I think he missed the point...

Was telling TH about aforementioned awesome website and mentioned with a sad face that my boobies aren't sore.

Being the man he is, always wanting to give me everything I want, he offered to smack them around a little bit.

I'm so lucky.

Best. Site. Ever.

Yes, yes, I know 9:30 is early for the second post of the day, but this is awesome.

www.countdowntopregnancy.com

It gives all the "symptoms" people reported feeling along with what DPO they reported feeling them on.

The top 10 pg symptoms:

1. overall fatigue/exhaustion (hmmm...now that you mention it, I AM a little tired. It could be that TH and I stayed up late battling it out over the new awesome Scrabble board I got for Christmas...or...)
   
2. tender breasts (nope, nada this time. Strike 1. Boo.)
   
3. mild/dull cramps/pressure in abdomen (I WAS feeling crampy yesterday! And I was like, WTF, it's too early for AF cramps. Hmmm...)
   
4. gassy (OMG, soooo gassy last night! I LOVE that I can blame my farting on being possibly pg. Too bad my sister doesn't have the same excuse...)
   
5. nauseated (no, but if I had eaten that baked potato yesterday, I might have been, and then I could have blamed it on the baby.)
   
6. bloated (Yes! It came with the gas last night! And maybe I like to think I'm just getting more and more permanently bloated all the time. Yes, that's why my clothes don't fit anymore. I'm just perma-bloated.)
   
7. leg/backache (not lately, but there was that time last week after doing the weight class. Can I have symptoms before ovulation?)
   
8. sensitive nipples (No. Strike 2. Booo!)
   
9. headache (Ha! I actually mentioned the headaches in my last post, before I even looked at this list. Yes!)
   
10. breasts feel heavy/full (My breasts are too small to ever feel heavy or full. Strike 3? Stupid List. Who cares? I had more hits than strikes! For sure KTFU!)

And just to make doubly sure, let's check the magic 8 ball:

Devil and Angel

So, here's pretty much the conversation in my head regarding any likelihood of being pg this month:

1: Don't get your hopes up! You didn't even feel any O pain this month, and you ALWAYS feel O pain.

2: But the doctor SAW that awesome egg just waiting to get out there. Surely I O'd right on time like all the other months. And I had that really strong + OPK.

1: You didn't have any EWCM this month. Not even one day's worth. Not a snowball's chance in hell.

2: But watery is good enough, right? Lots of women never get any EWCM, and they still get KU.

1: You're not having any phantom symptoms. No funny twinges, no weird tastes in your mouth, no sore boobs. You can't even trick yourself into thinking you're pg this month.

2: Maybe I just have learned to ignore them? Maybe my lack of symptoms is significant? Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention. There were those three days I had a headache. I don't ever get headaches.

1: Oh, you mean the headaches that started the day you went to your in-laws? Sure, there's no other POSSIBLE explanation for that!

2: But...

1: What? You're not. Start getting used to it now so that you're entire weekend isn't ruined.

So now the question is, which voice is the devil, and which is the angel?

A Better Way to Look at It

Oi, sorry for the super bummer post below. I had a cloud over me the last few days, and the best way I know of to get rid of it is to write about it. It's as if I take the filth from my mind and put it down "on paper" (on the interwebz) and it makes me feel so much better.

An email from a very good friend helped me think of things a different, better way. Yes, I'm the last one left in this stupid waiting room. Like it or not, once your name is called, you have no choice but to go through those doors and leave those of us behind who are still waiting. C'est la vie. But rather than thinking about the emptiness in the room with me, the emptiness where once thirteen other bodies filled the space, I found a much better way to approach this situation:

There are thirteen (at least!) women on the other side of that door who are waiting for me. Thirteen women who keep their eyes trained on the door, thirteen women who will all cheer and scream and clap and welcome me when it's my turn. Thirteen women who may have moved on but who are still thinking of me and looking forward to the day I get to join their ranks.

And that is a very comforting, wonderful feeling.

If you're one of those women, thank you for your friendship and your hope and your prayers and your patience. I hope I'm not too far behind!

Keeping Distracted

There's a giant gender-neutral-colored elephant in the room. I'm at 6 DPO today. And I'm the last one left.

Of all the girls in my world, the ones who are just good friends of mine, the ones who started out their TTC journeys around the time I did, the ones who started later, the ones who didn't intend to start at all...the last two got their BFPs last week. I'm not saying there are no other girls who are still out there, still trying, girls who have been trying for much longer than me. I'm saying in my immediate universe, I'm the last one. And not the last one out of like three or four. TH and I counted last night (ok, I counted for him)--13. Thirteen girls who were in my immediate circle of friends, regardless of how we met or whether we're family. And that's not even the count of tangential acquaintances who have gotten their BFPs in the last six months. I stopped counting that number at 24.

What's weighing so heavily on me about that is not that I begrudge any of them their BFPs, their golden tickets to move forward out of this purgatory, this waiting room. It's just that I'm left. Our weekly check-ins (bless you, Monkey, I know you're still there with me) will now be empty. Or at least partially filled with girls I have no connection to, no emotional investment in. And who am I going to drink with at FJHHs? That's right: TH. He volunteered to come drink with me. I guess fertility juice would do us both some good. How sad is that? My husband is stepping so that I don't have to drink alone.

I went out shopping with my mom the day after Christmas. We had to return a shirt my dad got that was the wrong size. We tried to find the counter that had the shortest line, a counter in an out-of-the-way nook of the store. We ended up at the baby section. For the first time in six months, I wasn't drawn to looking at those tiny, adorable little clothes. For the first time, it hurt me to look at them. It felt like my heart was a similarly charged magnet and it was being repelled from them. It actually felt like my heart was being pushed back, away from them. Or maybe not pushed. Maybe it was backing away from them on its own. Maybe it just didn't want to be surrounded by the reminder, a thousand tiny, adorable reminders, that I am left.

