Haisla's Adventures in Endoland

Now this is going to be a long post, since I feel like I have a quite a bit to chew over..

First of all, I didn't get the job. 

It's funny, because I sort of knew it straight away after the interview (you know when you can tell that there isn't much interest among your audience) and there was this huge wave of relief that washed over me when I was walking back to the station. It would have been a great big commitment to start a new job at this junction, and I hadn't been fully conscious how anxious that had made me.

This job I have right now is not ideal for pregnancy etc., but at least I can take as much time off for my treatments as I need to - I have proven myself, people trust me and I can be open and honest about what is going on in my life and where my priorities lie (whilst still doing a great job at work). It just means that I can concentrate all my energies and efforts into getting pregnant, which is what I want more than I do a new job.

So, all in all I feel good about this.

And funnily enough I feel better about my current job, too. It's one of those things where you don't perhaps appreciate how good you've got it until it's (almost) gone. I love (and also occasionally hate) my job. It's my passion, I'm genuinely good at it; now I just have to figure out how to do it without burning out. So, I'll stick with it for the time being.

Job hunting was a nice distraction but it's time to return back to this bidness of getting us pregnant.

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Secondly, I have booked an appointment for us to see a consultant at a private clinic to discuss immunology testing on 24/10/14.  I am super excited about this. My family are coming over from Finland to visit us during that week, so both M and I have taken some time off. It's just the perfect time for this appointment, as we don't have to take any additional time off from work (which can be tricky for M). We'll chuck my family into the National Gallery or somewhere for an hour and go talk to the consultant. I am in the process of writing down questions and concerns to bring up, because for the first time I feel quite excited and hopeful that we will be speaking to a health professional who will actually be interested in our particular case.

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Thirdly, this final IUI cycle has gone a bit weird.  On Wednesday, when I had my last shot of Menopur, the scan showed that I had one 13mm follicle on the right-hand side and two follicles on the left (14mm and 9mm). All fine and dandy there.

But, then in yesterday's scan, the right-hand side follicle had completely disappeared. Did that follicle have a growth spurt and release an egg super early, or did it just wither and die? We may never know.

On the left-hand side I had two follies; 20mm and 14mm. We were instructed to have sex that night (which we duly did) and then I was instructed to take an ovulation test this morning. If the result was positive we were to have sex today and Sunday (and no IUI, i.e. cycle cancelled), if it was negative we were to have sex today and then do the trigger shot at 23:00 and have IUI on Monday morning.

I took the test and to my surprise it was negative. Like completely negative.

M had bought me a pack of those new fangled ovulation tests that display a flashing smiley face for 'high fertility' and plain smiley face for 'peak fertility'. I just got an empty circle. How is that possible when I have a 20mm follicle ready to burst?! (Unless it already burst yesterday, but wouldn't there be a residue of the LH I'd been producing?) These are the moments when I really don't understand anything about fertility.

Now I'm just thinking that won't Monday's IUI be a bit late for anything, if my only large follicle is already gone? Unless the 14mm one is meant to catch up or something.. Oh, who knows.. I'll just go with the flow.

Dr Duchess was quite apologetic about the potential cancellation of this cycle when I discussed it with her on Friday and said that we could have another round of IUI (should this round be cancelled) if we wanted to. I told her we'd 'think about it' (i.e. 'NO THANK YOU.'). She did then mention the magic IVF word (for the first time in the context of us actually moving towards it) and we now have an appointment with an NHS consultant on 09/12/14, which suits us perfectly, as it should give us enough time to make decisions about the immunology testing..

So, slowly, ever so slowly, we are inching forwards towards the blessed hope of an IVF.

And this is why I am so optimistic. I don't care about the job, I don't care about this cycle. All I care about is that we have a glimmer of hope in the horizon, and that that horizon isn't like miles and miles away.

So yay!!