Fail

First, a brief overview of my fertility treatments the first time around:

1. More than two years of trying on our own. My cycles are really wonky.

2. 50 mg of clomid. My body doesn't even notice. No follicles worth mentioning. Cycle canceled.

3. 100 mg of clomid. Maximum dose recommended by the pharmaceutical company. My ovaries have a tepid response, one little borderline follicle that needs an extra week to mature.

4. 150 mg of clomid. My body nearly explodes from all that excess estrogen, but my ovaries produce exactly one mature follicle. This is known as "exactly the response we want!" Yay! The result: LL (nine months later).

So, now we want a second kid. The obvious place to start: 150 mg of clomid.

The response we expect: another textbook response, with one mature follicle.

The response that I secretly both hoped and feared: having been through a successful pregnancy and months of breast feeding, my body has been kicked around enough that it recognizes how it's supposed to react to hormones, and totally overreacts to the gigantic excess of estrogen from such a high dose of clomid, thereby producing so many follicles that I am both pleased (because my body is doing the right thing) and a little ticked off (because we have to cancel this cycle, since I have no desire to become an octomom).

The response that actually happened, as discovered during yesterday's follicle scan: no follicles worth mentioning. Cycle canceled because, you know, you need eggs to get pregnant.

Next cycle, we're moving to 200 mg of clomid, which is a frighteningly high dose. If I don't manage to produce any mature follicles at that dose, we'll need to move on to injectibles. Damn it.

Somehow, I had prepared myself for too many follicles, and I had prepared myself for not actually getting pregnant, but I hadn't prepared myself for not responding to the meds. Really didn't see this coming.