Boo to IUI #3

That’s right…boo…it’s a no go…unsuccessful…BFN…

It actually was probably the easiest “no, you are not pregnant” call I have gotten though.  I kinda thought it was going to be negative and had prepared myself for that, so I wasn’t really surprised when that is what the nurse told me.  Plus we had friends in the car when I got the call, so it forced me to be in control and I didn’t even tear up.  Progress if I do say so myself.  :)

The next step…my RE gave us the option to #1 do another cycle on Clomid or #2 to start on injectables. Of course, sticking with true infertility fashion we had about 24 hours to make the decision about which path we wanted to take (we had briefly been forewarned that this decision was coming but didn’t want to think along those lines because we wanted to be positive that #3 would work).  The hard thing about this was that we got the call at 4pm on Thursday afternoon while we were in the car headed to Memphis with some friends.  We got to Memphis late that night, shared a hotel room with our friends and were at the Memphis in May Barbeque Festival ALL day Friday and Saturday with thousands of people around.  So it was very hard to discuss pros, cons, do research, etc before we had to let the nurse know Friday!  Luckily we have great friends that I feel comfortable talking about such things with! :)  Another kicker in all of this was that we have to do a training on injectables before we start and it has to be done either in Mobile (3 1/2 hours from Dothan) or Gulf Breeze (3 hours from Dothan) on or before CD3.  Which means taking ANOTHER day off work (after being off Thursday and Friday) AND tomorrow is my last night of GPS so there is a ton of prep to do before the meeting and I HAVE to be back in Dothan by 3pm at the latest to get everything ready!  Sigh, nothing in this is easy!  Our final decision was to schedule the appointment to be trained on injectables Monday (tomorrow, CD 3) and pray about it for the rest of the weekend.  Then tomorrow during the injectables training we can ask more questions and if we don’t feel comfortable with it, do another round of Clomid. 

Rationale behind injectables instead of Clomid…Clomid tricks the brain into thinking that the body is not producing enough Estrogen.  This makes your body create more estrogen which leads to the production of more FSH, which helps in the production of ovarian follicles.  However, since it is messing with your estrogen levels it can cause problems with the uterine lining which can impede implantation.  The injectables (the medication is called Follistim) bypass the estrogen route.  The active ingredient in Follistim is FSH so it directly stimulates ovarian follicle growth.  However, with this medication comes more risks…risk of multiples on Clomid = 8%.  Risk of multiples on Follistim = 20%. (These stats totally do not bother me…I really would love to have multiples…)  There is also a risk of hyperstimulation causing hospitalization and some other stuff.  Because of these risks they monitor you MUCH closer than with the Clomid.  They not only do an ultrasound on CD3, but they also do lab work.  Then you do several days of self administered shots, then go back in for lab work and ultrasound.  Then they evaluate how you are doing, then possibly a few more days of shots, more ultrasound and bloodwork, etc.  We will know more tomorrow, but that is the initial info I got from the nurse.  (That was the extremely dumbed down version…for more info on any of these medications or treatments check out the Fertility Journey website.)

Prayers…that my lining will look good tomorrow, that I will have no cysts and that we will know which route to take this cycle!  I have never done back to back cycles because something always comes up forcing me to take a month off in between so I am praying for the best tomorrow so we can go ahead and do something!

I will post pictures from our so fun Memphis trip later this week!