10 day wait, frustrated

So much for the 2 week wait. For the past 2 ½ days, I’ve been having brown discharge. This is pretty much consistent with me getting my period. For the past 3 cycles, I’ve gotten 3-4 days of brown discharge, followed by 1-2 days of reddish brownish very light flow. I am so frustrated. I guess this means I have a short luteal phase. I know progesterone supplements are the de rigeur method of dealing with this, yet when I had the IUI, I asked the RE about whether or not I need progesterone supplements and he said no. He said the research hasn’t’ proved that progesterone at this stage maintains a pregnancy and since my progesterone levels were tested and were fine, then I don’t need it.

So why the hell am I bleeding 10 days post IUI? I know it’s not implantation bleeding. I know I am not pregnant. Granted, I am not a doctor but I have lost all breast tenderness, and my BBT is back to being low. This makes my cycle a 23 day cycle.

I called the RE’s office this morning to tell them what’s going on. And of course I never get to speak to the RE; I only get to talk to whatever nurse is on call. Her first question, when is the first day of your period? I tell her that I’m an Asherman’s Syndrome patient, so I really don’t get a period, with red flow. So there’s no way for me to really know what cycle day 1 is. Her response, so come in for a blood test to confirm you’re not pregnant. Well, duh, genius, I know I’m not pregnant and it’s easy for you to say just come on it, as if I live around the corner. She doesn’t have to rearrange her whole schedule to go into the office. It takes me 45 minutes to get up there, and then it’s another 45 minutes to get from the RE’s office back to work. I asked when I should come in, and she tells me…when would you like to come in? Shouldn’t she be telling me?!? Doesn’t it matter what day I test on? They make such a big deal of testing on day 3 so shouldn’t she tell me…if you’ve started bleeding on Sunday, then come in Tuesday?!?! I am getting so annoyed feeling like I know more than my doctors do.

On top of this, my coordinator at work just resigned, so now I’m doing 2 jobs. My boss is completely inflexible and not sympathetic to what I’m going through. She’s a married woman who has chosen a life of no kids for her and her husband, so she can’t understand why someone would go though this much trouble to start a family, and she’s not cutting me any slack. I asked her to hire a temp and she said there’s no budget for a temp right now. The hiring process for a replacement has just begun, but it could take months. And it’s getting harder and harder to spend my mornings testing. I’m late to work by at least an hour and a half every day or every other day as is. It was hard enough when I was doing just my job, somehow I was able to manage, but now that we are down a person I don’t’ know how I’m going to handle the responsibility of 2 jobs. On top of this, I’m slowly beginning hhe process of looking for a new job and it’s impossible to find time to schedule any interviews.

Why aren’t the IUIs working? What am I doing wrong? I’m seeing an Ashermans specialist. I’m being treated by an office with good statistics for live births. I had an HSG which finally showed a healthy looking normal uterus, with only mild scarring left near the lower fundus and the cervix. But there was definitely an opening and a clear cavity. My FSH and E2 levels are all normal. I am told my lining got to 8 mm the past 2 cycles, and I got about 3-4 eggs on Follistim injections. I ovulate on my own just fine. My tubes are both open. I got pregnant pretty easily the first time around. So why isn’t anything sticking? 4 months of IUIs (one natural, 2 on Clomid, one with injectibles), plus 5 months of acupuncture, and nothing to show for it. I guess IVF is next, but I feel like I’m going to go through a round of that and still be nowhere closer to a baby. They should just give me an orphaned child as a parting gift at the end of all of this. A “thank you for playing, and for all your troubles, here’s a baby in need of a good home. Brought to you by our sponsors.” I just don’t know how much more I can take.

On a side note, we spent Saturday catching up with good friends of ours, and their amazingly cute 16 month old baby girl. It only solidified how much we want a child of our own. We know our friends went through a lot to be where they are and looking at their daughter makes it all worth it. It was beautiful out on Saturday, so we all stopped for gelato in the neighborhood. Outside of the gelateria, there was youngish couple with 17 month old boy/girl twins. We were all making small talk, waiting for our gelatos to be brought to us, and enjoying being outside on such a nice day. There was an older woman waiting on the gelato line as well, and when she saw the twin stroller, she actually said “Are those real twins or fake twins?” The mother of the babies handled this quite well and said, “they look pretty real to me.” Then the woman proceeded to say out loud (and as she was an older woman, I might out she was very loud) … “well, I know of someone who did in vitro and she got fake twins out of it so you are very lucky to have real twins in today’s world.” She just wouldn’t let up, the nasty old coot that she was. My heart just sank for this mother. She handled it quite well, and if it were me, I’d contemplate slapping this woman or saying something nasty like “is that your real personality or did you take your bitch pills today. We were all horrified. I can’t believe someone would say this to a person out loud. Granted, the older generation probably has limited skills when it comes to censoring themselves, but come on – who would say something so inappropriate and rude to a stranger out in public. As horrified as I was, I of course started thinking if we have to go through more advanced stuff, like ivf, I should be so lucky to have twins and these are the kinds of stupid comments I can brace myself for. I just don’t know if I have it in me. The comments I guess I can handle, but I don’t know if I can go through any more rounds of anything. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of obsessing and keeping track of what day I’m on and what meds I’m supposed to take and how much and when and what to expect afterwards. I can’t focus on my real job. I’ve had just about all I can take. B keeps saying he understands, and he feels badly for me but at the end of the day, it’s not as if he can go to the doctor for me. Or do my job for me. Something has to give, because I can’t handle being responsible for all of this. And yet I can’t afford to quit my job so I can focus solely on the doctor’s appointments and the TTC. So for now, I’m giving up on acupuncture. I don’t think it’s done jack shit for me and if it’s 12 less needles I need to deal with a week and get all worked up over, then that can only be a good thing.