I talk to my mom every morning. When I talk to her, I try not to sound too sad, but inevitably she says, "You sound sad." I am sad. I tell her I am sad. I will be sad for a while. I am okay, but I am sad.

I know she loves me and she doesn't want me to be sad. Being a parent makes me understand this more than I used to. But I need room to be sad. It's completely appropriate for me to be sad. I am allowed. It's only been a couple of weeks since all of this happened. Just let me be sad.

I ran in to a friend of a friend the other day. She asked how I was. I was honest. She lost her husband about 10 years ago, way too young and with a young child. How devastated she must have been. I can only imagine. But she is remarried and has a second child with her new husband. Seeing her doing well was a little helpful. She had a great, sudden loss but she has been able to move on. That has been the most helpful thing for me so far.

I have the appointment with the RE this afternoon. I still haven't looked for some embryos. I guess I want a kind of a timeline and a cost estimate first. Part of me really doesn't want to do this. I think I'm sort of hoping a baby materializes out of nowhere and then I won't have to go do this. But I have this sneaking suspicion that won't happen and we will try this. I am very hesitant, but just waiting and doing nothing feels awful right now. Either way, a baby a year from now is probably the quickest thing.

How did you start healing from your personal tragedies?

Discussion

So, the director of our adoption agency called yesterday. She felt really bad about the adoption falling through and told me she is going to make a few phone calls on our behalf and has put us at the top of her priority list in terms of finding a match. I thought that was really nice.

All things being equal, I think I'd rather an adoption match work out. I will explore embryo donation, and I would do it too, but the idea of going back to the RE and the IVF operating rooms just freaks me out. Also, as someone who has come to terms with never gestating a live child, to go back is really difficult emotionally. Some people might be super excited at the prospect, I suppose, but I guess I had just completely given up on it that the idea of going back to hoping is just terrifying.

We want to do whatever is fastest, so I guess for now we are technically going down both roads. I have no idea what is going to happen.

On board

T is on board with exploring the donated embryo option. His biggest concern is FET success rates. They seem to be under 40%, even with donor gametes.

I'm not sure I could do more than one try, but I kind of want to try it just the once.

I'm trying to schedule some consults to see if we can get things ironed out.

I never thought this would happen.

So

So now that this match failed, it's got me thinking about embryo adoption again. Sigh. Not sure that it's what we're going to to, but I've found myself googling and emailing about it.

I don't think T is on board with it, especially given the nature of the embryo donation agencies. But it's a tiny thought in the back of my mind now.

We are back active on the list with the attorney in FL.

Negative

Took a test this morning. Of course, it was negative.

I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. We will find a new donor, probably do three rounds of IUI with injectibles, and then I don't know what. We found that one of the insurance options for T covers a total of 6 IUIs with ovulation induction (lifetime). So, at least we can do a couple of those on T's new insurance policy.

Should I find a new job to get coverage for IVF? That could work. Or should we move forward with one of our adoption options. Honestly, I think we will probably do both.

Meanwhile, we are again, just sad.

Getting dark early

It's just after 4 and it's really starting to get dark. Winter is on its way.

It's one week since the dIUI. B00bs are the same. Slightly sore, but nothing notable. Not much going on in the uterine area. I do feel tender, sometimes, when I sit, but that is most likely leftover swelling from the Cl0mid. I am still hoping to hold out on the pee stick until Tuesday. I'm not very hopeful. But there's a tiny part of me that is. I hate waiting.

I haven't done much in the searching for what we're going to do if this cycle fails. We really need to go over donors to pick a new one, but we haven't even looked again at the finalists from last time around. I did read some adoption brochures. They made me cry.

Embryo donation is more expensive than I anticipated. It looks like it's close to $3000 just to get the embryos. Then we'd have to pay for meds and for the transfer. So, I'm guessing that the final total will be in the neighborhood of $7000 - $10,000. I'm not sure it's that much less expensive than IVF with my own eggs, so... I don't know. We're still in the beginning stages of all of this. I don't know how much FET meds are. No stims, I guess, so maybe it would be cheaper than the overall total I've mentioned, but I'm not sure. Needless to say, it isn't sounding that great at this time. But it's still on our radar.

I'm thinking of cleaning the kitchen and then making cookies. Oatmeal Scotchies, I think.