in the opposite direction

I've spent the last two weeks working on new compounds, one is a variation on a ligand we've been using here, and the other is a new metal complex. After a considerable amount of effort I have made (I think) both of them, but they are so unstable they fall apart into starting material. That is to say, there is more than one way to make these things. Say I can get complex P (the desired product) either starting with A + B or C + D. What I have essentially done is found a way to fleetingly make P from A + B but ultimately what I have done is to make C and D from A + B in a really fantastically expensive and time consuming way. Not that this is uncommon, but to have it occur to two different projects at the same time is extraordinarily frustrating.