So yeah, there's this elephant in the room that follows me around everywhere I go. When I'm not thinking about it, when I find a way to be blessedly distracted, I'll suddenly remember that there's something going on, there's something big that is floating at the corner of my consciousness, some shadow I can see out of the corner of my eye, and I wonder what it was that I have going on, and then I remember, and the elephant returns to sit on me, and I remember why I feel so heavy. This happens a thousand times a day.

I know I shouldn't be so gloomy. I know I should be optimistic and upbeat and hopeful. But I'm just finding it pointless this time. Why get excited and hopeful when I can just wait and see what happens? Why risk the fall, the feeling of foolishness, the insanity of doing the same things we've been doing for six months and expecting a different outcome? TH told me last night he didn't want me lifting something heavy because I'm pregnant. Again, again, he's confident. Sure. Certain. I asked him how he does it, and why he wants me to NOT get my hopes up. He laughed and said it's because he's so used to being wrong, it doesn't crush him the way it crushes me. Silly man. Always protecting me.

So I've thrown myself into projects. Our cats ruined the carpet in the third bedroom, so we had it stripped out. I had the brilliant idea of painting it before we put the new carpet in. So we are. We are painting our nursery. Our future nursery. Maybe not the best project to keep me distracted from babies, but strangely enough it has helped. Given me something concrete to focus on. And we're having to do it in stages--first the top half, wait for that to dry. Then the bottom half, wait for that to dry. Then the stars on top of the bottom half, wait for that to dry. Then the chair rail. Then the new carpet. This should take me a while. Which is good.

We also bought new bookshelves for our office. Finally. We had been using the Walmart bookshelves I had gotten for my first apartment in college ten years ago. So we are going to put those together today.

And we have a lot of laundry to do. A lot of putting away presents. Planning of New Year's Eve festivities. Packing up of Christmas decorations.

So that's how I'm keeping distracted. From my temps (funny temp story: I wake up early to temp and then go back to sleep. After temping this morning, after a drop, I kept dreaming, hoping, it was tomorrow morning already so that I could temp again and see if it came back up, see if the pattern looked better than it looked today). From what DPO it is. From my lack of hope. From my knowledge that everyone else has moved on. From all these things that dance at the edge of my thoughts and threaten to drown me.

And when TH looks over and I'm staring into space, he knows the tide has come in and I'm staring at the world from the bottom of the sea.

Merry Christmas

Ignoring the fact that this entire holiday surrounds an un-wed mother who got KU without even having sex yet...

Merry Christmas!!

Hope your holiday is merry and bright.

With love,
K.

Eyes Up Here, Dude

So Thursday night we had TH's company Christmas party at a restaurant downtown. I hadn't eaten anything since noon, and we got down there just after 8. The first thing we were told was that the open bar only lasted until dinner was served, so we hightailed it to the bar for our free booze!

So was we were standing around making small talk, one of TH's coworkers we hung out with a fair amount at the last company gathering in Cancun but who has since quit the company to go back to school saw us across the "circle." Technically, because we were standing on the same side of the circle as him, he only saw our faces.

Now picture this: he actually stepped backwards, out of the circle, and quickly but obviously checked out my stomach.

W.T.F.

I could only think of two possibilities: (1) TH had told him about the baby-making plans and he was looking for a bump, or (2) he saw how round my face has gotten compared to the last time we hung out (which, for the record, was between an Olympic-distance and a half-ironman triathlon, so I was in...different...shape) and was looking to see how fat I've gotten.

Neither of those are good scenarios for my mental health. 10 minutes later, the entire shaker of Mexican martini (with the good tequila too, not the cheap stuff--hey it was free!) was gone and I was headed back to the bar for my second shaker full.

Let's recap. Haven't eaten in more than 8 hours. Not a big drinker anymore. Chugged a shaker full of top-shelf tequila in 10 minutes and got about half-way through a second.

Needless to say, I ended up shnockered. As for how the rest of the evening went, let's just say if we end up pregnant this cycle, we won't be telling junior where he or she was conceived.

Happy Holidays!

THAT is what I'm talking about!!

Doc appointment today = totally kick-ass awesome.

I didn't actually meet with the doctor--there's a 4-month waiting list for that for new patients. Instead, I met with his NP for a "fertility consult." The only bad part of the visit was the nurse who brought me back to the room and took my vitals kept saying things like "You're here to talk about infertility issues?" and I was like, "No, I'm here to talk about fertility issues." I said it in my head though. But then after a few jokes she said, "You're going to be my favorite infertility patient," and I did say (aloud), "haha, you're favorite fertility patient." She either didn't get it or chose to ignore it.

Anyway, then the NP came in and we talked about our history and TH's SA results. She said they were good, just a little under what they "like" to see. I then hit her with my list of questions and she answered each and every one like it was the most logical question in the world, even my "Ok, sex in the 2ww--ok to have an orgasm?" Seriously. I asked it. And she didn't even bat an eye. (BTW, for those of you secretly wondering the answer to that, yes, orgasms = ok in 2ww. You're welcome.) She made me feel like talking to me was the only thing she had to do that morning. It was amazing.

