IUI #2 = BFN

As I was expecting, the beta for the second IUI was negative. Yesterday my husband drove me to the clinic in the morning for the blood test, it was his last day of work before going on annual leave and it meant he went into work a bit late, but I'm so grateful he came with me.

Not long after we sat down at the clinic, the cranky nurse walked in. I knew our nurse was working, I'd heard her voice and I was hoping we'd see our nurse, but no. It was the cranky nurse that did my blood work. (She's the one that told me that "when" this cycle fails, not if. And also gave me the expired progesterone.)

Once we got home, my husband headed off to work and I got back into my pjs. I did nothing but stare at my phone and watch cooking videos on youtube all day. I was dreading cranky nurse calling with the negative result, but in the end our nurse called me. She said it was a negative result but my progesterone was good. She also said there was a note in our file about making an appointment but she wasn't sure if that was with the clinic for IVF+ICSI education or with our FS so she was going to ask our FS and call me back on Friday.

But 10 minutes later she rang me back, she'd managed to get a hold of our FS while he was in between patients and we don't need to see him, we just need to have the education and costings appointment. I'd already told our nurse that my husband is on annual leave and she asked if we'd like to come in for the appointment while he's on leave or if we need a break first.

We'd already discussed this that morning on the drive to the clinic so I told her we'd rather get the meeting out of the way and have it as soon as possible. We had the choice of meeting with another nurse on Friday or meeting with our nurse on Monday November 11th, so we have about a 12 day break from anything infertility related before we go to the appointment. It's actually worked out pretty well.

We could've rushed and squeezed in an IVF cycle before the day surgery unit closes for Christmas but I truly need a break. And I didn't want the added stress of fertility treatments combined with the chaos of Christmas.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. It's probably my favourite holiday and I start driving my husband crazy because I want to set up the tree now! He makes me wait until December 1st before the tree or lights go up. Even though we live in an apartment we decorate our balcony with lights and I put a wreath on our apartment door. But because I love Christmas so much, I tend to go overboard with the baking and presents and wind up over-committing myself every year.

Part of me wanted to go ahead with an IVF cycle now as we've already hit the safety net limit and we'd get the maximum refund back and it restarts on January 1st. But we'll hit the safety net pretty fast next year anyway and then we'll get the maximum refunds for the whole of next year.

I still don't know how we're going to pay for this next year, my husband and I have talked about a few possibilities. We briefly discussed selling our apartment and buying a cheaper place someone but our apartment is just not ready to sell. We used our renovation money to pay for my lap and our two IUIs. There's a few other options we've got but I think we're going to wait until after we've got the price of the IVF+ICSI before we make any decisions.

It feels strange taking a break, especially when you want something so bad. But I know we need this break, just to centre ourselves and have some calm. No rushing down to the clinic or waiting on phone calls. No injections or pessaries. Just life continuing on like it was before.