The end

I tried to remain hopeful, I really did. I went to acupuncture, he did anti-miscarriage points, I spoke to the embryo and tried to get it to be a healthy, strong embryo. I tried, people, I tried.

I bought some tests on the way home from work last night, and got a positive digital and a nice line on the Fact Plus. After it dried, I decided it was darker than Monday's test. I was cautiously optimistic.

Until, that is, I tested this morning. The digital said "not pregnant" and the dye test had the merest faintest smudge, kind of like my 13DPO test. How it went from nicely positive to crap in 12 hours, I don't know, but it did it. And then I looked again at yesterday's test - which then looked slightly fainter than Monday's. So clearly I was either fooling myself or even the dye gave up the effort, just like my eggs have done. I know, it's not official until the beta, which will come out this afternoon, but I would put a lot of money down that I know what the result is going to be.

So that's that. The end of hope. The end of the road for IVF's with my own eggs. Done. Finished. Kaput.

I am going to make an appointment straight away to do the FET with the one frozen embryo left from IVF #2. I do have one vial of donor sperm left, although it's an IVF-only vial with a reduced number of motile sperm. Still, I'm thinking of asking the RE if I can combine a low dose follistim cycle to use up my leftovers, an IUI with the crappy sperm, and an FET with the solo embryo that might not survive the thaw, all in one cycle. Kind of like the fertility version of bubble and squeak. Not that most of you yanks know about bubble and squeak, but there you go. The RE probably won't go for it, but then again, he might if he takes pity on me.

And then I will be finished with fertility treatments, I think. I want to do the FET quickly so I can close the door on this chapter of my life and walk away. At least, that's the plan. Donor eggs are amazing and wonderful but I do not feel drawn to using them. Adoption is a tricky one as well, because I'm not eligible to do an international adoption as a non-US citizen and domestic adoption just seems fraught with difficulties. However, I am debating going back to England, mostly because I'm sick of waiting around for the immigration people to let me change jobs but also partly because that would open up international adoption to me - so that's an option I can consider.

For now, though, I am pretty miserable. I was never supposed to be one of those infertile women, damn it. And even then, the miracle of IVF was supposed to work. But I have to face facts, and it is just not worth putting myself through more cycles when my eggs clearly aren't up to it. And even though I've been slowly facing this end for quite some time, it still hurts terribly to be here.