Post-IUI #5 Update

We have decided that if IUI number 6 is not successful, we are going to take a break from fertility drugs and treatments for a while, before moving onto our next option. As you can imagine, 6 cycles back to back has been a great learning experience for us, but has also been filled with a lot of devastation and anxiety as well. We feel like our past 5 months have been centered around fertility treatments. Whether or not we can go out of town for the weekends, take days off work, plan trips, etc. have all been planned around whether or not we have or could potentially have doctors appointments, and even when we don't have appointments, the trigger shot and Gonal-F injections all are time sensitive, so this also requires us to make plans around when we'd need to be home for me to get the injections. Don't get me wrong, we know that someday this will all be worth it, and we understand that it is probably good practice, because going forward we will always be planning our lives around accommodating our children. Despite all of that, we currently don't have the benefit of having children to love and care for, and that can make all of this frustrating and inconvenient at times.

But for now, we are starting IUI cycle number 6, and giving the injections one more try. Similar to our last cycle, we started cycle number 6 with nightly injections. Although I did have a good response to the injections last month, our doctor has decided to increase our dose this month, in hopes of having more eggs released, and better odds of getting pregnant. After 5 days of injections, the plan is to have an ultrasound and blood work done to see how I am responding. After that, the doctor will determine how much longer I need to continue with these injections. If I need more injections, we will also schedule a second ultrasound and blood work to make sure the I continue responding to medication. Once I appear to have mature follicles (eggs to be released) on my ovaries, our doctor will decide when I will have the trigger shot and IUI. After the IUI, we will have a two week wait, and then will schedule a pregnancy test to see if cycle number 6 is a success