Then we started talking about next steps. She said it was totally up to us how proactive we wanted to be. Some people just decided that they NEED to be pregnant NOW, for whatever reason--their own mental sanity to a parent that is terminally ill and wants to meet their grandchild. The next test for me would be an HSG to make sure that my tubes aren't blocked by anything. We could have that whenever I wanted. Then she said the second best thing ever (the first best thing is coming a little after this): IUIs are easy to do, very common, and if we wanted to do one as early as this coming Monday (that's right--4 days from now), I could just call up the morning I got a + OPK and schedule it and we could do it. She said if we're going to get TH another SA (which she suggested doing based on his results and the lab he had it done, which apparently is like the Walmart of SA labs), then rather than throw it away we might as well just use it for an IUI. To be clear, I don't want an IUI 4 days from now. I'm not all itching to jump into medical intervention. But just the fact that she said we COULD if we WANTED to made all the difference in the world. These were doctors who are on my side, who will work with me and TH at our own pace without judging or dictating.

Then she said the BEST thing ever: "Let's do a vaginal ultrasound, just to make sure everything looks normal." What!?!? At a consultation!?!? YES!!!! 5 minutes later I had a condom-covered wand up my vj and was looking at my uterus on screen. She took some measurements. Normal. She showed me my ovaries, which were busy making eggs to release in 4 days. I actually saw the egg that is about to be released. It was measuring 14mm. The other side had one that was only 8mm, which she said probably had lost the duke-it-out battle to see which one would release. It was absolutely the coolest thing I've seen all year.

Other info for those it might interest:

--caffeine for TH is A-OK (and for me, too for that matter) (TH was super happy to hear this as I'd made him lay off the Dr Pepper for the last two weeks)
--NO (zip, zero, zilch) exercise from 7 DPO - 10DPO (not even biking/walking/swimming)
--they DO recommend you lay still after sex and put a pillow under your hips
--they do NOT recommend sex every other day. That is more for women who don't know when they ovulate. For me, who is very regular, she said sex whenever up to 4 days before O, then when I get a +OPK, sex for three days straight (TH was super happy about this one as well)

In the end, I left feeling elated, like a weight had been lifted from me. I felt hopeful again. I felt like we can do this at our own pace, that no doctor is going to rule my life perched on their high seat of "I don't really care about you or your fertility journey."

We aren't doing anything for now. Giving it another 2 months. My annual is due in February. She told me to try to schedule it for when I would be about on CD17 (one day before I typically O). If nothing by then, we'll see.

I am excited again.

What's My Problem?

I was filling out the new patient paperwork for my doc appt. on Thursday, and one of the first questions was, "If you have a problem, please describe it. What is it? How long have you had it?" I totally faltered. I didn't know how to answer that question. Or maybe rather, I didn't know how to answer that question in the one inch of space they gave me.

What I wanted to say is that I'm not pregnant. That is my problem. At the beginning of May, I took my last BCP. TH and I were fairly careful the next three months, per doctor's orders, with him begrudgingly using a condom (in reality, he fought me tooth and nail the entire three months about it...one of his finer moments). July hits and we're both excited to make a baby (and TH is double excited to be rid of the condom). I knew it didn't happen immediately for everyone. It didn't for us. I was disappointed. The next month we had sex every day for like 10 days. Another no. I started charting. I had a clear thermal shift. I am ovulating. TH got a SA (for past medical history reasons)--not outstanding numbers, but not low enough to "worry about." We figured we both worked fine. Another no. I used OPKs--two strong smiley faces coupled with beautiful thermal shift. Another no. Best thermal shift yet, and finally some EWCM. Another no.

My problem is that I called my doctor's nurse and she said I should start charting to make sure that I'm ovulating. I told her I was charting. I am ovulating. We have had perfect timing. I told her I wanted to come in to make sure that everything really was in working order. Why assume it is? Why suffer through months of heartbreak only to find out a year later something was wrong, something that could be addressed? She told me the doctor wouldn't see me. That if I wasn't pregnant by February (my annual), the doc would start infertility treatment. What? Why would you jump to that if we haven't even made sure everything is ok? Why wouldn't you talk to me about testing first? I found a new doctor.

My problem is that TH's urologist wants to put him on Clomid. Huh? I thought Clomid was for women? My problem is that I don't have a doctor I can talk to about this.

My problem is that it's been six months. Not six months of random sex with TH whenever we get the mood. Not six months of just pulling the goalie and seeing what happens. Six months of actively, aggressively TTC. Actually TRYING to conceive. Not just lucking into it. And everything I've read about it, including in TCOYF, the be-all-end-all of getting pregnant, has said if you are charting and ovulating and have perfect timing, etc., and you aren't pregnant in 4-6 months, go see a doctor.

My problem is that I need to know that my body is ready to get and be pregnant. That my body is doing everything it should to get and be pregnant. That TH's counts are high enough to get me pregnant. If that's the case, we'll go on our merry way (thank god baby-making is freaking awesomely fun, right?) and keep at it (literally). But I want to make sure. I want to know there's a hope of success on our own. If not, why the hell are we wasting our time?

Oh, and my problem is also that y'all are hella busy. I want this guy to be my doctor. I've heard he's the best there is, and right now, I need a doctor who I feel is in my corner, a doctor who will not brush me off, a doctor who will talk to me and support me and be an advocate for my journey. And he has a 4-month wait to get in to see him. So I took the first appointment with the NP that I could get so that I could make sure I could get in for my annual in Feb. My problem is that in order for y'all to be a part of this process, I have to get the ball rolling now.

My problem is that I don't know if there is a problem at all. That's what I want YOU to tell me.

Obviously I couldn't say all that. So I left it at:

"Trying to conceive 6 months. Actively charting, using OPKs, etc. Husband has borderline SA results."

On paper, it didn't look like all that much of a problem at all.

Remembering the Forest

Part of the reason I'm having such a hard time with not being successful at TTC yet is because I'm such a goal-oriented person. As explored in previous posts, any time I've identified a goal, I put 100% of my effort into achieving it, and I did. So having this new goal that I am trying 100% to achieve, and having it not happen is, well, driving me crazy.

