Infertility Update: IUI Results

I’m just gonna come out and say it.  I don’t have good news to share.  The IUI did not result in a pregnancy.  I’m not going to express my feelings too much about it right now, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurting.  My last post gave a little insight into the normal feelings that infertility can bring each month.  This month just seems to sting a little more because of all we put into it financially and emotionally. There are not any guarantees with any fertility treatments, and there is not any particular reason why the IUI didn’t work for us. Everything looked hopeful for us when we went in for the procedure.  With the help of doctors and medicine, they were able to do everything for my body that my body couldn’t do for itself.  We went into the procedure with good hormone levels, two good looking follicles at mid-cycle, a strong ovulation, an even stronger semen count than normal, and the timing was perfect.  I’ve been careful about my diet and rest the past two weeks.   I’ve been taking my vitamins and supplements as usual and most importantly, I’ve tried not to stress about anything…..but when it’s all said and done, my body was unsuccessful somewhere in between the fertilization and implantation process and wasn’t able to achieve a pregnancy.  For whatever reason, my body just didn’t do it.  I took yesterday to cry….cry….and cry some more.  I took a day to myself to get all the tears out of my system and accept the results for what they are.  Now we just pick up the broken pieces and do our best to move on.  

 

So here’s the next step for us……we are taking the next three months off of fertility treatments.  My body just can’t take anymore hormones being injected, and my heart can’t take anymore disappointment.  This is the first time since we’ve been trying to get pregnant that I am allowing myself to take a break.  I feel like we have given it our all; we’ve done all that we know how to do up to this point.  This is also the first time that I have a peace about allowing myself to take a break.  In the past, I would be tired and would want to take a break, but I would tell myself, “What if we haven’t tried this…..and what if that could work….what if we were quitting too soon….what if we just needed one more month?”  Now that we’ve tried everything, including an IUI, I feel like it’s ok for us to take a break.  We’ll reschedule our next IUI for June.  If that one is unsuccessful, it will be followed by a consecutive IUI in July.  If both of those fail, I think that I may have to come to terms with what will probably be the biggest heartache of my life up to this point.  Financially, IVF is not an option for us, and we can only pour so much of our resources into IUI’s.

 

I wish this was a happier post, but it is what it is.  I know I am not alone is this.  Many other women have journeyed down this same road and know all too well the disappointment that I am feeling right now.  Keep us in your prayers over the next few months.  Continually trying to get pregnant month after month may have come with some exhaustion, but the constant trying kept me busy and gave me a little hope to hang onto each month.  While I feel relieved that we can get off this roller coaster of emotions for awhile, I'm the kind of person who is a natural “doer".  I’m not very good at sitting still and doing nothing, which is sort of what we have planned for the next three months.  I like to try to fix something when it is broken.  I like to try to solve the problem.  Taking a break means that I’m not going to DO anything about the problem, which goes against my very nature.  And before someone says that I should just try again to conceive naturally, I’ve been told by doctors that even if we did get pregnant on our own, my body doesn’t make enough progesterone on its own to sustain a pregnancy past implantation.  In other words….taking a break for us is literally taking a break.  No more charting by BBT every morning….no more OPKS….no more stressing over what I eat and what kind of supplements I’m taking….no more feeling like we HAVE to have timed intercourse no matter how tired we are from our work day….no more hormones…no more medicines….no more doctor visits…no more blood work….no more two week wait…..no more peeing on a stick….no more searching on the internet for signs that maybe just maybe the stick was wrong….no more disappointment…..NO MORE…I’m done for now.  So for now, I’ll take the next three months to “Be Still”….something that I’m not very good at, but think will be really good for me…..

 

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
(Ps. 46:10a)