Here we go again

After taking a break over the holidays from thinking or talking about when to go back to fertility treatments, we are starting injections tomorrow. The last we REALLY spoke, Jon was going to take his meds until February and we wouldn't start treatments until after that. Well, obviously, that's all changed.

As the holidays approached, Jon brought up starting treatments in January. His numbers from his SA in November were normal, and only going to get better, so why wait. I was using the holidays as a true break from thinking about, talking about and deciding about treatments. As the holidays came to an end, Jon and I discussed where we each were and what we wanted.

Jon was ready to go! No wavering, no questioning, no waffling, he was ready to start in January. I, on the other hand, was okay with waiting until March. I had made peace with that. I also didn't want to go back to the fertility clinic until we knew Jon would have great numbers so that we don't spend money on the meds and doctor appointments, only to get to IUI day and have bad counts again. Jon is hopeful. He is hopeful that the meds are working to improve his numbers since the end of November and that he will have great numbers by the time we get to an IUI.

I'm just not sure. I think I'm trying to stay detached so as not to get my hopes up and then be devastated when we're not pregnant. We don't have unlimited funds, or insurance coverage for fertility treatments, so we need to be conscious of making each cycle the best one we can so that we can get pregnant before we don't have enough money to do more treatments. Firefly's functional due date (because of my diabetes, the docs would induce me at 39w) is February 6, so that is also coming up. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about that. I can tell that I'm anticipating that it will be tough, but sometimes anticipation is way worse than the actual day.

I agreed with Jon, after presenting my concerns, that we would go back to the fertility clinic this week. I figured that I would go in, have 10 days of provera to induce a period, and a CD1, and then we'd start follistim, so would not IUI until the very early part of February, about a week before Jon's to go in for his repeat SA. The meds would have had their chance to work, but we wouldn't know if his numbers improved or not until the actual IUI (not something I was looking forward to). I'd then be in the 2WW over Firefly's due date and could focus on that to keep my mind not focused on waiting to test and whether or not we were pregnant.

Unfortunately, this was not go be. I had a baseline u/s done today, to make sure there weren't any cysts or that I was miraculously pregnant, and Dr. P said that just from my uterus lining and ovaries it looked like I was CD3 or CD4, so perfect timing to start stims; I don't need to take provera. So, I start follistim tomorrow, with my first follow-up on Saturday.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this. Part of me likes that things are moving forward. The faster things move, the less time I have to think, obsess and stress out about them. But, I'm also concerned. If I stim and IUI in a typical fashion (that would be nice), we would IUI around January 20, with a test date around February 3--before Firefly's due date. Is this just a big set-up for a really bad and horrible and terrible first week of February? I hope not. I'm also concerned because my E2 was higher than I had hoped (85). This may just mean I'll need more follistim to grow my eggs, and I'm hoping that's all it is. I've read that estrogen is stored in fat and that exercise can reduce estrogen levels (I'm presuming partly because there will be a loss of fat and less storage). So, it is my goal to exercise for at least 10 minutes every day from now until I can no longer do that.

Tomorrow I start my Strong Women class, which is every Thursday from now until mid-May. It's all the other days of the week that are going to be the problem. In past, I aimed for 3 sessions of 20 minutes each week, but that hasn't been happening. So, I'm lowering my time commitment to 10 minutes and hope that that will be easier to carve out. I hopped on the elliptical tonight after Gus was in bed, and that was doable, so I'm hopeful that I can accomplish this goal of being active, if only for a few minutes every day.

Please, please, please let this cycle work. Please let me remain calm through the stim phase and the 2ww. Please let February bring a positive test as a way to help ease the grief of Firefly's unfulfilled due date.

Please.