The time has come....

to put my trying to conceive journey to an end. It appears as though 100mgs of Clomid this cycle did nothing for my body as far as making it ovulate. Hubby and I have had another one of our long discussions, in regards to being done with trying, and I feel my heart is not in a good place right now and hasn't been for quite a while. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want the artificial hormones flowing through my body, I don't want to be acting like a certifiable loony person because I can't keep my emotions in check (due to said artificial hormones) but most importantly, I don't want to put my husband and family through this anymore. I can't. My husband is fully supportive of my decisions, whichever they may be. He has left it up to me to decide what I want to do. For now I want to be done. I'll still temp, so I know if I ovulate on my own or not, so I know when to bring on a period with Provera. But as far as taking meds to ovulate and taking meds to try to fix my cycles, I'm done. I think I need some time to rid my body of all of these hormones and get my emotions back under control. I need to find myself again and return to my happy state that trying to conceive for almost 4 years has robbed from me.

We haven't told family/friends yet of our decision and honestly I don't even know how to. The one that is going to be the worst emotionally is telling my mother-in-law. She has been extremely supportive despite all of her little comments of, "When is it going to be Laura's turn to get pregnant?" or "When are you going to give me a grandson?" She has followed my journey and cried tears with me along the way. So to tell her that we are putting this to an end, will crush her as much as it is/has been crushing me.

I want to thank all of you for your support along the way. It has meant a great deal to me. I wish my journey had ended a better way, with a greater result, but I can't walk away from this without seeing the positives. I have helped MANY women throughout my 4 year journey, helped them to discover things about their body, provided support for them and the knowledge they needed to achieve their goals of expanding their family. I feel very accomplished.

Onto the next one!

So after getting what appeared to be a very faint shadow line on a pregnancy test, the (expected) unexpected happened. The dreaded witch showed up, two days early. Which means the line on the test must have been another evap. I am growing to hate testing each cycle as I swear I can see lines on just about every test I take. They are such a thrill to do in the first place though. I compare them to scratch it lottery tickets. You wait eagerly to see if you are a winner, with suspense rising with each passing second until you get to the realization that it was a complete waste of time and money and you want to rip it up and toss it in the trash to never be seen again. Yep, THAT is how I feel with pregnancy tests. I love the thrill and excitement of watching the dye pass through the test but once it comes time to realizing it is negative, first denial sets in. (that is when the subject then passes by every light source in the house hoping to see a second line pop up) Then when aunt flow shows or acceptance that it was negative, you become angry that you even let your mind go there. That's where I am at, and oddly enough I am not upset that this month yet again, resulted in no pregnancy, but that I started early! With this cycle's confusing temps and ovulation day, even that doesn't surprise me though.

So, onto the next cycle, 100mgs of Clomid this time, starting tomorrow. I still have to call my dr today to have them call in my script and then I will yet again, confirm my dosage just to be sure we're both on the same page this time. Here's to hoping that 100mgs makes me ovulate sooner and the side effects are mild this time.

Isn't that how it always goes?

Just when I give up all Hope, my body plays a cruel trick just so it can say, "Neener neener, gotcha!" As of my last blog post, ovulation was unclear as my temps are just not as they used to be. Usually I have a fallback rise, where one temp goes over the coverline, the next day it falls back down, then the following day it spikes up and stays up. So imagine how confusing it is when your body decides to switch things up on you and do a slow rise. Slow rises are just that, they slowly rise, usually .1 degree for a few days, THEN you see a temp spike. As seen in my chart above. Now the beginning of this cycle was full of pain, TMJ pain, headaches/migraines and even more pain. That is why all of those temps are X'd out. So it wasn't until I disturbed those temps and added my positive Ovulation Predictor Kit result, that I got confirmation of ovulation.

Having ovulated now changes the game plans. I faxed my charts to my doctor on Cycle day 28, as per his request and he confirmed ovulation has taken place when my chart says it did. I am now to ride out the rest of this luteal phase and wait for my period. If no period, then of course proceed with a pregnancy test and we'll go from there. If I do start then I will call back and we will bump up my dose to 150mgs. I questioned that dose as usually Clomid is bumped up by 50mg increments, and I am currently on 50mgs. Which led to an interesting conversation. 

Last cycle there was a miscommunication problem which led me to taking 50mgs, instead of the 100mgs my doctor wanted me at. So we proceeded with that cycle. So when this cycle came to be and it was time for my next Clomid round, I was kept at 50mgs, since I ovulated, although later then what is typical with Clomid. When I got to the pharmacy this time, they tried giving me 100mgs, in which I explained that no I was supposed to have 50mgs. (deja vu of the second go round) It was fixed with the pharmacy and I got my 50mgs. I left the store and immediately called my dr to confirm, yep 50mgs. So when the nurse told me we were bumping it up to 150mgs, that is why. In their system they have me as having taken 100mgs these last two cycles! Hopefully this will be the end of this communication issue and we all are now on the same page.

Game plan now is, 100mgs of Clomid cycle days 3-7 and hope for the best! My husband is actually off the hook for his semen analysis this cycle as my doctor first wants me to get ovulating earlier, so we can have a chance at conception. That bummed me out honestly. I was so hoping to sit this cycle out!! I wanted the pressure to be off of me, just for one month. I wanted to live carefree and not have to piss on sticks, check when I most fertile and hope hubby has enough energy to be able to perform when the time is needed. *Sigh I will keep pushing further, but something inside of me is shouting, "I just want to be done!!!!"