IVF #2: 10dp2dt or 12 DPO

I am not feeling confident about this anymore. Then again, I wasn't feeling confident about it from the moment when I woke up from my ER to hear I only got three eggs. I've been actively ignoring the gloom that has settled in the back of my mind, the gloom of knowing that this isn't going to work, and not only am I going to have to go through this all over again...but I'm going to have to wait between cycles and put everything on hold to let the metformin kick in. I don't do well with waiting. Haven't I waited long enough?

Yesterday, I caved and took some home pregnancy tests. I am proud of myself for waiting it out until 11 DPO, which was a first. Usually, I start testing at 7 DPO and do it obsessively until my cycle ends. In either case, I tested, and I had faint lines -- but I also probably have the booster shot in my system, so there's no telling for sure. Last time, when I tested out the booster shot, it took around day 6 or 7 after the shot for the line to barely be there or to be gone all together. Yesterday was only day 5 past the shot, so I didn't get my hopes up. Instead, I said I'd test in the morning and see if the line is any darker.

So, I originally woke up at 3am for a potty call, but since the last time I tested was at 9pm the night before, I didn't feel like that was enough time to take a new test, and that I'd use SMU instead. I went back to sleep and woke back up at 6am to test. And what did I get? This:

For those of you playing at home...that's nothing. There's nothing there. Maybe the faintest, faintest of lines? But, really, I am not believing it. If I have to stand on my head to see anything on the test, it's a BFN for all I am concerned. Today would have been my original beta day if I didn't take the booster shot. Today would have been the day that they confirmed a pregnancy. So, I would expect, that if the doctors are confident that a pregnancy would have been detected by now, that there should be a line on my test by now too.

I've been scouring the internet for stories of people who have had a negative HPT at this stage of IVF, but a positive beta test, and there are a lot of them...but knowing myself, I wouldn't be one of those stories. I seem to get shafted at every turn of this process, so I'd only assume that I'd get shafted at this point too.

So, what else has been going through my head? I keep thinking about my egg quality, and how it apparently sucks. I keep thinking about how I might have to give up my dream of having my own baby and moving to donor eggs or embryos. I can't wrap my head around that idea right now...the very thought is devastating to me. How am I 27 and I can't even manage to get pregnant with my own child?

 I keep thinking about starting the adoption process, but then I realize how emotionally stressful that is, and how utterly time consuming the process can be, and how I just don't have it in me right now to play the waiting game anymore. I'm so exhausted. I'm exhausted, and the longer this goes on, the more alone in it I feel. Like I am sinking in quicksand, and no matter how loudly I yell for help, no one is coming to pull me free.

This process sucks. It really, really does. I'm really hoping that things turn around and this plays out a whole different way...but I've never been a very optimistic person...and it's getting harder and harder to be optimistic when Fate seems determined to continue laughing at me and putting me through this crap.