The following is what I wrote in an email to friend who is just starting her 2nd Donor Egg Cycle. I had asked her how she came about making the decision. She is older and in a different place than I am. I basically wanted information. Then I realized the email is pretty much what I would have written about today, so her ya go.

Right now the only thing we can do is try again. As Dr.H said, "We just need to get the right embryo." If it is a uterine or hormonal problem it's not one that they can test for at this time. I've had all the tests done and everything came back normal. I almost wish I had lupus or something. Then at least we'd know what we are facing. I do want to ask her about the FISH test for Chris. It's one more thing to rule out. The only thing that bothers me is that I'm not going to be one of those people TFC gets pregnant and ships off right away. I fully believe that if Dr.H thought something would be worthwhile she'd do it, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I'm surprisingly OK with Donor Eggs and Adoption. I'd like to try Donor Egg (if that would solve our problem) before adoption. It would give the child a genetic link to one of us. My Mom was adopted and I was closer to my Grandmother than anyone I was ever genetically related to. My Grandparents loved my Mom dearly and I think having grown up knowing that you don't have to be genetically related to your parents makes this process almost easier.

I know we have long way to go before this crappy journey is over. I just hate going into an appointment and getting blindsided. I figure the more I know about what she might say the better. I said I'd give it 5 pregnancies, before moving on to adoption. We've got two more. I'm assuming they will both happen with a clomid IUI. If we get lucky then great. If we're able to learn enough from the next two pregnancies to definitely say PGD or DE would give us a chance then I'll give it a try. If we're in the same place after 2 more pregnancies that we are right now, then it might be time to move on. I know I'm only 31, but I don't want to be 41 and still going through this. It'd be one thing if we had waited until then, but we didn't.

I picked up lab slips this morning, and they printed some out with my information already on them. I got 20 slips that I don't have to fill out! That's the best thing that's happened this week.

I've done some thinking, in the past couple days about the only thing I seem to be able to think about. I'm seeing a doctor who's main purpose is to get me pregnant. Which did happen. She's not gonna make me wait months and months to try again. She knows I don't ovulate very regularly. She knows the story. I've been letting things escalate in my head the past few days. It gets to the point where I'm hyperventilating and taking out second mortgages to pay for fertility treatments. I need just to focus on healing and take this one step at a time. Just like it's pointless to worry about mile 25 before you get through mile 24.

I didn't run yesterday and most likely won't today. I'm going to hold off on the running for a couple days. Every time I do the cramps and the bleeding start again. Maybe I should wait to completely heal, and then run. Plus I can't swim (or teach lessons) until I heal. Some smells still get to me, but over all I think my body is slowly adjusting to not being pregnant anymore. My bras fit again (I know some of you really want to know about how huge my boobs got). The nausea is pretty much gone. I'm gonna wait until Wednesday before I take another pg test. If it's still positive I'm gonna call the nurse and ask when I should start to be concerned that the hCG levels aren't below 5 yet.

After much debate we went out last night. I REALLY wanted to stay home and cry or something. I guess I just I wanted to wallow in my despair. Which Chris thought was a horrible idea. He convinced me to go out. We went to Flip Happy Crepes, and it was REALLY yummy. I had a smoked salmon (gotta take advantage of the banned foods), lemon caper cream cheese, and tomatoes on mine. I also got a side salad with really good feta dressing. We then met some friends and had mojitos at Union Park. Union Park used to have these really good plantain chips, but they got rid of them :(. We were home by 11. I felt kinda guilty drinking. Or I guess I felt kinda sad because I could drink. All in all I'm glad we got out of the house.

I also seem to be sleeping better. For the past two nights I've slept 7 hours straight without taking any ambien. Hopefully things will continue to get easier. I think once all of the physical aspects are healed the emotional ones might start to heal too. Right now I still have a constant reminder of what happened.