It Worked... and Then It Didn't. Transfer #10 Failed.

I was pregnant! And I had symptoms about 3-4 days after transfer. It was so exciting.

I didn't feel them the entire time but often enough (strong sense of smell is the main symptom that stands out to me). And it was consistent enough.

About 5 days before the pregnancy test, I took a home test. I just had to. It was a digital one and I hadn't done of those before. There was a plus sign! I was so excited.

I kept thinking maybe all of our patience finally worked. Maybe we needed to do 2 cycles to get 2 genetically tested embryos and then wait to do a frozen embryo transfer. Maybe all of that work and waiting was all worth it!

My initial beta was 136. I was disappointed. We transferred two embryos and that didn't sound like a high number to me. I really, really wanted twins. I wanted to be done with creating our family.

Second beta two days later was 135. I was devastated. They said, let's be cautiously optimistic. They said this sometimes happens where the pregnancy stalls and then picks back up.

I knew better. We've been through this so, so many times. This is my 7th pregnancy where this has happened. Yes - SEVENTH. I cried and cried that night.

Two days later I go in and the beta is 79.5. I cried and cried that night too.

Man, we really thought it would be different this time. I'm crushed. I don't know what's next. I don't know if I can keep doing this. I don't know that our doctors will want us to.

At our current clinic, we have a consult set up a month from now. We're in a shared risk program so we'll get that money back and I think my doctor will recommend donor egg.

We'll get another consult again at RMA in NJ and see what they say.

But... this cycle took 8 months. 8 months to get 2 embryos. I don't know that I can go through all of that again, for what seems like such little chances. This was our 10th transfer. I've been pregnant 7 times and almost every time the same thing happens - I can't sustain a pregnancy for longer than 4-5 weeks. Ugh.

I don't know what to think about donor and I don't know what to think about adoption. I'm just so numb and dazed and down and confused.

I decided (while my husband is away this weekend which was pre-planned 6 months ago) to give myself a little pick me up and I'm going to NYC for the weekend which always makes me smile, so I'm looking forward to that. And we've got tons of fun things planned.

But as for family building... I don't know. I'm pretty sure we're done with this. And it's hard to take that our dream likely won't come true. That we've spent 6 1/2 years on this dream, 7 pregnancies, 13 fertility procedures, 2 related surgeries. All of that... for nothing.

I know we can't always get what we want. It's just hard when you've tried everything possible and you still want it so badly.

I don't know what's next but I know I need to grieve.