So many emotions, so little time *UPDATED*

It's been a rough week. I am feeling constantly exhausted but keeping up with the significant demands at work (I can't afford to make any mistakes given my situation) and managing the sadness and anxiety surrounding where we are in our infertility journey.

The good news is that my hours are being cut by only a few per week, not enough to cause any harm to our financial situation. And I am contracted through the rest of this month and, if workload keeps up, then I can continue through October. It is clear that the team is becoming grateful for my contribution, which is the best that I can ask for at this point. Whether the firm brings in enough clients to keep itself busy is out of my control.

I re-applied for the federal job working with Mr. Flowers. I expect to get a call for an interview over the next month or so. I also applied for another job with the same agency and will apply for a third in a different department on Thursday. And one of the contacts from my current job, after learning about my situation, became excited by the possibility of hiring me for a new job that is expected to come up in the next couple of months at his multinational corporation. My job search is in full swing.

The bad news is....well....infertility. Mr. LIW and I went for our first IUI yesterday and we are following it up with another dose this morning. I let myself feel a bit hopeful yesterday morning (after the cramping stopped) but I am trying to quash it. I simply can't imagine dealing with major disappointment again - I don't think I have the strength right now.

The Midwife/Nurse did say that my cervix is deep and tilted back and slightly to the left. Perhaps this is one of our many obstacles to fertility? It had to be one of the reasons that the procedure caused a significant amount of cramping and discomfort. It wasn't as painful as the HSG but it certainly was more uncomfortable than I expected. And I experienced cramping on and off for the rest of the afternoon.

Anyway, the plan is for Mr. LIW to see a specialist (the only one Dr. Gentle sends his patients to as he is reportedly the "best") to find out if surgery is likely to solve Mr. LIW's morphology problem. If we go the surgery route, Mr. LIW and I decided that we would push for another IUI as opposed to trying on our own. If surgery is not likely to help, we will move on to ivf in the next couple of cycles.

I know intellectually - both of us do - that we still have a chance. None of our infertility obstacles appear to be insurmountable. And Mr. LIW's counts are always good, which means we can most likely find enough swimmers with good morphology to use. Yesterday's sample was 41 million after concentration. Of course, who knows how many had poor morphology but we can hope that, since the centrifuge tends to get rid of bad/weak sperm, that lots of those were capable of successful fertilization. I am ovulating one egg on the right ovary and possibly one on the left, thanks to Clo.mid and a trigger shot.

We are both sad, though, that our baby will be made through a medical procedure. But we are even more frightened that we may never have a biological child. We are trying not to panic but this possibility is causing us significant grief. Perhaps it is better to grieve now than when we are starting the adoption process, which we plan to do after a couple of failed ivf attempts.

We do have a plan and there is a bit of comfort in that. But we are sleeping badly and feeling exhausted by the weight of it all.
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Today's injection was *much* less painful than yesterday's, though my hoo-ha was a bit raw from the its rendevous with the speculum yesterday. I think that the nurse had to use the tenaculum to stabilize my cervix, which is one of the reasons that the procedure went much slower than today's. I am experiencing much less cramping today as well, which is great.

Mr. LIW was a math/science double-major in college (and is one of those rare individuals who utilizes math daily in a professional capacity) so I left it up to him to try to calculate our odds of success. We decided that, even if the morphology level was below normal in both samples(even as low as 1%) we still sent plenty of healthy swimmers over this two-day period. His count yesterday was 41 million and today's count was 58 million. Mr. LIW did enough research to learn that even 10 million is a good number. Since Mr. LIW is not sick, we are optimistic that 1% to 2% of each sample was normally shaped and capable of penetrating one of the (hopefully) two eggs that I should be releasing any moment now.

I do feel like my ovaries are sore again - just like the last time that I used 100mg of Clo.mid. Given those symptoms and the trigger shot on Saturday night, I should be ovulating any minute now.

I am feeling so incredibly tired and a bit nauseous. My nippl.es are incredibly sore and I feel like I am coming down with the flu. But I know that these symptoms *must* be side effects from the drugs because it is too early in the process for them to be from anything else.

Today is dragging and I know that the 2ww will pass very slowly. But I am even more afraid of finding out that the cycle failed. I can go for a beta on Saturday, September 29th but I would have to wait until Monday for the results. Alternatively, I can go the following Monday morning and find out that afternoon. I think that I will wait until Monday as that means that my period will more likely be the sign that the cycle failed. I would rather find out myself than go through the blood test. The problem is that clo.mid will extend my cycle so I may end up hopeful in those last few days of the 2ww. At least when my cycle is short, I get the disappointing news before I have reason to believe that I might be pregnant.

I honestly think that I will wait as long as possible before I go for a beta. The excitement of the TTC process is honestly gone for me - which is one of the things that makes me so very very sad. Even though there was disappointment in the early days of our journey, there was still excitement. The joyful and hopeful parts have been beaten out of me and I am left with only the anxiety and grief that is IF. I guess I still have a measure of hope or I wouldn't be going through the treatments. Mr. LIW suggested that we try for our own for a while if this doesn't work in an effort to help me to catch up with all of these feelings. But I honestly can't stand the thought of doing nothing. So, it is the need to do *something* that drives me and not necessarily the hope that any of this will work....

It's sad and it makes me sad to realize how sad it is.

But there is hope, right? Mr. LIW thinks that our chances are good. It's likely that we sent a sufficient number of healthy sperm to two eggs. I just don't think that I *want* to be hopeful anymore, you know?