January 13, 2004 was the first day of our first official ”trying” cycle.  By this time, I had been off of birth control pills for 2-3 cycles and K and I had been married for just over 3 years.  Even today can I remember my excitement with beginning my cycle that month.  I had read up and done some research about TTC (trying to concieve) and thought that I had it all planned out.  Both K and I knew what we needed to do and when we needed to do it. 

We spent the year of 2004 working very hard at making a baby.  K and I spoke of baby names, plans, and dreams.  By the middle of the year, we began getting a little concerned.  I went to the doctor…she said ”you and K are still young and you have plenty of time.  If you aren’t pregnant after trying for a year, I will refer you to a reproductive endocrinologist.” 

2004 came and went and we were unable to conceive.  Again, my cycle in January of the new year came with a huge excitement.  This was the year that we were surely going to concieve.  So I was able to get in for a doctors appointment with my obgyn.  She finally agreed to give me a referral to a local RE.  We scheduled the first consultation appointment available, which wasn’t for a month or so.  In March, if I remember correctly.  Soon after that, we began oodles of testing which continued until July.

August 13, 2005 was our first IUI.  We found out that it failed on August 26th.  Four months in a row, we went through this drill.  Me, running to the doctor’s office to be monitored all the time.  K rushing in on the day of the IUI to leave his deposit and me, rushing back a few hours later for the insemination.  By the time that these four attempts failed, it was almost Christmas.  We decided to wait until after the holidays to figure out how to proceed, all the while, still continuing the old fashioned way.

In May of 2006, we began to prepare for IVF.  This meant, a month of birth control pills to regulate my cycle.  Then, a month of injections to prepare my body hormonally.  Finally, on July 25, 2006 the Egg Retrieval day finally came.  They sedated me and retrieved 7 of my mature eggs.  We really had hoped for more, but the doctor said that the eggs were perfect and mature and that we should absolutely be pleased.  Three days later, the embryo transfer.  They implanted 2 perfectly formed 8-cell embryos and we choose to freeze the other two 6-cell embryos.  On August 8th, they tested my blood and we found out that neither of the embryos stuck.  Once again, I was not pregnant.

The two frozen embryos left over from IVF did not survive the unfreezing process when we tried again a few months later.

By the end of 2006, we were both done.  Physically and emotionally.  We took time off from thinking about it.  And in the beginning of 2007, we decided that we needed to try a new path in order to keep ourselves sane.  We began to discuss adoption.