Perfect cycle... Until the end.

I once read that dealing with infertility can, in many ways, be similar to grieving the loss of a loved one.  Except that, with infertility, the grieving doesn't really end (in many cases, such as mine).  Rather, you grieve your loss and then just as you rebuild your hope, faith and strength, the same (well, different - but the same) loss occurs again, and you're back to grieving. 

My acupuncturist also told me that the stress related to infertility has been proven to be similar to the stress of someone who's experiencing PTSD or to someone that's been diagnosed with cancer.  I know that it's difficult (and probably not even fair) to compare the feelings of loss, stress and heart ache to someone who is dealing (or who has dealt) with other very serious, very sad and very difficult illnesses and diseases, but my point here is that infertility is hard.  What I've been dealing with (and what I know so many of you out there have been dealing with) over the past couple of years, sometimes quite literally, knocks me off my feet.  Today, I feel like all of the air has been sucked out of my lungs.  Right now, it's difficult for me to find my breath and to keep moving forward.  Because, let's face it, I'm not really moving forward... I'm in the same exact spot that I was in two years ago.

This cycle should have been different.  Everything was perfect (well, everything up until my BETA on Friday):

My doctor just so happened to be the doctor on call the day of my Egg Retrieval (a Saturday).

My doctor was able to retrieve SEVEN eggs (this is the most eggs I've ever had).

ALL SEVEN OF MY EGGS FERTILIZED!!!!!

It was confirmed that I would be having a DAY FIVE transfer.  My doctor just so happened to be the doctor on call the day of my Egg Transfer (we transferred two perfect blastocysts that were both already hatching)!

We got the report that FOUR of our embryos made it to freeze - we have FOUR frozen snow babies (perhaps the only silver lining in all of this)

That's pretty much where the "perfection" ends.  I ended up POAS on Thursday evening, the night before my BETA.  That's when reality first hit that I wasn't (that I'm not) pregnant.  I received confirmation that my HPT was correct the next day. 

As mentioned in my last post, we now have a lot of decisions to make.  We have four frozen embryos and are meeting with my doctor on January 3rd to discuss that process and whatever it entails.  We also have CCRM lingering, now in the front, of our minds. 

I'm doing my best to make it through Christmas.  The honest truth is that I can't wait until it's over.  I can't wait to go to bed on New Year's Eve knowing that 2012 will forever be a memory that I will be happy to forget.

It's still hard to express my feelings about this "perfect" cycle - the hurt, anger, despair, sadness, heart ache and pain are much too fresh right now. 

I don't know how to move forward... but I guess, somehow, I just am.