But another aspect of being so goal oriented is that I tend to be very focused. I keep my "eyes on the prize" (I really do hate using such hackneyed expressions, but it's early, and it works, so let's roll with it) and don't waste attention on peripheral details. That means when I was studying for entrance exams I stopped watching TV; when I was teaching I worked every weekend to prepare something awesome for the upcoming week; and when I was training, I lost track of laundry, bills, traveling to see family, spending time with TH, etc. And now that the goal is getting KU, that's all I'm focusing on. My attention has become laser focused on one singular point: the success or failure of conceiving.

I have stopped thinking about the world of change that that singular point brings with it.

Once we get a positive test, our entire existence will never be the same. We slept 'til 10 a.m. yesterday just because we didn't have anything pressing to get up and do. No more of that. We were sitting around Friday night and decided last-second to go catch a movie. No more of that. We have a quiet house. A tidy house. A laid-back, calm house. We can spend money on whatever we want. We can travel wherever we want for as long as our jobs allow. When we leave the house, I only have to check to make sure I have my wallet and cell phone. We lead simple lives. Lives that will never be the same after that BFP.

We want to have our kids close in age, so once this baby train finally leaves the station, it ain't stopping again for a while. It's like we're poised at the top of a hill, and all I am thinking about is starting down the other side, not remembering that once we do, this point, this peak, this view, will never be reached again.

It's not that I think that our lives are the best that they'll ever be right now, pre-kid. Because I don't. I think that our lives will be more richly blessed when we have kids than I could ever even imagine right now.

I just know that I spend a lot of time focusing on the single goal: get pregnant. And I tend to forget that it comes, much like the Verizon network, with a whole lot more. What we are trying to do is not just get pregnant. We are trying to change our lives forever. It's a big deal. It's not as simple as just TTC. And it helps me to remember that, to remember to enjoy the view right now, because once we start down that other side, there's no coming back.

Two-Post Thursday

Because it's too cute not to share.

After TH forgetting about last Friday being "the" day, we got in a big fight and came to the resolution that I need for him to be more involved on his own, not just responsively involved by doing what I tell him. So I emailed him my chart for him to bookmark and gave him another little run-down of what the chart is/does/means.

I got this email from him this morning:

Wow, your temperature dropped a lot last night! Were you cold, or did I just not snuggle enough? Thanks for letting me be involved with this stuff. Love you,
TH

So. Freaking. Cute. Not just that he remembered (yay!), but that he said "letting me be involved" instead of something more along the lines of "getting me involved" or "making me be involved" or "shoving this crap down my throat."

I love that man.

A New Day, a Stoplight, and a Loss of Context

Things always look better in the morning. The sun is shining. It's starting to warm up a bit. It's, well, not yesterday.

I've discovered something. I do much better when I forget all context pertaining to our TTC journey. If I think to myself, "We are trying to get pregnant this month," I can feel that excitement that I felt in the beginning, that hope. Even now, at the beginning of my cycle, when usually I'm all gloom and doom. It's when I think "We've been trying to get pregnant for six months" that things go down hill for me. So, if I forget the context, refuse to think about the back story, it's much better! I also can't really think about the future, either. I don't daydream much about babies anymore. I don't even think much about my doctor's visit next week. When I think about the future, I feel this kind of generalized anxiety about what it will--or worse, what it won't--bring. So the key is, thinking about life in one-day increments. Focusing on today. That doesn't work out so well when you have a bad day, as seen yesterday. But the nice thing is, when you wake up in the morning, it's a new day. It's a chance to reset and face things fresh. Like Drew Barrymore's character in 50 First Dates. No context, no history, no baggage.

As I drove to work this morning, I pulled up in line at the light getting out of my neighborhood, and almost immediately the cars in front of me started going. What luck! I usually get stuck at that light, and it's a long one. Then I realized that that traffic light, and the power it wields over your morning commute, is a great metaphor (and 'cause I'm an English major, I'm all about finding the great metaphors in life). Some women hit the TTC green light without even having to slow down. They head down the road and just keep going with nary a pause. Some women have to wait for a little bit to get the green light. Some women hit the light just as it's turning red and have to wait a long time. But, and here's what I liked, do I get MAD at the traffic light when I get there and it's red and I have to wait? I don't. What would be the point in that? It's not a sentient being. It doesn't make value judgements about who waits at the red light and who goes straight through. It just is. You might as well enjoy the music while you're waiting.

My metaphor breaks down a bit when, say, you think about getting stuck at the red light when you're in a hurry. Then you do get mad. And you probably yell at the light. It also breaks down a bit if you believe that the light IS sentient, that it does make value judgements, that it does consciously decide when you get to go. And it breaks down if you focus on the fact that some cars will never make it through the light without outside help, without a tow-truck or something.

But for me, right now, this morning, the stoplight helped me remember that sometimes people get to go and sometimes people get stopped and that's just the way life is. C'est la vie.

I hate waiting

It seems like all I do anymore is wait. I wait to O, I wait to test, I wait to start my period. I wait. I wait for our new lives to start. I wait to stop feeling . . . sad. And envious.

And now I'm waiting again. Another trip to the dermatologist. Another check-up. Another two spots removed. Another wait. To find out if I'm still clear. Or if it's popped up again. I wait to find out if I can continue to work on waiting on the other stuff.

As usual, my doctor said it didn't look like it was anything to worry about. "Definitely doesn't jump out at me as cancerous." But this time he admitted that the spots didn't look normal. Great. TH told me my body is just exceptionally good at making abnormal cells. Great. That's exactly the skill I want to have. Can I showcase that at our company's talent show? He joked that of the 10 spots I've now had removed, only one has been cancer, so the odds are pretty good that these new ones aren't. I have to admit he has something there--if you have a 20% chance of getting pregnant, and that hasn't happened yet, surely something with a 10% chance would fall in my favor as well, right?

