From hope to this

The two week wait sucks. No matter how you slice it, two weeks is a long time. Especially when you've been used to getting your information on a daily basis - all of the sudden you get to transfer and you're cast adrift with no appointments, no phone calls, no nothing for two.whole.weeks.

Well, unless you're me. Then you get your progesterone tested seven days post transfer, but still. Even a week's a long time.

That first week is something like sweet bliss. You actually revel in being able to sleep in that little bit longer because there are no appointments. You don't jump like a crazy person every time the phone rings because you're not waiting for those daily results. And you float along on a bubble of hope that this time, yes this time, things might just work.

You are safe and secure in that bubble because you can't test during that time - it's really too early, and any result you get is likely still the trigger shot. So you bobble along, dreaming of baby showers and what the nursery will look like...you smile at other pregnant women, thinking you'll soon be joining the ranks of the swollen bellied, and everything is just plain good.

Then week two hits.

All of the sudden, it's okay to think about testing. You madly scan all the posts you can find on every message board you've become a member of, looking for stories of who peed when and got what result. And as the days go by and you realize that you're past the point of where so many others got their BFP if they got one at all, you start to panic.

It is this panic that lead me to pee on a stick last night. And this morning. And it's the results of those tests - both negative - that have sent me on an emotional downward spiral today.

Everyone keeps telling me it's still early. That there's still lots of time. That I'm not out, that there's still a chance. And yes, they're technically correct. But I can't get the feeling that if it had worked something would have shown up by now out of my head.

I think of all the symptoms I had the one time I actually was pregnant. The food aversion, the intense sleepiness, the round ligament pain. I haven't had any of it - ANY - this time around. People will again tell me that no two pregnancies are the same and you won't necessarily have the same symptoms. But even one would be reassuring - and I have none.

And I noticed today my boobs don't hurt anymore. Given how sore they've been in the past, that can't be a good thing. It just can't.

With my last pregnancy, my First Response test picked up my hCG when it was only 7. Seven! Yes, they're super sensitive, which only reaffirms my thoughts that if something was actually happening, it would show up. It just would.

And it hasn't.

I'm so sad, I just can't stop crying. I'm sitting at my desk at work and I'm a mess. My boss has been great - keeping people out and just giving me my space, but I can't stop. I feel like I'm in a fishbowl and everyone who passes by looks inside to see what's going on because my door is closed. That never happens around here, so people feel the need to look. And so I get all of these sad looks and platitudes - all very well meant, this I know for sure - and I just want to crawl into a hole and shut out the world.

And to add insult to injury, I'm surrounded by pregnant women. I work in the same building as Mt Sinai's OB/GYN department, so there are bellies everywhere. I had two of them in my elevator coming up to work today. I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from bawling on the spot. I barely made it to the safety of my office before the tears started flowing. And I just can't get them to stop, an hour and a half later.

I have no idea why I even allowed myself to hope that this time might have been it. Shouldn't I know better by now? Hasn't almost five years of negatives and tears taught me nothing? Deep down I've always felt like I'm destined to be that person that things just never work out for. And it's increasingly looking like I was right.

Don't get me wrong - I'll be the first to admit that my behaviour has been idiotic should, for whatever reason, things turn out more positively in the end. But from where I sit, I just can't see it happening.

I have no idea where to go or what to do after this if Monday's beta is indeed negative. We're out of options. Out of money. At the end of the road. We have two embryos left from our earlier cycle, but there the bottom of that cycle's barrel, and we know that our embryos don't thaw well - or take, for that matter. So unless we win the lottery, we may very well be at the end of this long and sad journey.

And that breaks my heart. Just when I thought it couldn't break anymore.