The Lost Year

I hope everyone had a great holiday.  Ours was pleasant but quiet, which was fine by me as I started coming down with a pretty bad cold on the 23rd.  By Christmas Day I was hacking and coughing my way through presents.  Luckily we managed to find one pharmacy that was open and some cough medicine helped both M and I finally get some sleep on Christmas night!

As the New Year approaches I'm always big on reviewing the year that was and planning ways to improve in the year ahead.  I'm a "fresh start" kind of person...that means diets always start on Monday morning, and whatever calories I consume on the Sunday night before don't count.  Yup, infallible logic there.  And the New Year?  Well, that's the biggest fresh start of all.

Reflecting on 2012, it actually started out pretty great.  M and I went to Jamaica with a huge group of friends for a wedding, and when we came back we got into the Insanity workout program for our New Year's fitness resolution.  Shaun T kicked our asses for three whole months, and by April we were in awesome shape.

Unfortunately, we were also just about to find out that we were infertile, and the year went downhill from there.

We had originally planned to take a belated honeymoon trip to Paris in May or June, but that got pushed off for fertility testing and cycle monitoring.  Then in June we had a huge thunderstorm that caused the sewer to back up into the finished basement of our house (which we had been living in for less than a year).  Luckily insurance covered everything, but there was a few months of basement chaos and reconstruction in store.  In July I found out I had to have a LEEP procedure to deal with some pesky abnormal cervical cells that had been hanging around too long for my gyno's liking.  The procedure took place in August and was icky enough on its own, but it also benched us from TTC for six weeks. Then in September, my folks informed me that my cat (who had gone to live with them after M and I got married due to M's allergies) would have to be put down.  The turd icing on the shit cake came in October, when our IVF was cancelled and the resulting IUI failed. 

All in all, M and I are in agreement that it's been a bad year.

Unfortunately, our response to this was less than stellar.  We sunk into it like a dense, dark fog.  We let it smother us and take over our lives, to the point where it became hard to see anything good and we just expected there to be more bad stuff on the way.  We stopped working out, because that's the easiest thing to do when you don't feel good.  We fell off our healthy eating plan, because we're both emotional eaters.  We put off vacations and trips to see my family so that we could be available for fertility treatments.  A bunch of stuff we wanted to do in our new home got sidelined, with the excuse that we needed the basement repairs done first so that we could organize our storage situation.  We never had our long-awaited housewarming party, because we were so disorganized as a result of the flood.  And on and on the excuses went.  We felt tired all the time.  We spent more time in front of the TV and less time out exploring our new neighbourhood and all it had to offer.  Our sex life suffered.

Reflecting on all of this, I realize that I obviously couldn't have changed any of the crap-tacular stuff that happened.  But what needs to change is how we responded to it.  We responded with eight months of stagnation.  Our year, which had started off so great, instead turned into a whole year of waiting.

I will look back on 2012 as the lost year.  Lost opportunities, lost hope, lost dreams, lost possibilities.  Lost motivation.  Lost innocence.  Lost me.

I won't make the same mistake with 2013.  I am making this my New Year's resolution.  While we can't control what happens with our infertility, I resolve to stop letting our infertility control us.  I resolve to be healthy and strong again, and enjoy life with my amazing husband instead of feeling like I am constantly waiting for something.  Of course I'll need to be sad sometimes, but I also resolve to figure out a way to pull myself up and keep moving.  Above all, I resolve to stop putting my life on hold and actually start living it.

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In related news, I took my Cetrotide shot today.  My RE is using it instead of Lupron in the preceding cycle to down-regulate me and hopefully avoid the over-suppression from last time.  While I used to find the Lupron injection site a little itchy for a few minutes afterwards, this one felt like a dozen mosquitoes bit me in the same place on my stomach.  It itched like crazy for an hour!  It's probably due to the huge single dose (3mg) as opposed to the tiny daily doses of Lupron, but man did I feel like scratching my stomach off for a while there!  I'm still on BCP until January 2nd, and should find out the rest of my IVF dates once our clinic reopens.

A Very Infertile Christmas

It seems funny to think that this time last year, M and I were only about three months into our infertility journey.  I wasn't yet sure that anything was wrong, although I was starting to have my suspicions.  I had been fantasizing about being able to tell our parents about a pregnancy at Christmas via some weird little "You're going to be grandparents!" gift.  

I'm not having that fantasy this year.