I made the mistake of reading the pregnant check-in on the board today. I only make that mistake once every two months or so. That's how long it takes me to forget how it makes me feel, to read all the happy posts from women who got exactly what they wanted. It probably wasn't the best day for me to make that mistake, considering my morning at the dermatologist, my fear that these spots will come back with results that I'll have to go back to the office "to discuss." But what's done is done and I read it and I spent the afternoon with a boulder on my chest.

Why does it have to be this hard? Why do some women get to skip through life, blithely think, "oh, let's have babies now, that will be fun!" and then get pregnant, like they are checking off a to-do list, pick up milk--check! get a haircut--check! buy birthday present for mom--check! get pregnant--check! It's not just one or two women in my life. I can list four, five, seven, ten off the top of my head. And I know everyone has their own struggles and that no one's life is as easy as it may appear from the outside. But I also know how hard my life is. I know the kinds of things I've had to deal with the past year, the kinds of things my husband has had to deal with, and some days, on the days I have to worry again about fighting cancer, on the days TH breaks down because his mom is not his mom anymore, on the days I read about everyone else who got exactly what they want . . . I just . . . I just . . . hate . . . the wait.

Two days from now, when I hear back from my dermatologist and find out everything's fine, I'll look back on how I'm feeling and laugh at myself. For not being more patient. For not trusting that everything would turn out ok.

And one day, when I'm pregnant, I'll look back on this whole process and laugh at myself. For not being more patient. For not trusting that everything would turn out ok.

But the reality is, in that moment, I will no longer understand this person. I will no longer understand the fear and the angst and the impatience. Knowing how things turn out changes the perspective.

Those who look back with wisdom will never truthfully remember what it felt like to look forward in ignorance.

And I hope I remember in that moment, that this person should not be laughed at for her impatience, for her fear. That is it all real. All justified. All understandable.

I hope I can look back on this person and know that she waited the best she could.

Onward

I didn't even make it to testing this morning. The bottom dropped out of my temp and I knew what that meant. AF was here just after lunch.

This time brought with it a lot of anger.

Much of it was directed at TH this morning--not out loud, but internally. He slept in. He didn't ask me about my temp. Or if I had tested. He still hasn't. He didn't remember that this morning was THE morning. I had girls all across the city praying for me and asking for updates the first thing in the morning, and my own husband didn't remember.

I feel like the longer this goes on, the more he just goes on with his life as usual, the more this whole TTC circus just fades into his background. He's not the one taking vitamins and temping and charting and feeling phantom symptoms and withholding from caffeine and alcohol and changing his life to make this thing happen. He has sex with me when he's supposed to (who are we kidding--that's not even an adjustment for him) and occasionally remembers to take his vitamins (a one month supply has now lasted more than two months) and his life goes on as usual aside from the occasional jealousy when he sees other men who have pregnant wives or other men who have cute kids. I was angry at him for not being equally involved in this as me, for leaving me to feel alone and hurt this morning, for not knowing that I was feeling lonely, that I was hurting.

I know that my anger is not really with him, but that's where this directionless anger is turning.

This has been the first month I've felt like crying. I cried two weeks ago, cried with frustration at my stupid doctor who said that she would neither see nor talk to me before my annual in February. But this is the first time I've felt like crying about the no.

I've been able to channel a little of that anger and frustration--I changed doctors to a man who is literally locally famous in the TTC circles. He's not a specialist, and I have several friends who see him as their regular GYN, and at this point I don't think I need a specialist. I need a doctor who will listen to my concerns and look at my charts and hear why I'm frustrated and have a conversation with me about what's going on. I need a doctor who is involved in the process.

So anyway, I have my first appointment with his NP in two weeks. So I have two weeks to sort through all the angry chatter in my head and heart and develop a list of questions.

As I ate lunch today, there was Christmas music playing. I was first struck with a wave of self-pity--I wanted so desperately to celebrate something special this Christmas. Christmas is a family holiday, and I truly believed we would be on our way to starting our own family by now.

And then, because I loathe feeling sorry for myself, I remembered that I was truly happy last Christmas. And in all honesty, nothing has changed. My life hasn't gotten worse. I have just as much to celebrate this year as I did last year.

So, I'm thinking that I'm glad that it's Christmas time--with all the shopping and parties and traveling and time off work, this month will fly by.

Right?

Eve

I. am. miserable.

I've held out this month, waiting to test until Friday morning, 14 dpo. They say it's good to do this, that you shouldn't test early to save money, to avoid the disappointment of the false negative or the chemical pregnancy.

I have made it thus far, and now, on the eve of testing again, I am miserable.

Half of me (who are we kidding . . . 95% of me) is so hopeful. Surely out timing was good this month. Surely the crazy intense O pain I felt on the left side on Thursday and on the right side on Friday of the day TH left meant that my body is working correctly. Surely the signs I've been feeling this week mean something. Surely the unusual temps indicate an unusual outcome. For the last 24 hours (5 days? week? two weeks? month?) I've envisioned seeing something different on that stupid stick. I can see me smile. I can feel the butterflies that would burst into my stomach. I can hear TH's incredulous response. I can imagine our lives changing, our to-do list suddenly exploding, our plans for telling our families at Christmas suddenly realized.

And then the other half, the strong 5%, laughs cruelly, makes me ask myself, "What the fuck are you thinking? Why would this month be any different than the others? Why would you get your hopes up? Why are you so naive, so stupid?" And I remember that I should be hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, and so I try to prepare myself for the same result I've seen since July, I try to remember what it feels like to see that single line, to remember how far my heart falls, to remember what it feels like to crawl into myself so far I don't even cry, I just hide and hurt, so much so that the only way to survive the pain is to wrap a hardened shell around me, a shell that won't let my pain overwhelm and drown me. It's this other half that tells me I'm a fool for hoping.

