24 Hours or So

In 24 hours or so, I'll get a call. Actually, my husband will get the call because I have a haircut appointment and don't want it to be spoiled by a nurse calling with bad news. So my husband will get this call, and the person on the other end of the line (one of the very sweet nurses at our infertility clinic) will tell him our fate. Either we will be parents in nine months, or we won't. Now, I have been through the ringer enough to know that even good news tomorrow does not secure us a spot in the maternity ward come June, but in those first few moments when he receives the news, it will be that black and white. Either it worked or it didn't. Then he will have the joyous task of relaying the message to me, once I am properly coifed and safely home, near the tequila bottle.

This was our third IUI cycle. Certainly not the beginning of our journey, but the start of our ride on the high-tech rollercoaster. The rickety old low-tech ride was no fun at all, but I will get to that later. So, in May 06 we did our first IUI with Clomid, a drug I have come to loathe. I had started Clomid in Dec. 05 with my regular OB, and when I started seeing my RE he decided one more round couldn't hurt. On the day of insemination, I had one mature follicle and a uterine lining of less than stellar thickness (I think it was something like 6mm). We went ahead with the procedure (hell, we had already paid our $1000, so why not?), and two weeks later I got the call I am so dreading tomorrow. Only it was good news that day. Positive pregnancy test! HCG 44! Come back in two days to make sure it's doubling. We were elated. Surely after the hell we'd been through (again, more on that later) this was finally our time. We called our families. We assumed the best. Two days later, I was out to lunch with a girlfriend when the nurse called. I had just told my friend the good news. She wept with happiness for me, as her baby girl cooed beside her in her carseat. Her daughter was due the same week as my first angel.

The call was not good news. HCG was still 44. No increase, certainly no doubling. Chemical pregnancy. We were devastated but recovered more quickly than last time. Ok, I guess I better get to that. We were married in Dec. 04, and I went off the pill in February. I started charting, but we were not stressing about trying. In May, I got pregnant. First ultrasound at 6 weeks showed a tiny bean with a little flickering heartbeat. We told everyone we knew. The doctor said my chances of miscarrying were like 3% after seeing the heartbeat. At our 10 week appointment, no heartbeat. Life stopped. I didn't think I would survive the pain of losing that baby, and to this day I am still a broken woman. My butcher of a doctor botched the D&C, and it was a couple of months before my wonderful new doctor discovered what was going on. By this time I had made a couple of trips to the ER, practically bleeding to death. The D&C was not complete and I was still carrying around dead tissue. Another surgery insued. After that I thought getting pregnant again should be easy. Wrong. I was diagnosed with PCOS and prescribed Glucophage. That was a year ago. The saga continues, with the major gyst being several failed rounds of Clomid and a referral to an RE.

After the chemical pregnancy we tried on our own for a couple of months, then did another IUI, this time with an injectible drug called Follistim, in August. Again, just one follicle. No luck.

On this third try, the RE upped my meds and at the time of trigger I had either 2 or 3 mature follicles (one was borderline at the scan a couple days before) and my husband had a fantastic count of 67 million. We have been feeling good about this. My boobs have hurt like hell since the day of the IUI, which has never happened before. But still I am doubtful. We are not lucky people. Things like this don't tend to go our way. So I am terrified about what will come in 24 hours.