I am starting to stick my head out of my shell and peak around a bit. My eyelids are permanently swollen. Mascara will never be the same on me again. Well.......... it will. I'm just being dramatic.

This morning I woke up and got out of bed before I cried. The first time I haven't had to get out of bed to get more tissues.

It was so nice to see my lovely M. Thursday afternoon. He is my granite. I have not mentioned his bad boo boo. He feels terrible about it, said he was sorry and I need to learn and drop something for once. He loves me more than anything and I know he was lost and hurting and shocked and he just thought I wanted to know ASAP. I'll make myself more clear next time. That is what hurt the most though, the elation of "I knew I was going to be pregnant this time!!" to complete devastation. It was a nightmare.

I am lost. My entire life has been on a road to my children. I am cursed with knowing that from a very early age. I find myself searching and I see nothing but that same road.

So, I decided........I am going to stay on that road. I have to.

I think M. and I should still time intercourse, I ovulate regularly and it is rather easy to track. We will not give up entirely. I (and all of you) know that things don't look good. Something is very clearly, crystal clearly, wrong. The chances of sex causing a pregnancy are just about nil. A catheter filled with great blastocysts can't even get me pregnant!

I think that depression comes when there is no hope, no road to travel down. I may be headed down a fairy tale road like looking for prince charming on his horse when I was younger but at least I have a road and I can once again have hope and look around with wishful eyes.

I think it is normal to replay an event over and over again. I am trying to make sense of all of this. I am smart. I have spent endless hours reading about infertility and IVF and ICSI and rescue ICSI. If I had any assvice to give everyone going through IVF - DO ICSI - the statistics are profound, greater fertilization, no risk of zero fertilization thus ruining the entire cycle. Rescue ICSI does not cause live births....it can cause fertilization but not live births. Why risk zero fertilization and even less fertilization??? DO ICSI.

Well, if that last paragraph stopped one woman from having a ruined IVF cycle or gave her just one more embryo, then it was worth it.

Back to me. I have replayed my scenario and I am baffled. I wish there was a diagnosis. I wish they could say "high FSH" or "abnormal sperm".....instead, everything looks too excellent. My FSH is 3.4! My response to the meds indicates my low FSH, I have so many mature eggs and our fertilization rate is great (with ICSI). Last time, I responded as well as they would hope an ovum donor would respond! What gives?

Could all of my eggs be cooked? Could they really? There is nothing that indicates my eggs are bad except we can't seem to have a baby want to keep dividing and growing.

I keep going back to my grandmother had my mother at 46, and my paternal grandmother had my father and his fraternal twin at 39. If heredity plays any kind of role, I should be blessed in that area.

Dr. Beautiful has eluded to the fact that it is my age. She has also been stunned at my response however. I know that the sperm is rather insignificant - well........it is! It is like the gas that goes into the car. Our eggs are the cars that have to do all of the work from then on. They have to be normal and strong and willing.

If it is my age, then I am fucked. Because I am only getting older - duh. I got married at 37 and nothing was better then.

If it is a numbers game, even IVF had 28 eggs to deal with. I'm not a rocket scientist but 28 minus 28 equals a big fat ZERO and those are not good odds. Nope...... not looking good.

I still have to travel down this fantasy road. The road where my children are at the end waiting for me. I am completely lost without it.

If someone told me......here is a mile of hot coals and you must walk the mile but you will have your babies on the other end. I would ask for some water and get to walking. If my feet were burned to little nubs at the end, I wouldn't care. It would be worth it.

Now, what if that same someone said "walk this mile of coals and you MAY have a child at the end"? hmmmmmmmm.........I'd still say "Give me some water".

IVF is like that road of coals. It is a painful, difficult path. Your regular life stops when you travel that path and the shattered bits of yourself when it fails are scars forever.

I don't want to walk that mile for it be for naught. That is what sucks so bad. Having nubby feet and still no baby.

The only thing that takes away some of the pain, is my next.

M. took me to a beautiful winery yesterday afternoon. We went out on a veranda, looking down on the vineyard and beautiful mountains were in the distance and I asked him "what do you think? what next? I need a next."

He said "We have to get through this. We know we don't want to adopt but.... what if we try IVF again? Not anytime soon...... but maybe we can try IVF again."

So, I sipped my wine, I looked out at the beautiful view and a flock of birds were flying in the distance and I didn't say anything. I started to cry. The first thing that came to my mind was, am I up for it? Am I up for the pain again? Can I start another IVF with so much hope and handle another failure? Each mounting failure equals a reality I don't want to accept. I was also quite moved because I had to practically beg my lovely husband to do IVF#2, so for him to even offer it to me was surprising.

I looked at M. and said "yes, maybe we can try IVF again...... when?"

"Not anytime soon" he said.

I don't know what that means but somehow it makes me feel a little bit better. I have a road, I have a next.