A failed experiment

I love things "on a stick." Chicken, pickles, cheesecake, meat in general: these are usually not disappointments.

Peeing on a stick however, sucks.

/begin TMI: So, I'm not one to get up in the night and pee, which means, by the time I wake up, I have the flowrate of a Triple Crown champion racehorse. When trying to "hold the pregnancy test in the stream for five seconds" I usually end up peeing all over my hand. I know, I've read the forums: pee in a cup and dip the stick there. I've tried that, and still: pee all over my hand, as I'm usually still half-asleep while trying to hold an old coffee mug under my lady bits while peeing a small waterfall and not dropping the whole thing in the toilet. I have never been a graceful or coordinated woman.

/end TMI.

"Wait, why are you peeing on a stick?" you ask. Well, I got all Bill Nye with my reproductive system and thought I'd try an experiment.

So, you may remember WAY back last year when I was first diagnosed, my doc mentioned that it was possible for some women with POF to get pregnant naturally on their own. This happens in about 5-10% of women with POF, but unfortunately, there's no set protocol to predict who those 5-10% of women will be. Like regular babymakin', it's a crapshoot. So my doctor recommended trying an experiment: stimulating my remaining ovary with hormones to see if we could get it to ovulate on its own. There are two ways to do this: either using expensive recombinant FSH hormone injections (Gonal-F, Follistim, Bravelle and the like) or the much cheaper alternative, regular old' birth control. With the latter, my doc suggests taking it continuously for 3 to 6 months, stopping suddently, timing intercourse, and playing the 2ww game. Like he said, this works anecdotally, meaning he's only ever seen it happen 4 or 5 times in his whole career (my doc is no spring chicken).

I started back up on the pill in March for my HRT, and I've been pretty good about taking it every day, and having a faux pill-induced period every month. When I ran out, I forgot to get it refilled for a week. I was having some "could I be ovulating?" symptoms for a day or two, so post-haste to the bedroom it was. And I waited. I held out for 9dpo (or, as I now call it, 9dpn - 9 days past nothing) and tested.

One lonely blue line. I didn't even tell Larry I tested. (I did well after the fact, and he was a bit peeved I hadn't told him. Rightfully so, in retrospect.)

After a week of no early pg or approaching period symptoms, this past Friday evening I decided to test one more time, or as I like to call it, throw away $9 - because really, what else was I gonna buy with that money? But I needed to test because I had finally gotten my birth control refilled so I wanted to double check before I started a new pack.

Big. Fat. Negative.

This time I actually told Larry and he was waiting with me for those two minutes, and I think that's what actually added to the momentary sense of disappointment. We hadn't really held out any hope- we'd joked that yes, a pregnancy would certainly make life interesting in the context of buying a home right now, but that we'd take the miracle and run with it.

I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I probably won't get pregnant, but damn if it doesn't sting when there's just one single blue line staring back at you, even when you've already made peace.

So, there's my failed experiment. I hadn't really posted much about it here in the event that it DID work- a surprise pg announcement is always fun- but since it hasn't and I started popping pink pills again yesterday morning, I thought a little lab study post-mortem was in order.

I wished it had turned out differently, but c'est la vie. Life goes on.

*lingering pause*