When there were two beautiful properly-sized follicles on my first ultrasound post starting Femera, I had this surge of optimism in my mind that I maybe would be lucky and this try would take. I knew, scientifically, that even in the perfect setup odds of getting pregnant any cycle are less than 1-in-5, so I *shouldn’t* get my hopes up… but odds are still odds, and they’re not impossible.

When I felt cramps in my ovaries and could almost feel my eggs releasing, I thought maybe they were the ones. When I had a strange cramping sensation a few days before I was supposed to get my period, I thought maybe something took… but then a few days later, in unfortunate perfect timing, came the standard setup of cramps and bleeding. No dice.

Due to travels this summer, it’s going to be challenging to find time to try another cycle that works for the doctors and my husband and I. It’s hard to time these things since my period is so irregular anyway, and I need to be available for an ultrasound on the 9th day of my cycle along with the 11th day, and to be able to complete triggering and the following required acts for the few days following. This time I’m traveling internationally so I have to skip this cycle. Each missed cycle feels like a lost roll of the dice – will I look back in a few years and wish I just never left my area until I managed to get pregnant?

I’m not doing myself any favors by being out of town so much — I’m pretty much committed to traveling through October and then heads down and really focusing on getting pregnant (since I’ll be 34 somehow in November.) Thirty-four will be the year when I’ll be stabbing myself with tons of hormones, spending my savings on IVF, and maybe, if I’m lucky, being able to enjoy the wonders of pregnancy and having a child. My doctor says I need 2 more tries with the Femera and Trigger shot alone before we do anything else (though I can opt for a tube test to make sure they aren’t blocked… which I’ll have to do before IUI or IVF… but everything I’ve read about that test makes me cringe (sounds painful) so I’m avoiding… so far we know my (major) problem is that I don’t ovulate, and Femera seemed to “Fix” that, so maybe that’s all that needs to be fixed. Why believe something else is wrong with me for no reason other than being completely unlucky?

So I haven’t written here in a while because I was hoping if I didn’t think about it or write about it I’d be pregnant. That didn’t work. I’m not. On to cycle two… eventually…