Don't get me wrong.  I know I'm lucky in very many respects.  We're not surrounded by children at the holidays like lots of other infertiles, so we're not facing a constant reminder of our barrenness.  We're staying with M's family this year and he's only got one younger brother who is recently divorced with no kids.  I will miss seeing my family, though.  We decided earlier in the year that if we were still working on IVF, we would save our money and not fly out to see my family this Christmas (special thanks to Air Canada for their annual douchebaggery in raising holiday fares to near extortion levels).  It's fine, since M's family is amazing and I couldn't ask for better in-laws, but it's still a little weird.  Even if I haven't been home for every Christmas day, I at least made it back to see my family for part of the holidays for every one of the last 36 years.  This year Skype will have to do.  On the plus side, it saves me from seeing my many fertile cousins and having to endure the inevitable questions about when we're starting our family, since my mom probably hasn't gone into it with them.  Not sorry to be missing that.

All in all, although I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning and gifts and delicious turkey dinner, it kind of feels like just a normal day.  Not all of the excitement and thrill I felt when I was younger.  I've heard lots of people say that Christmas kind of loses its charm for a while before you have your own family, at which point the magic comes back since you're seeing the excitement through your childrens' eyes.  I can definitely see that happening with my niece, and I'm still holding out hope that it will happen for M and I too.

If it doesn't...well, I guess we'll save a shit ton on Barbie crap and spend winter in the Bahamas.  Gotta find that silver lining, right?

My fellow infertiles, allow me to wish you the absolute best of the holiday season.  I hope you all manage to navigate your way through your particular emotional minefields relatively unscathed, and that the pregnant bellies and insensitive comments keep themselves to an absolute minimum.  May we all find a quiet moment of peace to appreciate what we have, even if it's not exactly everything we want.  Merry Christmas.

Fifteen Percent

Welcome ICLWers!  This is my first ever ICLW, so I'm excited to meet new bloggy friends.  This blog is fairly new, so for a good idea about what's up with me until now you can check out my TTC Timeline page or read this post.

So, it looks like we're off to the races for IVF #2.  Day 3 bloodwork and ultrasound results from Friday are all good (specifics not provided, which is probably good so I can't obsessively Google them).  I'm set to start BCP on December 23rd.  I take my Cetrotide shot on December 29th and my last BCP on January 2nd.  The rest of the dates are up in the air until then.

I know I should be excited about this.  We didn't even get to egg retrieval last time, so I should be stoked that the new drug protocol (antagonist versus agonist, so no Lupron) will go better.  Instead, I just find myself feeling anxious.  I'm a worrier by nature, and right now I'm worried that this won't go any better than last time and we'll end up with two failed IVFs under our belt.  I even kind of feel like not doing it at all, since if you don't try then you can't fail.  How's that for optimism?

I should probably try to find a way to snap out of this.  But the thing is, my optimism or pessimism is directly related to the cold hard facts on the table in front of me.  And the statistics here are not good.  Doing a bit of reading the other day, I found the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) annual report for 2010 (the most recent one I could find) online.  It gives the statistics from all Canadian registered fertility clinics (which includes mine) for that year, broken down into helpful categories like age and diagnosis.  And what is the live birth rate for women diagnosed with Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR), pray tell?  

Fifteen percent.

Now, a 15% chance of success sounds a whole lot more optimistic than an 85% chance of failure.  But if someone put you on one side of a highway, and told you that you had an 85% chance of getting smacked by a truck trying to cross it, how eager would you be to get to the other side?  I for one would keep my damn feet where they were, thank you very much.  And yet in the case of IVF, we're jumping into it to the tune of $9000 and our emotional stability.  Sounds like something only a crazy person would do, right?  Well, I guess that makes us super cray-cray!  I'm gonna Frogger my way across this motherfucker if it kills me.

In under the wire

Does anyone else ever feel like their body is just fucking with them for shits and giggles?

I started spotting on Sunday night.  This is actually good, I thought.  It means AF isn't far away and I can get into the clinic before it closes for the holidays and get the go-ahead for IVF #2! 

The clinic closes on Friday, which means that I had to get my period by Wednesday at the latest in order to do Day 3 bloodwork.  Monday came and went...still spotting.  Then Tuesday.  More spotting.  I had pretty much given up hope at this point, and started researching beach vacations that M and I could take in January to get our mind off the fact that we weren't cycling.

