Another Try...

After four months of recurring ovarian cysts, near-constant pain, and constant stress, I finally had a clean ultrasound in July. Unfortunately, it was too late in the cycle to start Clomid, so I had to wait for a new cycle to begin in August. By that time (of course!) a new cyst had formed, but measured only 1.5 cm at baseline ultrasound, so Clomid was still a go.

This is treatment cycle #3 for us, with each cycle being exponentially more stressful than the last. I don't know how much more hubby and I can take. This cycle has been absolutely brutal, for reasons I won't go into here. Because this is our third try, we won't be allowed to try many more times if this is unsuccessful. We're definitely feeling the pressure, because it's now (or very soon) or never. We simply can't justify going further down the fertility treatment road. The next stop would be injectables, which seriously increase the possibility of twins or higher order multiples. While we would welcome two or more babies, the fact is that any pregnancy we manage to conceive is already very high-risk. If we got pregnant with twins and even one had the umbilical cord problem, they would almost certainly both die because the dead one would poison the environment and kill the other one before it reached viability. If, as we expect, the odds of survival for a singleton are 50/50, then the odds of having twins survive is only 25%. We don't want to go there.

Likewise, it doesn't make sense to risk IVF not only because it's astronomically expensive and could result in twins, but also because it just seems to be going too far if my odds of carrying to viability are only 50/50. Since I did get pregnant very briefly on Clomid try #1 and we still have insurance coverage, it makes sense to exhaust the Clomid option and then reassess the situation if it doesn't work.

So this cycle there were 3 mature-sized follicles as well as 3 small ones at follow-up ultrasound. This is promising news. That evening I did the Ovidrel shot (even though I know it does't hurt, I still hesitate with that needle) which set off two days of painful bloating and hopefully ovulation. The IUI was done 42 hours later and it was absolute misery. It was also too late I think. This is really NOT promising. Now we're in the midst of the nerve-wracking two-week wait for the pregnancy test.