Update....we did it....but we had a miscarriage.

Things have been happening so fast since I last wrote and there have been so many different emotions...I don't even know where to start. I think that the last time that I wrote, we had just received the results of Paul's mail-order semen analysis. The count and motility were very poor. We were not totally surprised by this, as Paul had two vasectomy reversals and he had never gotten a good count since the surgeries (but hey... there were sperm there and I figured the numbers would continue to increase...which they didn't). Anyway, we had our first RE's appointment and it was so awful I felt like throwing in the towel for good. He basically spent the full hour telling us how many things could go wrong (primarily due to my age) if we ever did get pregnant and then told us in no uncertain terms that IUI's would not work for us due to Paul's low sperm count and that more than likely IVF would not work. He told us that our only option was IVF with ICSI (single sperm injected into the egg) and tehn proceeded to tell us that because this procedure has only been around for abut 8 years there was no proof that the children born of this procedure wouldn't have problems down the road. Needless to say, I wanted to give up when we walked out of the office and cried to two days. Fortunately, Paul had us transferred to a different RE within the practice and we met with him and he gave us much more hope and we were excited again! People in positions of authority can certainly influence your feelings and decisions. It's awful. I am not a weak woman...but that horrible man certainly managed to change my outlook on ttc within an hour! Anyway, AF came on May 17th and I ovulated late (cd 1 DH had another SA done after O and I had my progesterone (and other blood tests) done at 8 dpo. The nurse called and said that my progesterone at 8dpo was only 8.0 and that this indicated a "poor" ovulation. She said that I clearly did ovulate, but it wasn't as good an ovulation as they would have liked to have seen, so they wanted me to start Clomid on cd3 of my next cycle. I asked her if I should start taking progesterone supplements, just in case I was pregnant (fat chance huh?) and she said not worry about it that we would jut try the Clomid next cycle and see if that would help. Despite the fact that I had absolutely no signs of pregnancy and had virtually NO chance of conceiving based on Paul's SA, I went ahead and took a pregnancy test on Friday, May 16th at about 2:00 am when I got home from work. (I was burning the midnight oil!) Negative. So I threw it in the trash and went to sleep. We got up at 6:00 am the next morning (had to work all day at a dog festival) and I don't know why, but I pulled out that Confirm test that I had thrown in the trash...and there it was a second line!!!!! I can't tell you how I felt. I had never seen a second line before...and I knew in my heart that there was no reason that I should be seeing one that day. We had less than 5 million sperm per cc to work with and low motility on top of that, it just wasn't possible. So I took another test, and then another and another. That weekend, I took 8 HPTs and all were faintly positive. I called the RE's emergency line and the doctor on call ordered my progesterone supplements due to my low progesterone at 8 dpo (even though he said that they were not necessary). I started them on Saturday evening...and I was the happiest person on earth. Paul was pretty thrilled too! I can't tell you what a wonderful weekend we had. I had my Beta on Monday and everything looked good...at 14 dpo, my hCG level was 125.4. We also received the results of Paul's second SA. This one showed 5 million sperm per cc with 38% motility. His count had gotten a little worse, but his motility had improved (but still below normal). However, the new development was the results of his sperm antibody test....it showed that Paul has antibodies to his own sperm...meaning that his body recognizes his perm as foreign...and destroys 52% of whatever he produces. Seeing this made us (as well as our nurse) realize how very special this pregnancy was....our very own little miracle!!!! I had a second Beta on Wednesday...and that is when we knew things weren't going as planed, as my hCG was only 137 (it should have doubled by then). At that point we figured that I was going to miscarry....so the grieving began. I was just hoping that it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy, but poor Paul would not give up on this baby. He became so upset if I even tried to prepare myself and him by recognizing that I was probably going to miscarry this baby. I had a couple more hCG