the lining is thin, but mature, so we'll see what happens. I'm not hopeful, but it was nice to hear that the RE was hopeful. Maybe he should get pregnant instead!