Finally, first thing this morning, pretty much at the last possible second, AF arrived.  Three days late.  Luckily, as I've given up hope of ever conceiving without the help of science, I wasn't in POAS mode (although I virtually never POAS anyway...the sight of all that stark white blankness is just too much for me).  What I was in was pissed off mode!  All I needed was for my body to do one little thing to cooperate, and it seemed like it wasn't going to happen.  This morning it felt like my uterus was almost laughing at me.  "Hah!  Almost gotcha there for a sec, didn't I?  Thought I was gonna hold out a few more days, right?  Heh heh.  Nah.  I was just fuckin' with ya."

My uterus is an asshole.

Anyway, as it is we're in under the wire.  Day 3 bloodwork and ultrasound on Friday morning, and if all looks good I start BCP over the holidays.  I'm also doing my instruction class for my Cetrotide shots as I'll have to start them over the holidays too, before the stims.  I'm not quite sure how this is going to be any better at avoiding the oversuppression that happened on Lupron, but I guess that's why I pay my RE the big bucks!

Mixed Bag

This week was a pretty mixed bag of emotions.  I spent most of it out of town at a conference, where I was able to reconnect with a bunch of good friends that I haven't seen in a couple of years.  I was so happy to see them and catch up, but of course that inevitably results in me having to explain our infertility situation.  I managed pretty well at the start of the week, but on Wednesday I found out that a dear friend (who already has one gorgeous little boy) is now pregnant with her second.  What sucked was that I found out while at work, through a comment by someone else talking about my friend going on maternity leave next year.  My friend had actually intended to tell me herself that night over dinner at her house, as she has other friends who have gone through IVF and knew it would be emotional for me.  As it was, I had to be appropriately excited for her at work while fighting back the tears of jealousy and sadness that immediately sprung up.  The week kind of went downhill after that.

When I got home Friday night, I called my mom only to discover that my sister, who is in the middle of a miscarriage, had to be taken to the emergency room.  Her doctor had told her earlier in the week that she wouldn't need a D&C since it would be too invasive and everything would happen naturally anyway.  By Friday night, she was doubled over and having cramps that she says were worse than her labour pains with my niece.  She ended up in hospital on morphine until she eventually passed a clot the size of a lemon, at which point the pain pretty much subsided.  She's home and doing pretty well now, although very sore.  She's also pretty pissed that her doctor didn't warn her what was to come and didn't give her any painkillers in case this happened.  I don't have any experiences with miscarriage but it seems like a D&C may have been in order here.  I'm just glad she's doing OK now.

As for me, AF is due today but is nowhere in sight.  I haven't had my usual spotting either.  Before anyone gets excited, remember that my last cycle was my cancelled IVF.  Dr. Google tells me that what is probably happening is that my hormones are all screwed up and my cycle is going to be delayed (if it comes at all without further medical intervention, given my last experience with BCP!)  Does anyone else have experience with this?  The shittiest part about this is that we are ready to start IVF #2...but if my cycle is delayed too long, the clinic will be closed for Christmas holidays and I won't be able to get in for Day 3 bloodwork.  Which means everything gets pushed back to my next cycle in January.  Typical crap ass luck for us.

Sorry for such a bleary post.  It's just been that kind of week.  What happened in Connecticut is also weighing heavily.  My heart goes out to all the families.  

Fertility Math

Since I haven't really written a lot about my infertility journey, I thought I'd do a post with a bit of a rundown of how we got here.  We're a bit lucky in that we were diagnosed and started treatment fairly quickly due to the fact that I was over 35, so we haven't been struggling with years and years of trying to no avail.

After M and I got married in April 2011, we actually decided to hold off for a little bit on having kids as we wanted to just enjoy being newlyweds for a while.  But I didn't want to wait too long, given the age factor.  Plus, I always just kind of had a feeling we'd have a hard time.  I don't know why.  Part of it was probably due to the fact that for the previous year or so I had been noticing spotting anywhere from up to 4 days before my period, which was new for me.  There was no firm answer online as to why this was happening, but I seemed to find a lot of women struggling to conceive who had the same issue.  Clue Number 1!

Clue Number 2:  After a few months with no success, I started temping and using OPKs.  The OPKs were always touch and go for accuracy, but the temping showed a pretty clear thermal shift.  The problem was that it was happening way earlier than I thought.  I seemed to be ovulating on Day 9 or 10 instead of Day 14.  Again, that was weird, but I just figured we needed to move our babymaking schedule up a bit and get started on Day 6 or 7 of my cycle so we could catch the egg.  No dice.