So here I am, on the eve of testing, again. And I am miserable. I fear tomorrow morning. I fear the tremble I know will be in my hands when unwrapping the stupid test. I fear the wait, the three minutes I can hear my heart beating in my ears. I fear what comes after the wait.

I'm on the eve of taking a test that I have failed four times already, despite every effort on my part to pass.

I'm on the eve of a twisted wedding ceremony where the bride doesn't know if the groom will show up until she's standing at the altar . . . an altar I've been left alone at four times already.

Why do I keep showing up to the stupid altar? Why do I keep believing this time will be different, that this time the groom will be there to meet me, that this time I'll pass the test?

And then, miserable, I remember that despite the outcome, it's better to hope. It feels better to allow yourself the pleasure of the "what if." It feels better to not wallow, to not accept another defeat before you know for sure one way or the other. It feels better to be happy and hopeful and optimistic. So I allow myself to go down that path again. And then I remember that path has brought me nothing but disappointment. And I talk myself out of it. And become miserable once again.

I will test tomorrow. I owe it to myself to hope. But I dread the testing as well. Because I can't imagine anything but another no.

Screw You, Google

Dear Google,

Screw you. When I google something totally obscure and add "+ pregnancy symptom" to it, I'm trying to justify to myself why I am insane. Why I am making shit up. Why what I'm feeling could not possibly have anything to do with maybe being KU. I am looking for sanity.

I am not looking for you to return pages that actually say that this obscure, insane thing could possibly in some cases be considered an actual pregnancy symptom. You comb through 1 bagillion pages--of course you're going to find SOMETHING that says that. I imagine there's at least one page on the internet that links any symptom you could possibly imagine to pregnancy.

So, Google, screw you. I needed a swift kick in the quite-making-shit-up pants, not a pat on the back and an encouragement to keep falling farther down the phantom-symptoms rabbit hole.

Now I have to find another way to keep sane. For another two whole days. Crap.

Sincerely,
Crazy

Daddy's Got a New Pair of Wheels

Yesterday some people in our neighborhood had two double strollers and two carseats out by their trash can. We took the strollers. They are pretty nice--one's a side-by-side jogger and one's a front-and-back regular one--and we figure we can sell them to someone we know or on Craig's List and make some holiday $$.

TH was getting a big kick out of them. He thought they were very cool, especially because the front wheel of the regular one operated (turned) independently of the others, making it surprisingly maneuverable for something so long. What is it with guys and things with wheels?

They are temporarily in our garage, and I keep forgetting about them, which makes for a funny surprise every time I walk into our garage and see baby strollers. It's an odd feeling--not bad, not good...just...odd. I asked TH if seeing them in there made him feel funny, and he (of course) blithely responded, "No. I know they aren't for us!"

It never ceases to amaze me how he can separate his feelings of hope and yearning and desire for our own situation from the rest of the "real world." He of course has his moments of weakness, when he can't keep his own feelings out of it, like this weekend, when our cousin (the cousin) and her husband came over to visit for a little bit and they once again started yammering on about how surprisingly easy it was to get pregnant...in moments like those, TH and I retreat into snarky comments to each other ("Her stomach is pregnant...what's her ass's excuse?"), which may not be the classiest or most mature way of dealing with our disappointment, but hell if it isn't effective.

But most of the time, he's calm and confident and patient and strong. The first thing he asked when he got back from his business trip was how my temps were. I showed him my chart, which looks markedly different from last month's, and told him I wasn't sure what was going on, if my thermometer needed a new battery, or what. He said, "That's not why. I know why it's doing that." We are about 5 days shy of having been at this for six months, and he still has that calm assuredness, that confidence that he's had every month, that I am, in fact, pregnant. He still is able, month after month, to just know that it worked. For his calmness and his confidence and his resilience and his strength, he is amazing.

As for our update, I'm at 10 DPO today and I didn't test. TH would like me to try to wait until Friday. I know I said I didn't hold a lot of hope for this cycle, but I actually O'd a day early and we ended up with pretty good timing before TH left on his business trip. So, of course, there's the hope that has gradually built and built with each morning's high temp. There's no need to say that the phantom symptoms are driving me crazy. Strange little twinges in my ute, sore boobs, tiredness.

Heck, we even have the strollers, now. The only thing that's missing is the BFP.

The Fourth Buoy

In May, I finished a half-ironman triathlon. Here's part of what I wrote about my experience:

As we went out, around the first buoy, and down the straight away, I was relishing the feel of the water as it flowed over my face and arms. We approached a tall marker, and I thought, "Man! I am doing so good! That's already the turn to go back in!" Unfortunately, I then saw that people were continuing on straight. Laughing at my not-so-modest mindset, I settled in and got into a comfortable rhythm. I noticed some swim caps of the wave after mine starting to pass me, but I knew I wasn't the fastest swimmer, so this didn't really bother me. I expected to be passed. We approached the next tall marker and I thought, "Sweet! Here we are at the turn. That didn't really seem too long, and I still feel fresh and energized! I'm doing great!" And then I saw that people were continuing on straight. Crap. So this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Well, I guess it is a half-ironman, after all, so it shouldn't really be a breeze. I stopped thinking about how fast I was or wasn't going and started concentrating on staying in a straight line, breathing, and swimming with my hips (thanks, Coach Annika!). I thought about all the people and moments who had helped me get to this point, from our swim coach and our 5:30 a.m. winter practices in the outdoor, heated pool at the JCC to my friends, family, and husband who had supported me and encouraged me and who all believed in me. I was overcome with elation. I remember thinking to myself, "I'm doing it. I'm in the middle of doing it--the thing that I've (we've all) been working toward and looking to for the last six months." How freaking awesome.

