The B*tch is Back!

I woke up at 4:00 this morning with the most horrible cramps ever. Sure enough, I went to the bathroom and AF had arrived!

I'm still amazed by what a roller coaster of emotions comes with getting my period each month. Sometimes, I'm excited because it means I can start a new treatment. Other times, I'm devastated by the fact that yet another cycle is a bust. This month, I really shouldn't have been surprised when AF reared her ugly head considering multiple ultra sounds had clearly shown that there weren't any eggs cooking in my follicles. But despite the fact that by now I know better than to expect a miracle, when I started get O-like symptoms followed by typical 2ww signs, a little bit of hope managed to creep in. When I saw that swipe of red on the toilet paper this morning, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. And that's the paradox of IF for me. As hard as I try to manage my expectations, I think I'd go insane taking all of these medications, spending each trip to the bathroom analyzing what I see on the TP, peeing on sticks twice a day and getting up at the crack of dawn several times a week to be stuck with needles and have a camera shoved in places no one but my husband should ever get to see if I didn't have a little sliver of hope that it would all result in a BFP. So that's why this morning, at 4 am alone in our powder room, even though I should have been overjoyed that AF arrived without the Provera and that my first injectible/IUI cycle would be starting, I still grieved a little for what might have been.