Wednesday I met with the doctor to talk about next steps if I end up needing to proceed with try #6. Of course he prefaced our conversation with the hope that all of this ends up being information I won’t need to use. I hope so too, although I’ve reached the point in the TWW where one second I think I’m pregnant and the next I think I’m definitely not.

Anyway, the next step is IVF. I could continue with IUI, but the truth is that we don’t know why I’m not getting pregnant and IVF takes a lot of the variables out of the way. It seems like a smarter investment of time and money based on how I’ve responded so far.

It will obviously be a much more complex and costly process, but it raises the chances significantly. It also takes a lot of the guess work away in terms of what is it that is not working. With the injectables they will get me to produce around 10-20 eggs. They’ll monitor along the way to make sure there isn’t over-stimulation as that could actually make me really sick. Then they do the retrieval and fertilize the eggs to create embryos, and monitor them. At the point that they put the embryo back into my uterus, we know that it’s a healthy embryo. That whole natural process is something we’re not sure is currently happening on its own. There’s no way to know.

Is the sperm reaching the egg? Is it fertilizing? Is it a healthy egg and therefore starts developing into a healthy embryo? Is it making its way through the tubes to the uterus safely? Is it implanting? It’s not like I have some type of window to see what is actually happening during each of day of my TWW…I wish.

I left the doctor’s office feeling good in the sense that at least I’m ready for Plan B of TTC, but also really hoping that I don’t need it. I still have about 4-5 days left in my TWW, so I’ll have to continue to wait and see.

Just a reminder that even though I have been very open throughout this process, when I do get pregnant, I’m not going to to share it with you guys until I’m safely past the first trimester. I know it might sound weird seeing how much I’ve shared thus far, but it’s just one of those superstitions. Like I said before, you’ll be able to tell because I’ll be writing about other stuff instead of TTC, but I won’t be outwardly telling you.