What goes down...

...must come up!  That's how the saying goes...right? :)

We've had a pretty crazy last few days. 

T was offered and accepted a new job last Friday.  I know this was a huge stress relief for him, as we were waiting to hear for about three weeks now.  Add to that to the stress of baby-making, and being around him was not full of roses.  The super cool part from my perspective is that he'll be working at my company.  So I'll be able to track him down and blow raspberries on his face in front of co-workers.

(What T? -- you are giving your resignation already?  :) :) )

Another super cool part for the job makes me still feel somewhat slimy.  But rules are rules.  And apparently if you take out $6,000 in flexible spending from your employer, use it all up in January, and then leave that employer less than halfway through the year ---- you don't need to pay back the portion that hasn't come out of your paycheck yet! Free money!

Oh -- and T is excited, too.  Something about career advancement, developmental opportunities, and other hoity toity things he thinks are important :)  Whatever.  RASPBERRIES!!

Other craziness has ensued as well.  T went in for another swimmer check on Monday, and his count has increased again.  Now, let's be clear --- it is still pretty horrific.  But now it is more like Shaun of the Dead horrific versus 28 Days Later horrific.  A few more smiles had by all.

After they "washed" his sperm on Monday and got rid of the ones that swam too slow or looked like this:

he had 4.5 million/ml left!!  Party time!  We froze that sample up in case we wanted it later. 

For some context, he had 3 million a few weeks ago (post-wash) and about 1.5 million the day of our IVF.  Before IVF, the sperm wasn't washed, so the numbers aren't totally comparable.  But the highest we had PRE-WASH in the past was 5 million, so that would likely be about 1.5 - 2 million post-wash.

For the doctor to consider IUI possibility, we needed to have a minimum of 4 million.  So we just eked past that. And we're hoping it continues to improve, which unfortunately keeps T off his bicycle for the rest of the season.

Given all this, we are going to try IUI a few times before we try IVF again.  Since I ovulate  regularly, we'll do it non-medicated (nothing to make my cycle artificial).  I just use the ovulation predictor tests you can buy at the store and will call the doctor when it is positive.  We'll go in the next morning to shoot me up with swimmers.

There are huge pros and cons to this decision.  The major pro is the cost.  A round of un-medicated IUI is like $300.  Chump change compared to IVF.  There are no shots or anything that messes your insides up.  It is just really a souped-up natural cycle.  I can do it every month if I want to.

The con is definitely that the chance of success is honestly not that great.  While our IVF had a chance of about 80% of succeeding, IUI is more like 10% or less.  However, we beat the odds by NOT getting pregnant in the IVF cycle.  Maybe we can beat the odds again?

Strangely enough, despite the odds not being in our favor, I'm super pumped with this turn of events.  Whether it is simply because it is different, or I can do it this month, or I just want to not deal with the drugs again for awhile.  Not sure.  But I'm excited and ready to give his swimmers their own shot:

 Have a great week!