Guess who is a big fat failure?

FUIF

My doctor called us late this afternoon. He said he didn't want us to have to wait for an appointment to discuss the cycle. He asked if my husband was there (he was) and asked to be put on speaker so we could all talk. He stayed on the phone for almost 40 minutes answering all of our questions and giving us the next step.

He's concerned about why my ovarian response was what it was even with the good Antral Follicle count (15) and FSH (5.97). He thinks because my ovaries responded really slowly (i didn't really respond until stim day 11), that there's reason to be concerned about the overall health of the eggs themselves. He called the possibility "Advanced Ovarian Age".

Additionally, he's also concerned about the lack of implantation, so between that and the questionable egg health, tomorrow i'm having a RPL panel done (b/c he wants to do the genetics and the clotting factors) and an AMH.

He said once he gets the results back, we'll be able to plan the next step for changes in my protocol, etc.

Meanwhile, i can expect the worst period of my life to start in the next couple of days. When I asked him if I should expect it to be heavier than normal, i heard him flipping through my chart and he says ," um your lining was 16. Yeah."

He said that he takes my lack of pregnancy very personally and he IS going to figure this out.

He said that the AMH will tell a lot.

Personally, I think i was oversuppressed on the BCPs and Lupron and that all of this will come back normal. I mentioned that to him, and he said that either way, i won't be on lupron next cycle, and he'll most likely start me out at max doses of stims, because he'd rather rev me up and coast me, than barely make it to retrieval like this time.

I guess we'll see.

This is the hardest day I've ever had. I've spent most of the afternoon in tears. Thankfully my husband has been here and my sister just brought me some dark chocolate.

I don't know how long it's going to take me to get past this and move on, but I DO feel a little bit better having a plan.

A non-Infertility part of our plan is that I will be getting a new job. I've applied to Bayada to do pediatric home care/visits, and with any luck, i'll be able to start there in the next couple of months. It's not what I really want to do, but we've decided that I have to reduce my stress level before starting my next cycle. my 3 major sources of stress are school (can't be changed), infertility (unfortunately, can't be changed) and work.

Work is the only thing I can change - so it's game on.

I'm hoping when it comes time for our next cycle to start, we can time it so retrieval/transfer will fall between jobs, so I don't have to worry about the time off.

I know this was really long. If you made it this far, thank you. If you have any thoughts, thank you for those, to, in advance.

The penguin is very very sad.
photo credit