My body killed my blastocysts

That’s right, folks. BFN. Big fucking negative. 2 great quality 4AA grade blastocysts killed mercilessly by my barren empty womb. I’m that woman that contributes to the BFN parts of clinics’ statistics, so that the stats average out.

What the hell am I talking about? It’s about time I came out and told you what I’ve been up to in the last couple of months.

I’m sure some of you may have wondered why my blog was so disjointed recently. When Nikki has 4 blasts on ice, why is she going all over the place, exploring adoption, and then seemingly not even exploring adoption any more, writing infrequently, and writing irrelevantly?

Very simple explanation. No, I wasn’t nuts. I knew we had those 4 blasts, and after we called off our FET in March, DH and I had decided to take a little break, and then prep my stubborn lining again. I just didn’t want to write about it on my blog, because I was feeling a lot of “performance anxiety”. I told some of you individually, but didn’t want to blog about it till it was done. It was, after all, our last hurrah.

With Aunt F in May, we decided it was time. We got all set up, and I got on BCPs. Started Lupron on June 3, and went for my first lining check on 7/1. FET was scheduled for 7/7. Of course my lining was too thin. FET got pushed out to 7/16. Lining check got repeated on 7/10. Still too thin. FET got pushed out to 7/24, and then I realized Dr. Schoolie would not be there for my FET on 7/24. I requested for a date when he would be there, because after all this, I wanted him to do the honors. Specially since he had done surgery on my uterus, and “knew” my uterus well. So we got rescheduled yet again to 7/27. Lining check was on 7/21, and my measly pathetic lining measured at 7 mm “from the most flattering angle” – according to the local RE here.

We flew out to Denver, and brought home 2 of the best quality blasts we could. They thawed 2 blasts, and both thawed beautifully. 100% cells survived, one was hatching, and the other almost hatching. Beautiful. According to the embryologist “you couldn’t even tell the blastocysts had ever been frozen”

Of course I needed additional help – hormonal help. My protocol had been very aggressive from the beginning, but by the end of it, I was on this:

2 Estrace suppositories daily

2 Delestrogen injections weekly

2 Estrogen patches every other day

3 Endometrin suppositories daily

1 PIO shot daily

1 Prenatal daily

2 Folgard tablets daily

1 Baby Aspirin daily

1 Blood Pressure medication daily

Fast forward to 8 days later – yesterday. I POASed. BIG FUCKING NEGATIVE!

9 DPFET – Today – Beta test – BIG FUCKING NEGATIVE! 

Why? What have I done to deserve this? Why can my fate not turn around, for once? How much more do we have to go through? I have quietly ploughed on for more than 8 years. My TTC resume now reads:

8 + years TTC #1

6 clomid cycles – BFN

5 IUIs – BFN

5 IVFs –  1^st BFN, 2^nd  missed miscarriage, 3^rd chemical pregnancy, 4^th ectopic pregnancy, 5^th (Freeze all FET) BFN.

The last year has included 1 long drawn out IVF cycle – 6 trips to Denver, and $$ that we could not afford to spend, but did, in the hope that it will all be worth it. 

So after countless shots, suppositories, surgeries, treatment cyles, losses, heartache, pain – here I am, as empty wombed as I was when we embarked on this journey.

The prospect of growing old childless is looming large upon us. It's a scary thought. Some of you know how dark and scary that place is. And though I know I will never regret my TTC journey and all the treatment we went through, I know I will always regret not being able to have DH’s and my child. 

You will probably still wonder – what about the 2 remaining blastocysts? I am NOT trusting them to my killer uterus. I will keep them frozen, or if I find the strength in my heart to go through surrogacy, I will. But I am not putting another embryo into my body. I’m done. I’m so done.

Sometimes you can’t fight fate. Fate is sometimes stronger than we are – we believe that if we try hard enough, we can achieve anything in life. Maybe not.