The thin line between love and hate...

It a volatile relationship with AF. On the months when she punctuates your two week wait, you hate her. However, when you need her to arrive in order to start treatment, she's your new best friend. It's also possible to love and hate her at the same time. AF finally arrived, my required one 'normal' cycle before starting IUI and also I can now schedule my sonohystogram. Hours before she made her appearance, I had finally made up my mind about going back home. I decided it would be good for me to go. Although it's not the ideal destination, it may be our last opportunity to have a bit of a holiday for a while. Once we start fertility treatments, it will be harder to plan a a get-away around my cycle and monitoring appointments. I decided to go for only 6 days -rather than the entire 10 days that Husband scheduled. It would be less stressful for me to have more time to tie up things at work before going, plus a weekend to myself would be nice. When it comes to visiting family, some times less is more. This break would give me some time to play in New York, catch up with old friends, meet Myrtle for lunch (see her without little Myrtle first) and visit with my parents for three and a half days -just the right amount of time. I got a ticket for a great price and felt at peace with the decision I agonised over. This was just the repose that would be beneficial for my mental health. Then AF arrived. Naturally, the first thing I had to do was to check my fertility forecast. Unfortunately, it does project that Husband and I will be on opposite coasts of the country when I ovulate this cycle. Thanks Mother Nature, I could have used this information a few hours ago. I shared this with Myrtle, who asked for an update, and by the way, still does not know the difference between IUI and IVF despite 5 or 6 detailed explanations. "I think you should try anyway," she advised me. "You never know...". I cut her off before she could say anything else. There is nothing that annoys me more than hearing the words 'you never know'. Firstly, yes I do know. Not only is this what I do for a living, but it's what I've been working on for over a year. Secondly, I realised that Myrtle has never used a fertility monitor to identify when ovulation is imminent. She has no idea what it is like to POAS daily to follow where your cycle is on a day-to-day basis. She thinks you merely have to have sex to become pregnant -with socks on. Following the miscarriage, Husband and I were tempted with the idea of continuing to try to conceive spontaneously. We conceived on our 7th attempt, although it took us nearly a year to be able to have seven valid attempts. The logistical issues of the past two months have confirmed and validated our decision to move forward with IUI. I don't know if I could handle another month of waiting for my O day to arrive at a time that is completely inconvenient and possibly miss yet another attempt. It is our goal to have a baby, not to conceive spontaneously. Besides, if the treatments don't work we'll have all the time until menopause to try to make it happen naturally.