Because I'm such a gloomy little cloud of pessimism (plus I'm hyper-organized), I moved quick and got us in with an RE shortly after the "6 months trying after age 35" rule expired.  Here's what we've learned after a few months of cycle monitoring and which led to our diagnosis of Diminished Ovarian Reserve.

• Day 3 Estrogen (E2):  high of 402 pmol/L, low of 265 (that's 110 pg/ml and 72 pg/ml for my American friends).  Normal range is 25 - 75 pg/ml.  I got the 265 after three months of CoQ10, so I wonder if that's actually been doing me some good?
• Day 3 FSH:  low of 5.3 (when E2 was 402), high of 6 (when E2 was 265).  Normal is under 10.  Obviously, my FSH is suppressed with the higher estrogen.  However, even when I managed to barely squeak in under the normal E2 range, my FSH was still well within normal limits.  My RE says she does not believe I have elevated FSH.  One of several numbers that don't make sense in my case, since if I have DOR I should most definitely have elevated FSH.
• AFC: low of 13, high of 17.  Normal is 15 - 30 between both ovaries.  Borderline low, but not horrible.  But....
• AMH: 1.2 pmol/L, or 0.17 ng/ml.  This puts me into the "very low/undetectable" category.  My RE showed me a chart of AMH corresponding with the normal aging process.  My AMH score means that my ovaries have a biological age somewhere around 43.  I should not have very many left, and what I do have should not be of good quality.  But again, the numbers are wonky.  With an AMH this low, I should have an incredibly low AFC and high FSH in the bargain.  I don't.

The confusion continued with our first IVF in October 2012.  When I went in for my baseline Day 0 scan, guess how many antral follicles I had?

23!!!  This puts me squarely in the "normal" category and almost made my RE change my starting dose of 325iu Gonal F out of fear that I'd overstimulate.  Unfortunately, that turned out not to be a worry.  Here's how our first IVF numbers broke down:

• 3 days of stims:  E2 at 220 (60 US).  They wanted it to be around 400.  Only one measurable follicle growing; the remaining 22 are sitting tight.
• 5 days of stims:  E2 at 488 (133 US).  Doubled, but still not as high as they want it.  Three on the left (14, 8, 8) and one on the right (10).
• 7 days of stims:  E2 at 1175 (320 US).  Again going up, but primarily due to one follicle.  Four on the left (17, 11, 11, 8) and one on the stubborn right (11).

Based on this, my IVF was cancelled and we switched to IUI, knowing that it likely wouldn't work but not wanting to waste the drugs.  My RE said that she thought that, despite the fact I had been quite suppressed on BCP and Lupron, I still managed to recruit a dominant follicle in the cycle prior to the IVF.  But then she later said that she thought I was oversuppressed, based on the response of the 18 follicles that didn't do anything at all.  I have no idea how I can be both oversuppressed and an early recruiter, but there you go.  Officially, I now fall into the category of poor responder and will be bumped up to a max dose of 450iu Gonal F plus Menopur for my next cycle, which will be antagonist versus long Lupron. 

Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone out there is better at fertility math than me, but my numbers don't seem to add up.  When I got the news of the 23 resting follicles at my baseline scan, I actually allowed my naturally Eeyore-ish self to get optimistic and excited about the cycle, which made it all the more painful when it failed.  I just don't understand why the numbers don't make sense, and all the internet research in the world hasn't found me any answers or anyone who has these same contradictions.  My RE and naturopath have both shrugged their shoulders and said it doesn't really matter.  What we do know is that I am clearly not able to get pregnant on my own and it's looking increasingly doubtful that science can help, as my eggs are likely shit.

But onwards we go.  Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Miscarriage

I just got off the phone with my mom.  My sister is miscarrying as I write this.

My sis is 34, and has a 3 year old daughter who is my only niece and the light of my life.  Earlier this year, she and her husband sold their house so they could get something both bigger and cheaper so that they could expand their family.

This is her second miscarriage since then.  The first happened this summer, at six weeks.  This time, it's a missed miscarriage at 12 weeks.  She started spotting Monday.  She rested and it went away, but then it came back mid-week and she went to the ER, where she waited forever until finally giving up and going home.  The she had blood drawn at her family doctor's office and got the bad news...her beta was plummeting.  It was all but certain that it was over.  She had her 12 week scan planned for today anyway, so she went ahead fully expecting the bad news.  They told her the baby had probably stopped developing at 8 weeks.  They'll wait and see if a D&C is necessary.

