Muddy waters

I'm sorry I've been AWOL for so long. It's not so bad that I haven't updated my own blog, but I also haven't been reading and commenting on anyone else's. In mitigation, I can tell you that I have been thinking of you and praying for you as usual, and I'll be catching up on your blogs this week.

My silence hasn't been for lack of things to talk about.

There was the lovely text I got from my sister on the feast of the Holy Family, which ended with the simple words, "Praying for your family on this feast."

There was the New Year's Eve party with a group of friends who had all, for various reasons, had a hard time in 2010, where at midnight we raised our glasses and said goodbye and good riddance to the old year.

There've been a couple more helpful sessions with my coach, who has helped me to change my perspective on some things and to be more positive.

There was the flat feeling I had in the first week of the new year, when I felt that I was in exactly the same position as I was at the beginning of 2010, and hadn't moved on at all. My coach helped me to see that this wasn't the case, and I may write a separate post on that.

And then this weekend AF showed up two days early, and I went back to the clinic for my blood test yesterday, full of hope that we would get started on this new protocol that Mr Greek God proposed shortly before Christmas.

I knew it wasn't going to be good news when the phone call didn't come until 6 pm, because they tend to call people who need to come in the next day first, and then the ones who don't.

Sure enough, although my oestradiol was nice and low at 73, my FSH was up again to 12.6, and Mr Miracle Worker is not willing to go ahead with FSH at that level, knowing that there have been a few cycles recently when it's been lower.

Having had my hopes raised last month, I was actually more gutted than I have been for a while to get this result. Whenever I've had a call from XXXX clinic telling me that it's not a suitable month (and that's happened several times over the last few months), I've been disappointed but philosophical, knowing that the aim is to choose the month with the best possible chance of success. Yesterday was the first time I can remember crying when putting the phone down on that call.

The reason I'm so upset by it is that it gives me yet another difficult choice. We had decided that if my levels weren't right this month, we would go ahead with donor embryo treatment. I don't think I'd realised how much I was hoping that this wouldn't happen. Also, because of the renewed glimmer of hope we were given last month with the promise of a new protocol, I feel once again unready to let go of that little bit of hope.

I discussed it with DH last night, and he listened and contributed to the discussion with a level of understanding, both practically and emotionally, that he didn't have this time last year.

The upshot of our discussion is that we are going to wait one more month to see whether my FSH comes back down in February and they allow us to try this new protocol. If not, then we get in touch with the donor clinic. I don't want to set off down that route until I've given up hope on the route we're currently travelling. In November, I'd almost lost hope and was ready to make that decision. In December, I was given a tiny bit of hope to cling onto, and it seems to have moved my thinking backwards.

It's funny how being given a little bit of hope can actually muddy the waters and make a decision harder, rather than easier.