Post IUI #1 Update

This week I am reminded once again that this is God's plan, not mine. I recently shared with a Facebook friend that Lee and I are experiencing infertility. She was so comforting and asked how she could specifically pray for us. This is something I have recently been working on, and that's being more specific with my prayers. Previously I had always just prayed for God to help us get pregnant, and to help me to be at peace with this "journey". Lately I have been praying for more specific things. For example: instead of just praying to get pregnant, I started praying to ask God that we specifically get pregnant with this next round of treatment.  

When my friend asked, I told her that I would love for her to pray specifically that the 2nd IUI is successful, and that we don't have to do additional treatment such as the trigger shot. For those of you who don't know, a trigger shot is something doctors can have you do 36 hours before the IUI, and this is supposed to help make ovulation happen. Knowing with 100% certainty that I'm ovulating would be really awesome, but of course the thought of Lee sticking me with a needle in my stomach is a little scary. 

But anyways, back to the point of this post: my friend asked me recently how she could specifically pray for us, and I asked her to pray specifically for the 2nd IUI to work, and for us to not have to seek additional treatment. I always have to call on day 1 of my cycle and from there, the nurse and I confirm when I should take the Clomid, and when I should start testing with the OPK. I did that recently and the nurse said she would call in my prescription, and that I could start taking it on cycle day 3, like normal. I remember talking with the Dr. during one of our first consultations, and we talked about my cycles being really long, and how the Clomid could help with that. He said it sometimes happens that the first part of a woman's cycle varies (first part meaning day 1, which is the first day of period, to ovulation), but from ovulation to the end of the cycle is typically a standard 14 days. He said it’s much less common for that part of the cycle to be irregular, and if it is, it could throw a wrench into our plans. This is something I was glad to know. My cycles had previously been so unpredictable, I was happy to know that once I ovulated (day of IUI), I could plan to start my period (or get a positive pregnancy test) 14 days later. Of course we got a negative test, but days came and went and I didn't actually start until 19 days after the IUI. I asked the nurse about this and she said she would talk with the Dr. and call me back. 

She called me back and explained that we have 2 options: The first option is that we can do everything like we did last month and simply try again: Clomid at the beginning, OPK test at home, Ultrasound on day of positive OPK, and IUI the next day. The trick with this method (and something new I learned today), is that the ultrasound doesn't actually confirm ovulation. The ultrasound just shows whether or not I have any mature follicles (eggs to be released), and mature follicles indicate that ovulation is likely. She said that the only way to know for sure that I ovulated or will ovulate is to do blood work and test my hormone levels. Option 2 is that we can do a monitored cycle. What this means, is that instead of doing OPK tests at home, I can just come in on cycle day 11 (which is normally when I would begin testing for ovulation at home), and they will do both an ultrasound and blood work. After they do both of these things, if I have already ovulated, depending how far off I am, we may have to wait until the next month to do the IUI. If I have not ovulated, or it appears that I will ovulate soon, we can do the trigger shot to induce ovulation and then do the IUI 36 hours later. She said that even if my hormone levels indicate I could ovulate soon, sometimes the Dr. will just suggest we do the trigger shot anyways, so that we can know I'm going to ovulate and then do the IUI. She said whatever we want to do is completely up to us, and she let me talk to the billing specialist about option 2, because the extra ultrasounds and blood work do raise the cost a little bit. I told them I would talk to Lee and call them back. 

Lee and I talked and we decided that we think option 2 is going to be better. Although it's more expensive, we felt like the last IUI was mentally and emotionally taxing on us, and we want to have to go through that the least amount of times possible. So although I recently suggested a friend pray specifically that we don't go this route, the very next day, we found out we may be going that route after all. So once again, I am reminded that this is God's plan, not mine. I am now going to pray that God allow this round of procedures to result in me getting pregnant, and trust that he take care of the rest. I would love for you to pray for that as well.  

For now, I will take Clomid, and plan to go to the Dr.  around expected ovulation time for bloodwork and ultrasound. I am not going to post which days we will do what just yet, because then it will be pretty obvious by counting days when we can expect our results. Positive or Negative, once we get our results, we want to be able to process them on our own time, and tell everyone once we are ready. For now, let's just pray for a successful second IUI!