Didn't take long

'fore I found out
what people mean by down and out

Ah, Led Zeppelin.

They don't exactly take away the pain but they do make good company while going through it.

IVF #1 has been canceled.

Despite my best efforts at going all out with a protocol designed to keep someone such as myself from developing a lead follicle... I still managed to develop a lead follicle. There's a slight chance that if I continued stimming I may have had one or two follicles catch up. But that was a slight chance. And even then, that would be a grand total of two or three follicles which may or may not have contained mature eggs.

I've done a fair amount of crying over the past few days. Partly due to the bad news, partly because there is just no other way to release all this stress... especially if you are not partaking in a stiff drink (side note: I will soon be partaking in a stiff drink). My eyes are heavy and swollen. Emotional hangovers suck.

But how does that Bible School song go? Count your blessings one by one...

• We've only managed to lose out on about $1k and a bunch of gifted meds. We still have the vast majority of money we've saved for the purpose of procreating.
• I've learned that, unless my RE has some kind of brilliant rationale that I'm not anticipating, traditional IVF is just not going to work for me. It does work for some DOR women. And some of those women have even worse numbers than I do. But apparently, my ovaries do not care how much FSH you throw at them. It can be a little or a lot, but they're pretty much going to give you the middle finger and give you one egg. 
• I've also learned that minimal stimulation IVF is way cheaper than I thought. Turns out we have enough money to do two rounds of mini IVF. This is very good news.
• Good news because out of all of my various medicated cycles, I've done the best on low dose clomid. Which happens to be the cheapest of the medications. Like $7 vs. $6,000 cheap.
• So the plan now is to talk with my RE next week about doing two rounds of minimal stimulation IVF with clomid, testosterone priming, and saizen. Then freeze whatever we get and still proceed with doing two months of lupron before transfer.
• Now I'm back to trying to fit all this in around my travel schedule. And time is marching on. 
• But at least I still have hope. 
• For now.