I've noticed a change in my mindset regarding TTC recently. I'm no longer over eager, like a puppy bouncing with exuberance at the sight of a leash. I'm no longer painfully mourning my lack of success each month. My heart isn't keenly aching at the sight of others with their cute baby bumps, with their designer baby carriers, with their children. The more I thought about it, about this change in mindset, this change in approach, the more I realized I had experienced this before.

In the race, I went out confident, eager, probably a little overzealous, and with unrealistic expectations. And as the race progressed, as I passed each buoy, expecting it to be the one, the buoy that marks the end of my outbound progress, the buoy where I can turn back and head home, as I passed each one and realized it wasn't the one, that I still had farther to go, I settled in a little more. I lost my overzealousness, my unrealistic expectations. I calmed down, turned my focus inward, and kept going.

That's where I am now. I am heading for the fourth buoy. I'm no longer overzealous. I don't look at baby stuff online. I don't plan the nursery. I don't look up estimated due dates. We don't even talk about baby names much anymore. I have realized that this is not a sprint race. For me, at least, it's a distance race. I can't waste time and energy thinking about why or how others got to have a shorter distance. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that this is my course, and I have to find a way to get through it. I don't know how far away the fourth buoy is. I don't know when I'll be able to finally make that last turn and head for home. All I can do is keep breathing, keep stroking, keep calm. Getting worked up only makes you slower, only saps the energy that you'll need later on.

It's time to settle in.

And luckily, I've done that before.

Pity Party

You know in movies, when there's a character who's friends with the protagonist, and the protagonist does something awesome, like make the winning shot in a basketball game at the buzzer against a team of Nazis or something, and the crowd goes crazy, and everyone's jumping up and down and cheering, and the character is jumping up and down and cheering right along with everyone, and then the protagonist is carried off the court on the shoulders of the crowd, carried off somewhere the character can't follow, and the camera shot just shows the character left behind, in the empty gym, with the excitement and adrenaline seeping out of his or her system and the sadness setting in, the sadness that their friend is moving on and they are left still standing there in the gym?

Or the story where there's this group who are all waiting to hear their name called, for an election or acceptance into a program or getting picked for a team or whatever, and one by one their names are called, and everyone is crazy happy for the person whose name was called, but how it gets harder and harder for the ones who are left behind, the ones who aren't hearing their names, the ones who have to face everyone's else's name with excitement and joy and congratulations because they deserve it but it gets harder and harder to embrace everyone else's good fortune when it becomes more and more glaring with each name called that it's not your name, that you weren't chosen?

It's in the quietness after the joy that the sadness seeps in. The fall after the high.

And yes, there will always be another game where you have the shot at being the hero, the one carried off on everyone's shoulders, another election or acceptance or whatever where your name, eventually, will be called. And I, right now, at this moment, am a horrible person for not focusing just on the highs of my friends who did win the game, whose names did get called.

But that's what gives characters depth, right? Seeing that they're human.

Just Relax and Have Fun

The most loathed of all TTC advice.

Yes, the people who say it think that they are being sensitive and helpful and giving you good advice. Hear me now, people of the world: never, ever, ever tell someone who is TTC to "relax and have fun." Why? Well, you know on Scrubs, how he has the visions of doing things to people, violent aggressive things, while on the outside he's innocently having a conversation? If you tell someone who is TTC to "relax and have fun," chances are while they smile back at you they are envisioning kicking your shin. Or punching you in your well-meaning face.

The grain of truth behind the ill-advised advice is that stress can in fact delay ovulation. So on a certain level, it is important not to get too stressed. But the level of stress necessary to delay ovulation is like car-accident stress. Divorce stress. Sudden death of a family member stress. Not I-want-to-be-KU-so-bad stress. (It's true that there's something called hysterical pregnancy, where your periods stop and your belly actually starts to swell, but there's no baby there. But the problem for which this advice is being given is not that women who are TTC are imagining themselves into "being" pregnant. It's that they're not.)

Remember:

The spermies do not turn around and decide to go back home if you are stressed.

Your uterus will not say, "Girlfriend, you must be craaazyyy" and decide that it's just better for all involved if it does not let the egg implant.

The reason the advice is so infuriating, aside from the obvious lapse in logic behind it, is that it implies that the people on the receiving end are somehow preventing themselves from getting KU. This explains why, a few weeks ago, I burst into tears when my sister told me "if you would just relax, it would happen." You know what? I was relaxed. The first month. Relaxed and happy and excited. And the second month? Still relaxed. The third month? Not as relaxed, but still secure that surely it would happen soon. It was only the fourth and fifth months that got to me. So if relaxing had anything to do with it, I would be 20 weeks along and have found out the baby's gender last week.

Now, on the other hand, something that I've been thinking about lately:

It's still good advice.

Before all my other TTC girls close the screen in disgust, let me explain. It's not good advice to give, for all the aforementioned reasons. But it is still good advice.

If you and your husband are biologically in "good working condition" (i.e., you are ovulating, your LP is long enough to sustain implantation, your DH's soldiers are ready for battle, etc.), nothing you do is going to change whether or not it works. Stress can't make it not happen, but it can't make it happen, either. You can't stare at your chart 50 times a day and will your temperatures to stay high. Either it is going to work, or it isn't.

So instead of wasting so much of your life stressed out about the entire process, you might as well just relax. And have fun. Because baby-making is fun. Or, at least it is when you aren't worried about the million things that go along with TTC.

So there it is. My concession to the other side. Yes, you have valid advice. It is best to just relax and have fun.

But don't ever give that advice to anyone. You may get punched.

