BFN :(

     The fact that I haven't posted in a while, coupled with my last post about spotting, probably clued you all in to my negative results.  It was no surprise to me; by the time we had the test, I had already been bleeding for 4 days.  Micah was very disappointed - he is ever the faithful optimist and he was holding out hope that somehow God was performing a miracle in the midst of the bleeding.  I love his faith - but it means we process things differently.  By wednesday, I had already realized that this cycle failed, cried, mourned, thrown things, etc.  When the news hit him, he had to deal with it while I had already moved on.

   We do have 2 embryos left, but I needed some answers before we just blindly allowed history to repeat itself.  This is the 3rd loss we've had and the 2nd time I'd started bleeding before beta.  So we scheduled a consult to talk to the doctor, which we did today.  I do like the RE that we met with, but I'm not sure I left with any answers.  He talked about research and how the word 'implantation' is a misnomer.  (Really, the lining grows up around the embryo, it doesn't burrow itself into the lining.)  The general gist of the conversation is that I'm normal.  The reason that I'm bleeding early is just because the embryo has failed to implant.  It's about the embryo, not me.  It has nothing to do with my hormones or my uterus or anything like that.  He thinks the the reason we've not been successful all boils down to the viability of the embryos.
     The RE made an interesting point in terms of embryo donation (or adoption.)  We talk about how we are giving 'leftover' embryos a chance at life.  Point being - they are leftovers.  While embryo grading is just guess about quality based on it's appearance, they use the embryos with the highest grade first.  So, chances are, when we receive a donation of embryos, we're not getting the best.  I guess I knew that - but I hadn't really looked at it that way.  (He also talked about the percent of embryos that are actually viable and mentioned that even in natural conception, embryos are likely fertilized month after month, but most don't end up as children.)  The bottom line is that persistence is key; it just might take several tries to find the embryo that will become our next child.

   The one other things that he said we *could* try is to do an endometrial scratch (or endometrial biopsy.)  Basically, there are some studies in women with recurrent implantation failure that show that "injuring" the lining in the cycle prior increases the chance of implantation.  The RE didn't think that I fall into the "recurrent implantation failure" category since I've carried a child to term and my miscarriage last spring indicated that implantation is very possible.  His words were "we can try that if it would make you feel better for the next cycle."
    So, now I don't know what to think.  First of all, the procedure does NOT sound like fun; most women call it painful.  Secondly, he doesn't sound like it would be that helpful   - we would be doing it just to try something different.  On the other hand, if there is a chance it could help implantation, then shouldn't I try it?  Or would I just be wasting my time, since success is mostly determined by the embryo quality?

  So - there's my update.  I don't know what our next step is.  Do we just jump right in with another cycle?  Do we try this scratch thing first?  Since these that we have left are likely even lower in quality, do we donate the embryos back and look through FIRMs profiles again?  (It would be much cheaper to use the ones we have, since they are already ours.)  I don't know.  I would love any advice or thoughts that any of you have.