Our worst new year ever

Warning - what follows is a self-indulgent pity post - just one :-)

It was a sad beginning to 2009 - we found out that our second IVF cycle had failed. I've had some wonderful new year's eve parties over the years - ringing in the new year on a rooftop next to Big Ben in London, partying in the snow in Europe on the millenium eve, and going crazy at a friend's 21st birthday 20 years ago, to name a few.

But this year, it was just me and lovely husband and our grief at another failed cycle, with our hopes ebbing away.

Things started out promising, with me feeling very nauseous on christmas eve and for the few days afterwards. We knew it could have been the Pregnyl injections but as this was the first time I had experienced nausea, we couldn't help but feel hopeful. The nausea lasted until Tuesday, when it disappeared, co-inciding with me getting an infection in my surgical wound from the melanoma. Who knows if there was a link? The GP took out my staples and stitches, which was excrutiating, and gave me some antibiotics for the infection.

Hope started to fade on Tuesday with some very light spotting, which got heavier until it turned into a full blown period on new year's day. We had to leave the house party were we were staying with friends because we just couldn't face the new year's eve party in the state we were in.

Words just can't describe the overwhelming despair that we are feeling at the moment. Not even the thought of our 5 frostie embryos has been able to raise us up to some level of hope that we will be parents one day. I've been crying on and off for the last 3 days and just really struggling to function at all.

The scary thing for me is that Lovely Husband, who has been a beacon of calm and positivity throughout the TTC journey, has now completely lost hope that we will ever succeed. His method of coping with stressful situations is to consider the worst possible outcome and work out how we will deal with it. So we have been discussing adoption, possibly moving to england to adopt (its easier), using donor eggs, fostering and lots of other life-changing ideas. It's fine that this is his coping strategy, its just different to mine.

I was cheered by a site on frozen embryo transfer success stories (http://www3.fertilethoughts.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-147746.html). There was also the study last year showing that frozen embryo transfers result in better outcomes for the baby - in terms of higher birth weights, less pre-term births and so on. The possible reasons for this are that only the best embryos survive freezing and thawing, or that the mother's body has time to recover from stimulation in a frozen cycle. This second idea might have some merit and one of my questions for the doctor is does she think that my hyperstimulated state in both cycles could have affected implantation.

Anyway, my hope is slowly but surely starting to return. I think things will improve once we have had a good 'post mortem' with Dr D to discuss all of our options and realistically assess our chances of succeeding. If I can be sure that my body isn't rejecting all embryos that arrive in my uterus, I am prepared to keep trying IVF until we succeed but I just want some reassurance that it isn't in vain.

Going back to work on Monday should also be a good distraction for both of us - something else to concentrate on.