My sis has been amazing throughout my infertility struggle.  When she got pregnant this summer, she actually went online to look up how to tell an infertile person that you're pregnant.  She called me and told me without making a big deal about it, without expecting me to be overjoyed.  Understanding that I'd be hurt and jealous too, and being ok with that and asking me how I was.  Then when my IVF got cancelled in October and the IUI failed, she was there for me.  Just letting me vent and cry and not giving any of the usual platitudes that fertiles give when they don't know what to say.  She just listened.

I really, really don't want this to be happening to her too.  I don't want infertility to be the family business.  I don't want her to go through what I'm going through, although at this point I'm starting to think she might have the shittier end of the stick.  At least I'm not losing the babies that I can't make.  When my RE took my initial medical history she asked if anyone in my family had a history of DOR or early menopause.  I answered no, but since most of my aunts had their children in their 20s I guess we don't know what their ovarian reserve was like later on.  And my family isn't exactly one of those that talks about their feelings a lot, so I have no idea about their menopause experiences.  My mom's was normal, that's all I know.  But DOR can apparently have a genetic component, so what if that's happening here?  What if my baby sister is destined to follow this path too?  She got pregnant within a month of trying at age 31 for her daughter, and I think we all just assumed number two would be a breeze as well.  What if she was just really lucky the first time out and we didn't know it until now?

I'd be lying if I said this didn't also make me worry about myself.  Even if we can get some eggs to grow on our next IVF, and even if they fertilize (something we haven't even gotten a chance to try yet), does this mean I'm more likely to miscarry?  Are we going to go down this road too?

The worst part of the whole thing is that I live halfway across the country from my family so I can't just stop by and hug my sis or take my niece out for a bit to give my sister some time to herself.  All I can do is send a text message asking if she's ok and if she wants to talk, which she assures me she doesn't right now.  Like I said, we're a family of stoics, so...not so good with the huggy feeling-y stuff.

All I keep thinking is: not her too.  Please, universe.  Not her too.

Thrift Shop

I've been hearing this song on the radio lately...it's super catchy but bleeped to within an inch of its life.  I finally Googled it and present it for your viewing/listening pleasure.  Fair warning...if you can't handle foul language, don't watch.  If you can, I think you'll agree with me.  This is fucking awesome.

PS:  I know I haven't exactly been blogging a lot about infertility on my supposed infertility blog.  Part of that is because we're in between treatments right now, waiting for our next IVF in December/January/February depending on whether AF decides to show up when my clinic is closed for Christmas.  I am intending to post more about how we got here in the first place when I have the time to sit down and drag out my old lab results.  Stay tuned!

Thighlights

I consider myself a pretty average girl (yes, I have a problem using the word "woman" when referring to myself).  Statistically, I'm as average as you get.  Average height, average weight, average shoe size...average everything. 

In that case, can someone please please explain to me why I am consistently busting out of the inner thighs of my pants???

Today I got home from work and when changing my pants I noticed a two-inch rip on the left inner thigh, right up by the crotch.  Luckily the tear was situated in such a place that I highly doubt anyone would have been able to notice it even when I was walking around, but did I mention that these are my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE WORK PANTS IN ALL THE WORLD?

We all have our own problems when buying pants.  My legs are kind of short for my height, so finding pants that don't need to be hemmed is a big deal.  I also love pants that minimize my slightly poochy lower belly while accentuating my pancake of a butt.  Finding a pair of pants that can do all of these things at the same time is like searching for life on other planets...theoretically you know that there's probably something out there, but you have to look really really hard to find it.

I found my dream pants at a J. Crew outlet in Maine.  Navy blue cotton with a slight stretch to it, with a nice flat front and enough of a back pocket to give me the illusion of a booty.  Vanity sizing meant that I fit into a size at least two sizes smaller than I normally wear.  Yeah, I know it's fake and shallow...I'm so weak!  I loved them so much I searched high and low for more pairs in other colours, only to be disappointed until I went back to the exact same outlet two years later and bought them in black and beige.  But the navy was my first, and they always held a special place in my heart...and closet.  Until today.

