Last night I finally broke down. After the ectopic, the surgery, multiple negative tests and beta… last night I finally broke down and sobbed for all of it… all the loss, the frustration, the missing pieces.

I don’t feel that sad for the failure of one cycle by itself. That I knew, I knew. I knew it was a possibility, and by the end I knew it was more than a possibility. As usual I just keep pushing forward, one foot in front of the other.

But what killed me was hearing that I’d have to wait out an entire cycle. It devastated me. How can a miscarriage and IVF cycle loss not upset me as much as a wasted cycle? But suddenly I’m motionless, suddenly I’m freefalling. My next step is gone and I don’t know where to put my feet.

I’m finally feeling the effects of the miscarriage. I shouldn’t be dealing with this shit right now, I should be fucking PREGNANT. My body gives me one chance out of every 3 or so transfers – one implantation. And that was it. That was IT. And it fucking implanted in the wrong place!!!! I lost my chance. That was my one fucking pregnancy of the past year, and I lost it.

I was a little concerned that this “next cycle” (before I knew about the time off) was going to give us a due date of April. I was nervous about that, but at the same time thrilled…. a chance for a living April baby, just the way I wanted it. Now that’s gone too. My next cycle will have a due date of May… late May. BabyH (neice) was due late May, born early June. Den reassured me that our baby, no matter when it was due, will have its own birthday, its own celebration, but I still cried. There will be at least 2 years between our baby and BabyH! Our babies were supposed to grow up 2 months apart, NOT 2 years!! And it will be after Devin’s SECOND BIRTHDAY that we will have another child. 2 fucking LONG YEARS. And that is with IVF, with full insurance coverage!!!

I just want to curl into a ball and weep. This is so not how our lives were supposed to go. How can we be so much futher down the road, with so much lost time and so much heartache?

The only way I have gotten through these past 6 months is two weeks at a time. That’s all I can handle. I always have my eyes on the next cycle, the next meds, the next test. It’s how I have managed to hold it all together. Then suddenly, out of the blue, I was dumped into a 2-month holding pattern. And I fell apart, because I can’t handle that. I can’t even look that far ahead. The last time I had to hold it together for months with nothing was when I was waiting for my insurance coverage to kick in, and I cannot say I held it together very gracefully. I was a mental wreck. So 2 months? How the HELL am I going to fill 2 months?

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I talked to the nurse today. I’ve had this plan brewing in the back of my mind for after the next child, when presumably we won’t have IVF coverage. I keep thinking how my eggs, when treated “normally” with Follistim and such, are absolute crap. But the last stims protocol they added a large amount of LH to my body (in the form of Menopur, which is half FSH, half LH), and not only did I create a lot of eggs, but there were a number of GOOD ones in there. So my thought was: what if we added just LH? The FSH makes lots of follicles… the LH is there theoretically just to help mature the eggs. So what if we took a normal cycle and added a ton of LH? Maybe a little FSH to make a couple more follicles. Couldn’t that theoretically give me a decent egg or two? A decent shot at pregnancy WITHOUT IVF?

Unfortunately that game plan is totally out for this cycle. I figured as much, but the nurse definitely confirmed it. The problem is that any type of injects requires monitoring. And also my clinic apparently only does injects in conjunction with IUI (as opposed to timed intercourse). And the problem with injectable IUIs – or even just injects with monitoring – is that it gets to be quite expensive. And insurance won’t cover it. In order to be approved for IVF you have to show the insurance company that this patient NEEDS IVF to get pregnant. So they are not going to spend money trying something your doctor already proved to them doesn’t work. Sucks, but it makes sense.

I am still keeping that game plan on my mind for after the next child – given some time and research I could probably convince the doctor and perhaps even the insurance companies that IUI with a totally off-the-wall protocol could work for me. But for this cycle? Absolutely not an option.

The other thing I am looking into is acupuncture. I mentioned that to the nurse as well and she was very happy about that. She said research has been kind of split – some says it helps IVF, some says it doesn’t – but that patients who have done acupuncture during their cycles have said that at the very least they FEEL better. And, hell, right now I’m willing to try ANYTHING that could help me get pregnant. So the nurse gave me some names and numbers of acupuncturists that other patients have used and recommended, so next week I’m going to make some calls and set something up. At the very least starting acupuncture treatments could help me feel like I’m actively doing something to prepare for my cycle, and maybe that’s just what I need.