It's over

Beta went down. The number was something in the 20's, I don't remember exactly what. I stopped listening to the nurse on the phone who was trying to sound very comforting.

The usual drill - stop all meds, come in sometime this week for a repeat beta, schedule a follow up with the doc, wait for the period from hell, blah, blah, blah.

It's better than getting moderately positive news and then waiting two weeks to see nothing on an ultrasound - been there, done that and it sucks. But this sucks too.

It's weird - after every other failed cycle I have known exactly what to do - we would try again as soon as possible. But this time I feel lost. IVF Failure #7. I don't know why this hasn't worked and I'm not sure if trying the exact same thing again is the right thing to do. I feel like I'd be killing the last two embryos if I transferred them back into this body with the exact same protocol. We need to take a step back and re-examine all our options, look at the whole thing with a fresh view. Maybe we get a second opinion again from another RE, maybe we can try a natural FET cycle, maybe we really roll some wild dice and try another fresh cycle with my embryos, maybe we try a fresh cycle with a different egg donor, maybe we adopt. We need to reconsider all options. I am not ready to give up on having more children - but perhaps this current path is not working out. For the first time in several years, my path is unclear.

This painful. Perhaps even more painful than before. Because it's a wound that I thought was healed. And it has opened up again. And I think to re-open an old injury is maybe more painful than the original injury. I thought I had put this pain past me. I'm very confused. Angry. Sad. Mostly sad.

The only thing I know for sure is that I will be hugging my kids when they wake up from their nap, and then I will be having several glasses of wine this evening.