There was no way to salvage them, since the tear wasn't on a seam or anywhere I could mend it.  What I can't figure out is why this always happens to me!  Usually it's jeans though, where I get this lovely thinned-out fabric window like you get on the bottom of worn out socks.  This is the first pair of work pants that my apparently oversized and sandpaper-like thighs have rubbed a hole through, though.  I guess I'm lucky I haven't started a fire down there with the friction that my thunder thighs have been wreaking on my poor unsuspecting pants.  And the worst part?  I can't find the uber-pants online.  They apparently exist only in the outlets.

Am I the only one with this problem?  I find this hard to believe, given my aforementioned average-ness, and I really don't think that my thighs are any different from most everyone else.  But I've never heard anyone else mention this happening to them.  So is it really just me?  Do I need to go on a thigh-et?  (HAH!  Terrible joke).

The Royal We

My husband (let's call him M) and I got married the day after Prince William and Kate Middleton.

This was the subject of much joking at the time, as we had been engaged for over a year and they kind of swooped in and one-upped us with their date announcement.  Anytime anyone asked us when we were getting married, the inevitable reaction was "Oh, that's the day after the royal wedding!"  To which the only reasonable response was, "I know, right?  Like, OMG.  Wills and Katie are totes uninvited to ours now.  She's all like, his grandma is paying so they have to do it when she says, but I'm like, whatevs, you're just jealous that my boyfriend has more hair than yours.  She's so insecure.  And don't even talk to me about those backstabby Beckhams.  They've made their choice.  Unfriend!!"

Of course in reality I actually felt kind of sorry for Kate.  As much as planning a wedding is a pain in the ass, she pretty much had no say over hers whatsoever (OK, except for her dress, which was pretty freaking awesome).  And the whole world immediately started speculating about when she'd be getting preggers.  No pressure!

I'm not much of a royal watcher, but once M and I realized that we were having fertility issues, I also started noticing that Will and Kate weren't pregnant either.  Again, I kind of felt sorry for them...for all anyone knew, they were having fertility problems too, and the whole world was watching.  Our/their one year anniversary came and went, and still no baby announcements from either of us.  From my end, it was even kind of comforting to think that maybe this rich and powerful couple was, at the heart of it, undergoing the same stresses and disappointments that we were.  I felt a weird (and totally irrational) kind of kinship with this (in my mind) fellow infertile couple.  At one point M, who cares even less about the royals than I do, mused aloud about whether they were having fertility issues.  He seemed to think the royal conglomerate would have had all parties (read: the commoner Kate) fully tested before agreeing to let her wed the heir to the throne, but I can't imagine that anyone would go through with a wedding where the proposal was followed shortly thereafter by, "Now, hike up your skirt, Her Majesty just wants us to poke this wand into your ladybits to make sure they're working.  For Queen and country!  Huzzah!"

Anyway, today Will and Kate finally announced that they are expecting.  One year and seven months after the wedding, they are pregnant and we are still not.  I'll probably never know whether my imagined infertile sisterhood with Kate had any basis in reality, or whether they just decided to wait a bit for the craziness of their first year of marriage to die down before they started trying.  While I'd never in a million years wish infertility on anyone, I think I'm perversely kind of disappointed that they've conceived.  I mean, pretty much all of our real life friends have passed us by on the having kids front, but we still had Will and Kate. Until now.

Whatevs.  My husband still has more hair than hers.

Out of the shadows

Huh.  So this is what having a blog is like.

I've been lurking around on infertility blogs for the better part of a year now.  What I've seen has alternately inspired me and scared the shit out of me.  This community has created a support system of hilarious, thoughtful and amazing women...and I want to be one of those.  But this community has also collectively experienced more suffering and loss than I've ever encountered in one place...and I definitely don't want to be one of those.  I guess I don't really get to pick though, do I?

I'm 36 and have been diagnosed with Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR).  My husband and I have been trying to conceive for just over a year, and we already have one failed IVF under our belt.  

I don't have a crystal ball.  I don't know if my membership in this horrible club will be long or short, if it will end in a quick success or in failure after failure after failure.  What I do know is that I don't want to do it alone.  I didn't choose to be here but I can choose to step out of the shadows and ask for help, and offer whatever I can in return.  Most of the time that will be snark and sarcasm, but I can be heartfelt at times too (like now).  Oh and cupcakes.  I bake a mean cupcake.

Bear with me as I get used to blogging and putting myself out there.  This community has already helped me through a lot without even knowing it.  I'm ready to try to return the favour.