Officially Not Pregnant

I had my BETA yesterday morning.  Of course I took an HPT -- which was negative -- before I left for the doctor's, so I really didn't have much hope.  DH and I worked from home so that we could talk to my doctor on speaker phone when she called with the official results.  We wanted to be able to ask her about next steps together.

Prior to receiving the official negative results, we decided a couple of things 1.) that we would jump right back into another cycle of IVF as.soon.as.possible (i.e. as soon as AF comes) and 2.) that we would keep this cycle very close to home - we decided to only inform our parents and siblings of our plans to go through IVF #2.  Over the course of my first IVF cycle, I had started to share our infertility story with some extended family and close friends.  At the time, I felt very comforted by everyone's thoughts, prayers and support.  But, getting a negative and then having to inform all these people of that just nauseates me.  The more times I have to tell someone that it didn't work just brings so much of the sadness and anger back into the forefront of my mind.  Naturally, people ask if we're going to do IVF again or if we're going to take a break.  Truthfully, I'd probably ask someone the same question (if I had never gone through infertility).  It's just hard for me right now to have to explain something so personal to people, who mostly don't really understand what we're going through.  I know I may sound bitter, and while I don't mean to, I guess deep down I really am.  I'm bitter about all of this and I just wish that these crappy cards weren't dealt to me.

But those crappy cards were dealt to me... and to (hopefully) help me through that, I've decided to try acupuncture.  I contacted a place yesterday and I have an evaluation tonight.  I have no idea what to expect, but I will try anything at this point.  If nothing else, I'm hoping that the acupuncture may at least help me to deal with the stress that's brought about with infertility.

So... now we wait for AF to come (it's funny how you pray that it won't come during the 2 week wait and then once you get a negative, you pray for the opposite -- that it will come sooner than later so that you can start back up again!).  From there, I'll take birth control for 10-12 days and will then start my 2nd IVF cycle.  This time, I'll be on the "Flare" protocol (last time, I was on the "Antagonist" protocol), which amoongst other things, introduces different and more IVF meds.  I've read and heard a lot about Lupron (and am a bit scared that the nickname for this med is "Loopy Lupron" - God help DH!) -- I will be taking Lupron twice a day and then after the first day, will re-introduce Follistim once a day in the evening.  So, rather than taking one shot a day, I will be taking three (in a sick way, I'm excited about this.  I've felt that the more shots I give myself, the more I'm actively doing to help the process along) -- again, God help DH!!

Praying for AF's arrival today and a postive/successful acupuncture evaluation tonight!

xoxo,
Aubrey Blair