What's Next? IVF?

Over the past couple of days, my husband and I learned some details about our situation that have been calming to me.
On Thursday, we had an appointment with our reproductive endocrinologist. I was slightly irritated when a nurse called to say that we were not going to go through a fourth IUI yet and that the doctor wanted to talk to us. The only reason why I felt that emotion is because the husband and I are headed to the British Isles in slightly more than a week. We will be in a different country for the next cycle and I didn't want to waste two cycles in a row.
It was late in the afternoon. I had just completed my second to last day of school and was exhausted. We are down to one car for the next couple of weeks so my husband picked me up and we drove to the office. After waiting a short period of time, we were ushered back to chat.
We had our list of questions and she had her points of interest to bring up. In all, we were with her for an hour. The most important parts that we discussed had to do with my husband's sperm and my possible condition once I get pregnant.
I have anti-cardio lipin something or other. I'm taking a small blood thinner these days and I'll have to increase the intensity of the blood thinner when I get pregnant. The blood thinners I thought were pills are actually injections and the time frame to take the blood thinner I thought would only be one trimester is actually the entire duration of the pregnancy. Goodie. Every pregnancy.
The more important part, the reason we struggle getting pregnant naturally has to do with the sperm. In January, we deposited four sperm samples to our doctor. They did analyses on all of them, but only checked the sperm morphology with one sample. The percentage of sperm with a normal morphology (sperm shape)? 0%. That explains why the washed sperm for our IUIs were so few in number. It also explains why we can't get pregnant.
We retried the sperm analysis yesterday. Number of normal shaped sperm? 1%. If you also take into consideration the motility and sperm count, that makes it around a million that are motile and shaped normally.
I feel better now that we know why we are struggling getting pregnant, and still frustrated to know it's almost impossible to fix. Sperm morphology is affected by genetics and toxins. Not much to change there.
Next step? We're going to chat with a financial consultant about IVF costs. The doctor is extremely positive about my chances for the procedure.
At the beginning of my next cycle, I'll start on IVF drugs and we'll go from there.

IUI #3? Unsuccessful

I got the phone call on Wednesday. I was slightly hopeful because the first call I got from them was at 10:00. That's super early! I was hoping the good news calls went out first.
Not so.
When the nurse called, I explained incognito that we wanted to try IUI one more time as we're a special case due to the cancer and there's one more sample in our sperm bank. (There were a couple kids nearby. 12-year-olds do not respond positively to the word "sperm.") She understood my jumbled words and told me to call on cycle day one.
Yesterday was definitely cycle day one. I called and we set up an appointment for after school on Monday. I was so thankful because I usually have to ditch my students on another teacher for fifteen minutes for these short visits.
Twenty minutes later, the same nurse called back and told me we were actually going to skip this month. (No!) Because my doctor decided she needed to see us first. So we're going in on Thursday to talk things through.
We'll see what happens.

What's Next?

My two week wait us almost over. I go in for blood work on Wednesday. I honestly have not had too much time to think about the results. Normally after an IUI, I lay down the rest of the day, but I needed to wait at the hospital five hours longer than expected for my husband's surgery to finish. It was an emotionally exhausting day (anytime you sit with a loved one in post-op, watching therm throw up an bleed continually for a few hours is exhausting). When husband asked how my procedure went, I honestly forgot I had done anything.
In my usual "don't get my hopes up" way, I am pretending it will not work out and I have began contemplating what to do next.
It sounds like my clinic does three or so IUIs before they move onto something else. However, we have one more sample frozen.
Do we move onto IVF, try one last IUI, or even look at adoption?
It's a hard choice.
Adoption may be out of the picture for now. We will most likely move out of state in a year so we'd deal with getting all the adoption work now, but the timing may be such that it wouldn't work out so we would have to go through part of the process again in another state.
If we did one more IUI, the next week I'm going on a trip with my husband, father, and two brothers across the British isles and I would be unable to take progesterone. I would want to have the biggest change possible. However, if we decide that IVF is the choice for us, it's something I would want to get out of the way during the summer time so that hormones and doctor appointments would not interfere with and scare a new group of kids.

It's a tricky decision.

IUI 3: completed

As husband lies unconscious in a hospital operating room, I'm waiting the ten minute grace period after my procedure. Sperm count this time: 7.9 mil. Not as good as last month, but better than the first and above the 5 mil minimum they suggest.
The technician yesterday seemed super positive about my follicle, so we'll see in two weeks. The nurse that did the IUI today said this clinic moves on after three IUI tries so I may make a consulting appointment with my doctor and cancel it if things work out this month.
Here's to the lovely month of May.

IUI three

I'm heading in this morning for number three. There's a slight problem because husband is having a surgery this morning too.
It would be a great story. "Your father was in a different city when I conceived you."
Husband likes this version from his point of view, "I was basically unconscious when you were conceived."
I did five days of femara this month with some nausea.
Yesterday was crazy. I went in for my ultrasound and the technician was happy with how things were looking. "You need to do the trigger shot like right now."
Problem #1. Technically, we ordered the trigger shot the previous day from a pharmacy in another state. I did not know if it had arrived yet.
Problem #2. I snuck out of work (with my boss's knowledge) to go to the appointment. I couldn't take the extra 40 minutes it would have taken to drive home, inject myself, and get back to school.
Problem #3. Husband was at work which is unusual because he normally works nights.
Thankfully husband could sneak away from work to grab the package (delivery notification popped up on my phone as I walked out of the clinic), bring it to me, and hide out in the conference room to inject me.

Third time's the charm?