Third times a charm, right?

We had our third IUI this morning (well, if we're being literal, it was our 5th but third with the new doctor), and everything went really well!

The doctor we like (Dr. N) did the procedure. Dr. Sunshine (aka, the Dr. I don't like) did our ultrasound on Wednesday so we hadn't seen Dr. N until this morning. He said he was pleased with my follicle size and the number of follicles, reiterating that the 3rd "bonus egg" may or may not make it to maturity in time for ovulation. Jason's "deposit" was stellar once again: 44 million per milliliter after it was washed and spun (meaning that the 44 million was the remaining Michael Phelps of the bunch) and activated once again (ie ready to hit their mark). To give you some perspective on that number, Dr. N said that they like to see anything above 5 million per milliliter post wash, so we're good on that front. :) My cervical mucus (sorry, TMI, but hey, it's my life so you all get to hear about it!) was "beautiful" (yea, weird, I know) which is great because it creates a nice environment for the sperm to hang out in until their "targets" make their grand entrance. The only thing that I don't feel great about (so of course, I'm focusing way too much on it) is my uterine lining. On Wednesday, it was only 5mm. They like to see it closer to 8 or higher. The thought is that the higher medication dosage caused the thinner lining. It can happen, but since my lining has always been nice and thick, they didn't know it would happen to me. Well, now we know but it's unfortunately too late to do anything about it. BUT! He did stress that they're not too concerned about it because my lining, while being borderline thin, is a nice trilaminar pattern (more oftentimes referred to as "triple stripe.") Apparently, uterine lining that is trilaminar is preferable to non-triple stripe lining, in that it shows that the surface of the endometrium is more favorable to embryo implantation. It would be more of a concern if my lining was the same and not triple striped, or even thicker and not triple striped. So, in short, triple striped is good! He also said that my lining will continue to thicken until ovulation (which they think will happen sometime today) and the shot of HCG that I received yesterday also gives the uterine lining an extra boost, so it would be safe to assume  that my lining is thicker now than it was two days ago.  If (if!) we don't conceive this time, he said he'd like to do the same medication dosage again, but he would give me estrogen CD 8 -12 to give extra support to uterine lining growth. I wish we had known this was going to happen going in to this cycle, but unfortunately, infertility treatments tend to be a lot of trial and error, and learning as we go.

So, there you have it! I go in for a blood test on Friday, March 30 to check my progesterone levels for signs of ovulation, and then if my period doesn't arrive, I can test for pregnancy on Easter Sunday. Please, keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I'm going to try super hard to be nothing but optimistic, and focus on all the positives we have with this cycle. It's far too easy to fall in to the "but everything wasn't 100% perfect, so it's going to fail" mentality. As my cousin pointed out, I'm under a microscope and knowing so much about my cycles just makes it more difficult to not focus on the percentages, odds, and numbers. Most couples don't know anything about their reproductive inner-workings: they just do their thing and after a time, they get pregnant. So I need to try and put the terminology and statistcs out of my mind, and focus now on the possibilities.

It's true, nothing's guaranteed. We may not get pregnant this cycle. But we could. We really, truly could. How's that for odds? :)