IUI 3 Cont.

| January 23, 2016 |

I was in shock! Sitting there in the bathroom thinking (like always) that this was really going to be it! My period was actually on time...WTF?! I didn't know what to do. I just wanted to cry, but we were over there with all of my family. I did not want to come out of the bathroom crying. Then what the heck would they all think? I did not want to have to explain anything to anyone. I just needed Bud.

Oh my gosh, Bud....How was I going to break it to him, AGAIN? I hate delivering this news to him each time. I absolutely hate it! I do not want to have to tell him bad news, again. This is terrible. I am going to have to face "that look" on his face, again! I finally got myself together and walked out of the bathroom. Everyone was sitting around talking in the living room downstairs, but I didn't see Bud at first. I walked in the kitchen and there he was getting a drink. I just walked up to him and hugged him. He didn't get a look at my face before I hugged him, or he would have known right then and there. As he's hugging me back, he looked down and asked if everything was okay. At first, I thought I shouldn't say anything until we got home. He looked down at me and could tell I was contemplating...then I just started tearing up. He grabbed both of my arms and said, "Babe, what's wrong?"

"I just started," I said. "Are you serious?" He asked, but his face said more. He then asked if I was sure?

"Yes, definitely." He hugged me tight for a quick second, then just walked downstairs where no one was. I let him go as I stayed in the kitchen for a minute to gather myself, before facing anyone. He was down there for a few minutes and I was not real sure what he was doing. He probably just needed a minute to let the news register, again. As he was coming back up he saw me still in the kitchen and gave me a head nod to come over there near him. I hugged him so tight and just rested my head on his chest as he began rubbing my back. I looked up at him and said "I want to go home..." So that's what we did... We walked in the living room with everyone and sat there for a minute while they finished their conversation...I had my purse and coat in hand. When their conversation came to a halt, I stood up and said, "we are going to head out." My mom hugged me bye, and I wondered if she could sense my sadness. She normally could, but even if she did, she wouldn't have said anything right then and there. We had about a 25 minute drive home from their house and the only words that were said in that car ride were from Bud. As soon as we pulled out of their neighborhood, all he said was, "This just isn't our day, is it baby girl?"

I couldn't even find the words to respond. When we got home, I went straight to the couch. Bud went into the bathroom first and by the time he came out, I was just lying there crying, trying to be as quiet as possible. He laid beside me, covered me up and just held me tight. We didn't say a word for a while. What was there to say? We were lost.

I just cried as hard as I ever have, uncontrollably. I could tell Bud felt helpless, and so did I. I just had to let it out. I could not hold it in anymore. He scooted closer to me and held me tighter and tighter. My back is to him, so we weren't face to face, but I could hear him sniffling and he was rubbing his face sideways on the back of my shoulder. I know he was crying but was trying to be strong for me. This was just such a breaking point for us both. I could never put into words all the emotion I was feeling.

I couldn't seem to stop crying, so Bud got up to get me some Kleenex and water. He then called our dog over to me to try and help comfort me. I broke the silence and finally said "What are we going to do?"

"Whatever we gotta do," he said. "I feel like we are doing everything we can and trying so hard, when is it going to be enough?" "I don't know baby girl, but it's going to work at some point. We just have to keep trying. I hate what we are going through, but we can't just quit," he said. He was right.

Although quitting never crossed my mind, the exhaustion of this was becoming overwhelming. The stress, the disappointment, and not to mention the money spent was all too much for one to handle, but I couldn't lose hope.

The thing that keeps me going is picturing the day I get that positive test and being so overjoyed that I can't stand it. Even more so, getting to tell Bud is what I'm going to love most. Being able to look forward to his reaction and see all the worry go away makes me the happiest girl in the world. Just thinking about it. I know when that moment comes, all of this pain is going to be non existent! It will all be worth it. We just have to get there! No matter what it takes! Our situation could be worse. A lot worse. We have not been told we cannot have kids yet, so we can't give up! I knew if we did IUI again, it was going to have to be done with a few more steps and meds. Of course, insurance was not going to help out with these more expensive injections...who would have guessed that? They have not helped out much at all so far, so I was expecting that. I hate how insurance companies work. Yes, my situation may not be life threatening, but damn! People have shit like this going on in their life and insurance companies just want to help you continue to fail. Some people can't even get as far as we are now because of money issues. So basically, insurance companies in a sense could be preventing someone from having a baby, having a family. How messed up is that? Just had to rant about that...

Anyway, I am going to call my doctor on Monday and figure out where we need to go from here. Holy hell, I cannot believe we have literally gotten nowhere!!!!!!!!!!!! So much for third times a charm. Moving onto lucky number 4? Maybe I need a break from all of this for a little while. But then that just means we are losing more time. That is one of the comments we get a lot from other people when asking us about when we are going to have kids...."You're wasting time!" If they only knew how much TIME we were putting in towards this, but that's not important. We just needed to worry about us and figure out our next step.

I was afraid when I made the call to my doctor in two days, they were going to tell me, sorry there is nothing else we can do for you here. Since I have heard that once from one of my doctors, I have been terrified to hear that again. However, since we were seeing a specialist, I did not REALLY expect to get that response, just me being negative Nancy again. I already knew what our next step was going to involve if these procedures didn't work. I was just scared. We are going to be changing things up again, more shot injections at high dosages, more monitoring appointments in Cincinnati, more money and time in general...and then what if it does not work again? Three tries already with this procedure, should we really keep going on with it? Is it really ever going to work for us? Should we ask to try something else? However, I knew if we asked that, our next option was going to be IVF (Invitro Fertilization). I definitely was not ready to face that yet.

Here comes that constant battle with everything in my head....Ugh, what to do?!