Now what?

V says in the last post the question is "do you want to stop?". And he knows me well enough to know that I can't, as long as we have a choice. And right now, we have a choice because we have those last three frozen embryos. But what then?

He's right that emotionally, after I've gotten the call, I'm not the same. The pain is something I can't describe. I don't know if it's the same for him, but I know that those of you who have experienced failure after failure, know this pain. It's an intense grief for a loss that most people just don't understand. It's the fear that I may have to face a future where I never have a child, where I am not a mother, where I won't get the chance to raise, and love, and influence a child of our own. It's not one I ever imagined for myself. And for those of you know know us IRL, please do not say that I am a mother to TC because that is NOT the same thing, not even close, especially with what we've endured over the last year or so in that arena. I am not one of those people who can't be around pregnant women or babies. I love babies and children and we've got several small tykes in our immediate family. We've got three very very close friends who are all expecting in the first quarter of 2009. I/we are so thrilled for them. I can't imagine feeling anything but joy for them. It's just how I am.

I wasn't going to bother, but we're going to arrange to have a follow up with our doctor. I'd rather see him face to face, but with his schedule and ours, that's difficult. V wants to just arrange a phone consult with him. I really don't know what he'll be able to tell us. Perhaps there are some tests he can run that we've not done before? One of the nurses suggested a surrogate, but besides the prohibitive cost, there's not guarantee that will work either, and it's not a route I really want to go down. I want to hear what he has to say, but I think we'll end up moving forward with the same protocol. We'd probably add in the glue again as it's not a bad thing.

Do I do acupuncture on the last cycle? Because I forgot to eat pineapple in the 2ww this last cycle (and I did eat it in the positive cycle) was that the missing ingredient for success? Is the extra weight I'm carrying a detriment to success? The doctor has never said anything and I've seen women much larger than I in the waiting room.

And after we use these embryos, what then if we're unsuccessful? I try to think positively, that over the years we're being tested for some reason and that these last three embryos are the ones. But if not, are we done? Essentially, yes. The only way we'd be able to carry on (unless we won the lottery) is through the use of donor embryos and again there's no guarantee there. Although there are donor embryos at our clinic, they need to reach the parties involved who created those embryos and have them update blood work or something before those embryos can be donated. They've told me in the past that they aren't always able to locate all parties, especially when an egg or sperm donor was used. So, unless someone came to us, I can't see that being a viable option. I know there are donor embryos in the US, but how does one find out? Anyway, I'm jumping the gun here. Right now, V and I need to figure out when we want to try for the last time.

Why does this have to be so hard?