Poke

This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Not the injection part. That was actually even easier than I remember. I found it incredibly empowering to give myself the first shot last night. As I've mentioned before, I used to have a terrible phobia of needles. I've known from a young age that a medical profession was not in my future. Generally they prefer if you don't pass out at the sight of your patient's blood.

But that was before infertility.

Now: I'm so BA (that's "badass," for those of you without an 18-year-old sister-in-law), I didn't even wait until the Follistim was room temp before shooting myself up. The most painful part was when the alcohol swab touched the cut on my finger. Yeouch.

Total badassness aside, I have been blindsided by how much this treatment cycle SUCKS. Partly financially, but mostly emotionally. I guess infertility treatment is like childbirth. You develop selective amnesia about the event, so that you'll do it again in the future when the time comes.

I thought -- having been there, done that, got the t-shirt -- that this would be a relative walk in the park. That the biggest challenge would be finding a babysitter for the munchkin on my endless trips to the doc.

Not so.

Putting this much time, energy, and money into the dream of growing our family... well, it's overwhelming. The pressure, the waiting. To know. Yes... or no?

I feel my defense mechanism kicking into place. I am now, at CD 4, one measly shot into the protocol, completely positive that I will NOT get pregnant this cycle. I just can't let myself hope it will work.

And I've already seized on The Why, because this helps my defense mechanism sell this inevitable failure to the rest of my mind. It's because my dose of 75 ius is lower than the 100 ius that I was on when I got pregnant with our son. Too low.

It doesn't matter that this dose was recommended by our doc, and was entirely what DH and I wanted at our consultation meeting. To lower the risk of multiples, which scares the beejezus out of me almost as much as another BFN.

It is The Why. No sale, do not Pass Go, do not collect $200.

End of story.

I'm already planning to email Dr. Downtown and asking him to up the dose to 100 ius -- or even 125 ius -- for next cycle.

Which is also the last IUI treatment cycle that we can afford.

I will say this about secondary infertility, though. There is certainly a comfort in knowing that no matter what the outcome this time around, I am a mother. That role is not in question. DH and I will be raising our son together, God willing. It may not be the family as I've always pictured it, but my darkest fears are not even remotely as dark as they were with primary infertility.

In the meantime, my Frank's Big Ones cookies have arrived. I've heard them described as larger than a baby's head, and I wanted to see how they compared to my toddler's ginormous noggin.

Pretty damn well, I'd say.

And also?

Yum.