IVF cycle #1 - its all over

Today I found out that the hCG test was negative - I'm not pregnant. I wasn't surprised. I had my meltdown yesterday and just had a gut instinct that this wasn't going to be it for us. I was in meetings when the nurse called and had to call her back and leave a message, and then she called me back.

I was fighting back tears as I stood out in the car park at work talking to her. She said she would call back in a few days to see how I was getting on. She reminded me about the positive fact of the 4 frozen embryos. Dr D is going to call me tomorrow to discuss next options.

I am feeling better now, having talked to lovely husband when I got home. First thing I did on the way home from work was buy a bottle of wine - I reckon I deserve a drink. I had a good cry in LH's arms as soon as I walked in the door, and then we had a chat about it.

Today I feel that there is no reason why any IVF cycles will work for us. We have about a 25-30% chance of things working but what reason is there to think that we will be in that 25% each cycle? Lovely husband had pulled out a medical paper off the internet that I had seen a few days ago and that made us feel a whole lot better.

It's from a group at Stanford, who looked at what factors predict IVF success. The great news is that age isn't one of them. The key things are total number of embryos (best if more than 6), number of 8-cell embryos aat day 3 (best if more than two), rate of cleavage arrest (this is # embryos with 4 or less cells at day 3 - more than 14.2% is good) and finally day 3 FSH (<4.6 is good).

I am in the best category for the first three and don't know about the forth one. That gives me at least a 50% chance at getting a positive pregnancy test, which is pretty good really. I know its all science and my body doesn't perform to 'rules' but I'm a scientist at heart so I can't help but think this is a good thing.

Anyway, I'm really glad to have the test done so we can move on. I've already started the road back to being more positive so that's a good thing. The waiting will be frustrating - we can't do either a stimulated or frozen cycle without having a break so I guess its back to the old fashioned way this month.

I am a naturally positive person so it won't take long for that state of mind to be restored, but god, this IVF stuff is incredibly difficult. It will soon be our 12 month anniversary of TTC and that is a bit sad as well.

I'm trying to block out the thoughts about my own inadequacies and why can other people do this and not me? Infertility is an incredibly damaging thing for the spirit and the self-esteem. I know these kinds of thoughts won't do me any good but its hard not to think them. I don't want to talk to anyone either, except my friend who is going through TTC problems as well. At least she understands.