Cycle 8, Day 12

I am back from my long awaited and much needed anniversary jaunt to Montreal.  My second wedding anniversary is tomorrow but we took the long weekend to celebrate. But just before I left I got confirmation that my cyst had disappeared and I was given the go ahead to start injectibles - specifically Menopur and Gonal F.  So we traveled up north, cooler on board, for a little R&R, with a side of daily fertility injections.

Let me just say this - the needles weren't bad at all.  Although I had used an hcg trigger my past two IUI cycles I never had to inject the needle myself because I brought it to my monitoring appointment and the nurses took care of it for me.  I wasn't really sure what to expect but other than the learning curve of figuring out how to mix the medication, it was totally fine.  My husband did the first few shots and I took over last night.

I had a monitoring appointment this morning and everything looked good.  No measurable follicles yet but I'm sure they are growing because my estrogen was at 279, nearly as high as it was on the day before my first (Clomid) IUI.  I'm still learning how these drugs are different and I don't really know what to expect because they told me to expect to stim for at least ten days before starting another drug that will suppress my natural ovulation, but as of this morning the nurse said my IUI could be as early as next Monday.  It would be nice to know these things in advance because my husband has a bit of work travel to expect next week, but such is infertility.

Speaking of infertility, it has now officially been ONE YEAR since my husband and I began trying to get pregnant.  Like literally to the day.*  TMI I know!  I say this because I've previously expressed feeling like a "faker" among the rest of the ALI community since my struggle hasn't been nearly as long and difficult as others.  But, after one year, most experts agree that we are pretty much infertile although I just recently stumbled upon the word "subfertile" and I like it a lot better.

According to this study, after one year of trying to get pregnant naturally a subfertile couple's chances decrease to about 5% on any given month.  Not that it that statistic really means anything to me since I have been trying "unnaturally" for a number of months.  And a bunch of other studies say that most couples who aren't successful after one year are successful after two.  If you give me a while I can probably find some studies to debunk those studies too.

Anyway I'm in the club.  And I don't feel good or bad about it now that it's here.  I think subfertility has been my reality for a while so the "year mark" hasn't really affected me so much other than being sort of a sad note on an otherwise happy wedding anniversary.

*TMI story from one year ago today:  To celebrate our anniversary I took my husband back to the lakeside town we were married.  It was July 16th, so the day before our anniversary.  We had a romantic dinner at the hall where our wedding reception had been and then stayed in what was supposed to be a quaint lakeside motel.  Well, let's just say my husband wasn't feeling well and the motel was a little too "rustic" for our style and I was so mad because it was the 14th day in my cycle after ditching birth control and OMG I needed to have sex to get pregnant!  I can't even remember if we did it that night or waited until the next day.  Needless to say, it did not work.