I think I forgot to mention that my last and final batch of blood work came back all normal. Again. So now there really will be no more testing and as far as I know, they I will never have a reason for a total of 4 confirmed miscarriages. I will never know if the pregnancy that I aborted would have gone to term, but it didnt look great. I was bleeding and had an unexplained uterine infection. There also won't be any lovenox(blood thinners). My RE's nurse had gotten me all psyched up for a possible inject cycle. The RE still says that his first choice for me is IVF with PGD, second choice IVF with donor eggs. After I again told him no way, he says there is no need for injects since I respond well to oral meds and we will go ahead and try letrezole (femara) and IUI. The thing is, I dont want to! I am so freaking tired of trying to get pregnant. So awful sick of being disappointed. I think my heart and brain have just given up on the possibility that a potential pregnancy is going to lead to a live birth. Pregnancy has for me become a sort of self flagellation. Between my therapist and my doctors, I feel like at this point, I cant even buy any hope. I have been trying to do little things to coax that hopeful feeling back into the light. The supplimental insurance for pregnancy, the maternity dress, but I am still coming up short. What would make me feel most productive would be to persue a domestic adoption, and with Brian going to grad school and moving state next year, that is not an option. Cant buy hope and cant buy a (30 thousand dollar) baby.

Brian is unwilling to give up. He even called me a wimp for wanting to delay this next treatment cycle.I told him that we have already been through more than most people would subject themselves to. We have reached a compromise, I will fill a final clomid prescription that I have had waiting for me and take that when I get my period in two weeks. We will go to mexico for ten days in the early part of May (booked trip already) so I can feel like an adult and just take a load off. If Im not pregnant, we will go ahead with the IUI cycle may/june cycle. I have to keep reminding myself that Brian has a lot of emotional investment in having our biological children, and that he does get some say. We will keep navigating this slippery slope together, and If Ive lost my capacity to hope for a while, I know that he hasnt.

the haves and have nots

I have mixed feelings about the online and real life support/ buddy groups that I have been participating in. I have bonded with lovely and intelligent women that I would never have met in the during the course of my every day life. We have shared joys and many disappointments, I have learned a great deal about infertility and pregnancy loss that would have been hard, if not impossible to come by without reading the accounts of these women's experiences and benefiting from their research. At the same time, I keep thinking how easily we forget. Women who used to lament about long cycles , fertility testing, and chemical pregnancies, are now gushing about cloth diapers and complaining bitterly about lack of sleep. If I hear or see one more former infertile going on about how having a baby "changes everything" I might be forced to gauge out my eyes and ears with a bloody pitchfork. Dont they remember how NOT being able to have a baby changed everything ? For your average woman who happily spends 5 years with her husband before getting pregnant and delivering, I can see how having a baby changes everything, disrupts your saturday morning sleep ins and late nights with friends. Cramps your style as far as shopping and spending goes.. personally I have not been enjoying this time of not having children. its been painful, and wretched. Heartbreaking and wallet draining. I would be pretty cussing glad to have everything changed by a healthy baby, but I dont know if I could forget these past few years.

Perhaps we should divide ourselves into those that have come out the other end of the infertility void, and those that have not. Or maybe I just need to avoid this sort of thing for a while.

Im also having mixed feelings about therapy. Now that my anxiety is mostly being controlled by the zoloft, I want to focus on my painful feelings surrounding my miscarriages, which I feel are totally normal and valid, that there is nothing pathological about these feelings of anger, jealousy,inadequacy, and isolation. However, they are no less worthy of treatment. During our last session I mentioned that I feel that women who have easily had children, or are pregnant with no reason to suspect that anything bad could happen, must hear my story and think "Im sure glad Im not THAT sad sack of shit". A woman who cant even manage to fufill her biological imperative. The psychiatrist looked shocked that I said that, told me I was projecting, and went on to ask about my anxiety. I cant help but feel that she just dosent get it, and Im not totally sure who would. My ideal therapist would be a reproductive endocrinologist/ psychiatrist who has run a recurrent loss clinic and has personally suffered at least 6 pregnancy losses, and infertility. Because I feel that unless a person has experienced what I have, how COULD they possibly understand ? And this is what frustrates me so much about these women in my support groups who have "graduated". Because they have understood and they should understand, but they seem to go through some sort of baby induced amnesia. I have been seeking the company of people in the same situation, but more often than not these people go on to have children, and the bond isnt broken but it changes.

More waiting

Everyone who is infertile and trying to get pregnant / carry to term knows that you are always waiting for something. Right now we are waiting for the results of the final blood clotting stuff I had drawn a week or two ago. This makes it too late to start my IUI/ inject cycle this coming cycle. Another forced break cycle ahead. We didnt even try this month... Brian asked me why and I told him that in 7 years together, I have never been pregnant without taking clomid. He really cant seem to wrap his mind around the fact that I get positive ovulation tests and still dont ovulate in a manner thats condusive to getting pregnant.

I am busy interviewing real estate agents and figuring what I need to do by the way of sprucing up the house. there are a few minor repairs and some landscaping that need doing. Im sort of at a loss, because I have never sold a house before. I plan to rent a storage unit and make sure we have as little clutter in the house as possible. I might even hire a maid to come in a couple of times per month, as I simply dont have much time to keep a house clean enough to be ready to show at a moments notice, not without some help. The real estate agent that I have spoken with, seems to think we can sell the house for about what we paid for it. Fingers crossed. If it sells quickly, it will free up a ton of money for savings. We can can rent a small apartment for a third of our monthly mortgage payment. I have been keeping one of the spare rooms in this house, free for a nursery. Im most likely never going to set up that nursery and it feels strange.

I have been making room in my mind for the possibility that I will get a take home baby one day. In doing so Ive been making other sorts of provisions, besides that nursery. I got supplimental insurance that will pay out when I give birth, and if I have pregnancy complications that keep me out of work. I got a maternity summer dress just because it was cute and on sale.

So theres really not much to tell. Just waiting, getting all my ducks in a row for my coming cycles with the RE.