The Ride Continues

The first few days after the iui were unpleasant at best, and torturous at worst. The internet became our worst enemy as we googled everything that might possibly be happening to Ali's body. I have become fairly certain that any internet search can (and does) yield in the full spectrum of possible explanations for a particular symptom. Each time we searched something we got everything from "You are definitely pregnant, even though that's not even possible yet" to "you have a serious infection and will probably never make a baby because of the horrible bacteria eating your girl parts." Yeah, that was fun.

Personally, I spent the day after the iui in complete doubt. I didn't really think about it, I didn't google anything, I just figured it didn't work. By Tuesday I had some hope. Unfortunately, the hope was accompanied by some signs that Ali might be ovulating (for the first time? again?) ....which would be really bad considering that we had inseminated days ago (and frozen sperm doesn't seem to last that long). There were tears. Luckily, it was also free cone day at Ben and Jerry's, which doesn't solve anything but is delicious.

By the time Wednesday rolled around it had been several days since either of us had gotten a full nights sleep. We were exhausted, and worried, and sad, and 1000 other emotions all at the same time. We e-mailed the coordinator of the AI program at the clinic to ask her if we should start testing again, and maybe inseminate again this month if it seemed the time was right. This is something that we had previously decided we weren't going to do mostly because of the money, and the fact that we really only have 3 shots at this before we run out of money. To use two of them in the same month seemed like a bad idea....until it seemed like a good idea. I headed to work and Ali decided to take another ovulation test, and it came back positive. She called me at work crying. There's really no reason why she should have gotten 2 positive ovulation test 4 days apart. Which made us think that we had definitely inseminated at the wrong time. We were pretty devastated.

Luckily the woman from the clinic called. She basically said that they have no idea why the ovulation tests were positive so far apart. It does not mean that Sunday was the wrong day to inseminate. She recommended some stress relieving techniques, including NOT testing anymore (and definitely not inseminating again this month) and also not taking Ali's temperature in the morning. She also recommended that we use next month to gather information, and not inseminate. We may just ignore that last little bit of advice because we've spent the last 6 months gathering information and the information that we have is that every cycle is pretty different. We will however, be more cautious about when we choose to inseminate, based on the symptoms that she is exhibiting at the time of the positive ovulation test.

Strangely, that conversation made us feel better. We knew that we could go through the next couple of weeks without any tests, or thermometers. Ali had been taking her temperature super early every morning since October and charting it. She was worried about what her temperature would do after the insemination which led to some insomnia. Once she agreed to not take it for at least the rest of this cycle  she (and I) both went back to sleeping through the night. That in itself was an amazing gift.

Our friends have been incredible, calling, dropping by, letting us show up uninvited to their homes. I know some people are reluctant to share the details of this process with people, but I think its totally awesome to be surrounded by people who are cheering us on.