You know what sucks even more than a random puking bug in the middle of the night? NOT BEING PREGNANT.

Seriously, I spent hours in the bathroom this morning, sick as a dog (with no idea what caused it) & no, I'm definitely not pregnant from this cycle. Being knocked up is about the only time when I wouldn't mind having my head in the loo for a few hours. Being as infertile as ever & still barfing? That's just plain mean.

All lurgies aside, we're still just plugging away. Tomorrow is my official blood test, so as soon as that's done, I'll be quitting the progesterone & the progynova. Can't wait to have a break from those two things, to be honest. Bring on a bleed!

I've been in touch with my new clinic, who you might recall, we swapped to in May after another disastrous stim cycle at our previous one. With all the time we've spent chatting to them, we've still not had the opportunity to do a full stim with them yet; we were busy moving over & dealing with the frozen embryos. Now that those options have fizzled out, it's time to look ahead and plan what to do next.

Originally, they had designed a protocol for me that looked a bit like this:

*antagonist (short) cycle, starting with jabs day 2
*200iu of Gonal-F
*orgalutran as the antagonist.

That was all well & good at the time - but that's the EXACT same protocol I followed in the last stim cycle, that led to increased progesterone levels pre-egg retrieval, and a freeze all. And if you go even FURTHER back to our previous stim cycle in November (also antagonist), we had the same results again: stupid, too-high too-early progesterone levels and a freeze all. You guys, I haven't had a fresh transfer since Georgia's cycle. And we've been back on this IVF train for 18 months now. That's ridiculous.

I ended up contacting them & vented my concerns about the same issues coming up again. They've decided that we will give the original cycles a go - long, down-reg protocols. I'm not sure of what dosage they will have me on yet, but it'll mean going back on the pill first & then injectables a little later.

Sure, the impatient part of me wants to do another antagonist cycle and stim NOW NOW NOW, but the logical part of me is telling me that it's a good idea to try something new. It might take longer, but hopefully the end results will be worth it. After all, it got me my little girl, you know?

The only downside apart from the longer cycle time, is that I always got less eggs retrieved doing it that way. (5 eggs/ 3 eggs respectively in down-reg vs. 13 eggs/ 10 eggs respectively in antagonist.) I'm trying to remind myself that it's quality over quantity; what good is getting more eggs when NONE of them could make it to blastocysts? But it's still scary. I'm 5 years older than I was when we started IVF.

Anyway... that's where we're at right now. Being patient. Being positive - or at least trying to be.

I mean, we're due for something spectacular soon, right?