It feels like a cruel joke that my fertility clinic is located just 20ish feet away from the elevator that all of the expecting mommas get to take to the OB and Delivery floors.  I swear every time I go to my fertility clinic I have to walk passed beautiful, big baby bumps or mommy’s being wheeled out to their cars with their new bundles of joy.  It seems like a huge design flaw! Whoever planned this layout was obviously not fertility challenged!  I want so badly to be able to use that elevator too….but instead I walk straight ahead to my bottom-of-the-totum-pole fertility clinic.

Today was no different.  Today I had my blood work and follow up appointment with the doctor to review the results of our last IVF.  And just like every other time, I walked passed at least 5 pregnant women, toting their multiple children with them to their pre-natal appointments.  I even literally ran into a pregnant women as I was going to use the bathroom…I guess that’s probably a likely place to run into someone who has an active bladder!

I see babies and pregnant mommies every where I go.  You can probably relate to me on this.  When you want something so badly, like a certain car or a new pair of shoes, you see them EVERYWHERE!!!  You’re more susceptible to notice it because you don’t have it, they do, and you WANT it….bad!  Well, that’s me with a big ‘ole pregnant belly.  I want it so bad, along with the human growing inside!!!  It feels like everywhere I turn, there’s another belly or another pregnancy announcement or another beautiful new baby.

Unfortunately, I still don’t get to use that elevator.  My belly will not be growing {at least not from baby} and I don’t have any cute baby announcement to make.  Instead, I have another failed cycle, another 6 weeks checked off my fertile life-expectancy calendar, 2 more embryo’s gone.  Today was the last day I wanted to see babies, babies everywhere.

I knew going into our appointment that the results were what they were.  I had tested over the last week and had finally accepted the negative results on Saturday.  I quit my meds and waited for the doctor appointment today to discuss what’s next.  I had a good cry with my mom on Saturday and tried to focus on the future, hoping that would help make today not quite as hard.

Today, we discussed our next options.  We can take a little break again, we can go right at it, we can quit….it’s completely up to us.  There’s no reason or answer as to why it didn’t work.  Everything looked GREAT!  It was suppose to work!  I even thought my doctor might start tearing up when she was discussing it all with us.  It’s been a long and frustrating road for all of us, me and Eric and the entire fertility clinic staff.  They want so badly to help us succeed and they are failing right along with us.  Our doctor even offered to give us a referral to another clinic if we felt that might help us.  No part of me wants to switch, I really love our doctor and all the staff there.  I want to get pregnant HERE!

We decided to move forward with our last 3 embryos and to move on it right away.  Physiologically there is no reason that my body can’t.  My protocol from the last transfer worked perfectly as far as prepping my body so we are going to stick to that as well.  There’s really nothing that we haven’t tried yet, it’s just a matter of getting the right embryo to stick and God answering our desires and prayers.  We’re gonna give it another go.

We hear all of the time “I don’t know how you can keep doing this” or “You’re so strong, you don’t deserve this struggle” or “I just can’t imagine going through all this over and over again”.  Those are all true statements for someone not in my shoes.  If I had never faced this challenge, I would be saying the same thing.  How does someone subject themselves to this over and over with the odds stacked against them, knowing failure is the more likely outcome????

When we started IVF almost 2 years ago, I remember discussing our outlook with IVF with our doctor and how some people never succeed {that wouldn’t be us of course}.  She told us how when she was in med school she worked at a fertility clinic in Boston.  She saw several couples who would try over and over and over because in that state, health insurance companies were required to cover the expense of fertility treatment up to 6x/benefit year.  This allows couples the opportunity to try repeatedly without having the financial burden that comes with reproductive therapy.  Any type of fertility treatment is expensive to say the least, and so most couples are limited to what they can do because they just don’t have the money and most health insurance policies, don’t cover it….it’s considered elective.  Anyway, I remember thinking we could never go through that many failures and continue to try….that would just be too much emotionally.

Well, here we are now.  6 IVF’s into it and no baby.  I never thought I’d be able to go through this much bad news, this much hurt, this much devastation and want to continue subjecting myself to is.  But when you’re faced with the battle, you can only give up or continue to fight.

So, how can I possibly keep going??  Well, it’s easy.  My son.

When I arrived at daycare today, Lincoln was watching for me out the window.  When he saw me, a huge smile spread across his face and I knew there was a giant hug waiting for me inside.  He playfully hid for a few moments when I came in and then finally jumped out and ran to my arms.  I just love being his mom.  It is literally the greatest thing ever.

In the car ride home, Lincoln randomly said to me he really wants a sister.  He continued to say he just wished “those babies” {aka embryos} would have held on because then he would have a brother or sister pretty soon.  We talked about Isaiah a little bit.  He knows that Isaiah was due the end of this month and that if Isaiah had “held on” he would soon have a baby brother.  It makes him sad, but he’s so resilient at the same time.  When I told him the babies didn’t “hold on” again and that I wasn’t pregnant, his response was “That’s OK mommy, we can try again”.

So we will do just that, we will continue the fight.  I know that IVF can work and if I had been too scared to give it a try the first time, I wouldn’t have my son.  That’s why I can’t give up, I don’t know how to quit, because what I’m fighting for is worth the risk.

It has been a journey so far, sadly one with way more downs than ups, but it’s not over yet.