As usual, it seems I only come here with the negative posts … Mostly because there’s not much in the way of progress or positive ones in regards to our fertility. We started seeing a specialist with Boston IVF in May and began IUI in June. For my own sanity, uterine lining and wallet we decided to skip a month in between each IUI. The plan was to do a few and then reassess if I didn’t get pregnant. It had been about 2 years since I was last pregnant when we started IUI. We hadn’t been actively trying (read as: obsessing) but we hadn’t been not trying either, so we were interested to find out if we could still even get pregnant! Turns out the IUI worked on the third try, 6 months after beginning this new process.

Fast forward through all the definitive, beautiful feelings and pregnancy symptoms I was having last week. I found out the day before Thanksgiving (13 dpo)that I was pregnant. What a thankful Thanksgiving this one was! I was over the moon because typically the only symptoms I have in early pregnancy are spotting and cramping and this time I had neither! Finally I was feeling pinching and pulling and bloating and back pain and I couldn’t have been happier about it! My HCG started out low, which was concerning, and fairly typical. I tried not to get myself down too much because the symptoms I was feeling reassured me that things were progressing. Finally! Maybe the last 6 years, and all the heart ache and miscarriages were just a bad dream! Or at least in the past. Maybe those were all just miscarriages out of bad luck and genetic abnormalities. Maybe there isn’t actually something wrong with me!

My second HCG came back two days later (15 dpo), my numbers doubled from 26 to 58. Great.  test again in three days. 159 (18 dpo).  Still okay, I guess.  Doubling in 48-72 hours, sure, but low.  So low. I didn’t feel great about this. My pinching and pulling had stopped, but maybe that just meant everything had settled into place. I had some minor cramping during the night of 20 dpo, but nothing painful or even warranting of concern. It just felt like stretching.  Though, I had been having insane night sweats for the past week or so.  While on Clomid I would get these crazy, puddle making, drenching night sweats about once a month before my period. I think it was either estrogen or progesterone levels adjusting. i suppose I figured it was good news this past week, thinking my progesterone levels must be sky rocketing! Well, after finding out my level on had dropped from 159, to 59 on Thursday, it seems night sweats are just a symptom of hormones adjusting up or down.

Today my levels have dropped to 33, and I have finally started to spot … I stopped counting how may dpo we are.  What’s the point?  I was fairly hopeful for the first week. No cramps, no spotting and I actually broke 100 on my hcg which I’ve never done before, and I’ve never not had spotting or cramping in the first week. Actually, I’ve only made it a whole week once before, and my levels peaked at 79, then.  I hadn’t felt hope in a while, and I really do feel blessed that I got to feel pregnant if only for a few days.  That was a first, too.  It was nice to dream again. Unfortunately that just makes it all the more painful when things go south.

We’re really angry now, more than anything. Quoting my doctor from a couple of months ago, “The goal is to get you pregnant and keep you pregnant.” Yes.   But if that’s so, what did you do for us? Nothing. Sure, you got us pregnant quicker than we could have on our own, but my husband and I both knew how it would end. We’ve seen this before. Did you need to see it for yourself? Why weren’t there other tests run? How come no progesterone was prescribed right away, or even tested for? I asked for it and I got, “You’re already pregnant. we don’t test progesterone if you’re already pregnant?” WTF? Thousands of other RPL sufferers and their doctors say otherwise. We’re mad that we went through this whole process for the same outcome and no new knowledge.  Why did we do that and pay all that money? For another disappointment and no answers. Why didn’t they do more during my cycle or before becoming pregnant to give this one it’s best shot?

We’ve got another appointment in a couple of weeks to sit down and talk about other plans. Im adamant about testing for MTHFR among other things before going into another round of conceiving in any way. I have a feeling they’re going to push for IVF, but why? IVF has chances of failing as it is, and if we have no answers, it’s like putting water in a bucket we already know has a hole in it. I very much doubt that my last 5, 6 or 7 (Who’s counting anymore) losses have all just been chance. There has to be a link and I’d like answer or at least a strategy before throwing more hope and money at other methods of conceiving. Conceiving is not our biggest problem.  There’s something else going on here, and if we don’t know what that is, or at least try to figure it out, that water is just going to continue to pour through that hole and we’ll be right back here in a few months, a lot more discouraged and a lot more broke.

So frustrated. So angry. So tired.  Six years is a long time to go through anything. Six years is especially long when it’s so full of major grief.