Ten days is a long time

I'd forgotten just how long ten days can be.

When you're doing IVF, you can usually do a home test about a week after transfer. So things get broken up and while you're waiting just as long, you can trick yourself into believing otherwise.

Not so with an IUI. It's still ten days after the procedure that you can pee on something with any degree of reliability. Oh sure, I could pee now and probably get a positive since it's been 6 days since the trigger shot but it would be just that - the trigger, and nothing real. So I'll hold off for those ten days and decide what I want to do from there.

I know I've said this before, but the first week is full of promise and hope. You can't test anyway, so you don't fret it. Things are possible, man! This actually might work! And this time it's no exception.

Now that the UTI finally cleared and the insane bloat/pressure feeling that hung around until Sunday is gone, the only reminder that I'm even in this game is the daily progesterone shots. Which, I will say, are torture this time around.

This is cycle number five of progesterone in oil shots. They get jabbed into the muscle of your upper butt (for lack of a better description) - and they hurt. 'Cause guess what? Oil ain't thin. I can feel it all squeezing in. And it's not fun.

I feel like I have scar tissue from all the cycles before this one and yeouch - it's hurt before, but never this badly. I know I shouldn't complain because this could be the last piece of the puzzle that gets us to our heretofore elusive happy ending - an actual baby - but for right now it's, literally, a pain in the ass.

That's about it for now. I'm trying to remain calm, happy to be feeling better overall, and am trying to tell myself that it's okay to be hopeful. That this time it actually might be different. That Hubs' insanely positive feelings about this cycle might be worth something. That this is finally the end of the road for us - for the best possible reason.