And yes, even though I can see the validity, it is, like so much in life, easier said than done. I'm not relaxed. Or having fun. But I'm working on it.

Emily Dickinson was Wrong

Hope is not a thing with feathers.

It is a thing with hooks,
millions and microscopic
so that it clings to you
sticks as you walk through the world in a daze of hurt
a burr, a sticker, it buries itself in your heart
it wraps itself under your skin
you cannot be rid of it even if you weren't seeking it
and it clings to you, even in the gales of doubt
of dropping temps, of spotting,
it clings
and when it is finally ripped away
it rips away a million microscopic pieces of you
of your innocence
and you are left bleeding.
and later, when the bleeding stops, and you heal,
you are left with a million microscopic scars
you are left a little tougher
a little harder
a little less naive.

Hope is not a thing with feathers.

It is a ghost
a silent presence that is suddenly there
behind you, beside you
when yesterday it was not
a hand on your shoulder when you are downtrodden
it stands with you as you rise to face another day
and comforts you
and slowly lifts your heart though you are begging it not to
though you are telling it why it shouldn't,
why it can't,
why it's dangerous to get so high
it lifts you silently, faithfully, strong.

Hope is not a thing with feathers.
It is a thing with armor.

It does not perch on your soul.
It burrows into it.

It does not sing.
It whispers
maybe and what if.

Funny Point Reached

I found it! The point at which it gets funny. And I'm not even saying that sarcastically. I mean it. This cracks my shit up.

The "pregnant man" is pregnant again with his second child (story). His children will be 15 months apart.

So this MAN got pregnant again with his second child in less time than I've been able to get pregnant at all. (EDIT: I have now been educated about the difference between transgender and hermaphrodite and understand that this actually isn't a MAN, but someone who was born female and didn't identify with that sex, started taking male hormones, and had surgery to remove his/her breasts. However, the original irony remains that someone who took TESTOSTERONE for 9 years was able to get pregnant four months later using internet-bought sperm and a syringe, and here all this time I've been trying to do things the "old-fashioned way." Maybe THAT'S the problem! Maybe I need to use the advances in technology!)

I mean, if you can't laugh at that, you won't laugh at much anymore.

Thank God I'm laughing. :-)

Post #2: music therapy

It is amazing what a dark office, a single lamp, rain on the window, and 27 rounds of listening to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo Ole will do for a person's soul.

Suddenly it all seems manageable. I can do this.

Staggering

I once heard that you will never be asked to bear more than you can handle. Now, I know I'm a strong woman. I'm stubborn and strong-willed and optimistic and determined and driven. And TH is a strong man. He helped guide his family through their refugee experience. He lied about his age and worked multiple jobs when he was 14 to help pay their bills. He's faced more adversity and discriminatory hate than many will ever know. He's a fighter. A dogged fighter. Together, we make an incredible team. We have faced challenges, scary, daunting, life-altering challenges, together with humor and faith.

And right now, we're staggering.

On the baby front, it gets hard to hear every new BFP from our friends and family. We never begrudge the person their fortune. Many have worked long and hard and been patient beyond imagination for their blessing, and they deserve their BFP without a doubt or hard feeling in mind. But we are running out of friend who AREN'T pregnant. And it gets hard, wanting something for yourself, working for it, believing that you are doing everything right, believing that you deserve it, only to have everyone around you get it, those who worked for it, those who didn't, and those who didn't even want it. It both consumes our thoughts and poisons them. Even when you try not to think about something, when you try to distract yourself, it's there, floating at the edge of your mind, the thing you are running from, the thing you are ignoring. It's there, and we can't escape it. And it's getting heavier every day.

But there's life outside of baby-making. There's our jobs. I've worked overtime and weekends the past two weeks, and there is no end in sight for this crush of work. I only see it getting worse. There are a lot of reasons for this--being short staffed, the economic sl0w down impacting our staffing resources, etc., but that doesn't change the reality that I've been running at sprint pace for longer than sprint distance. TH's job is the same--one of the drawbacks of climbing the management ladder so quickly is that he's now managing others while still having to take care of his previous responsibilities as well. Until next May at least (official promotion time), he's stuck doing two jobs. So our jobs, too, are getting heavier every day.

And then there's our family. TH's mom has been sick for going on a year now. Mentally and physically sick. There was a point at which she was improving, but she has taken a drastic turn for the worse in the last two weeks. I won't get into the family dynamics of TH's family here--suffice it to say he is the man everyone in his family turns to for the answer to every problem. Today it came to a head--things got so bad that his dad took his mom to the hospital, the doctors all said she needed to be admitted immediately, she refused. His dad called TH to fix it. TH was on the phone with his mom for 45 minutes (while at work mind you), begging and pleading with her, crying, telling her to admit herself for him, for her husband, for her children's sake. She refused and the decision was made to get a court order allowing all future medical decisions to be made by TH' dad. TH left work, on his way up to Dallas to help take care of it all, when he got the call that she had finally agreed.

I know that things could always get worse. I know that people have faced far greater challenges than these. I know that we have the strength to weather these storms. But we're no longer defiantly standing up to the brunt of the storm, no longer shouting into the face of our challenges. We are turning our backs to the stinging rain, the lightening, the wind, and hunkering down against its anger, just surviving until the storm passes.

It's not that we can't bear the load that has been given to us. It's just that it's getting so very heavy, and we're getting so very tired.

Adding Insult to Injury

And we found out last night that one of DH's best friends is going to be a dad...with his girlfriend...whom he was thinking about breaking up with.

At some point this gets funny, right?

And I Was Doing So Well, Too

*Disclaimer--I've been drinking. That's one beer, one house margarita, and one top-shelf margarita 'cause the house margarita sucked (got it comped, though woohoo!). And we're going to a house party later tonight, so chances are I'm gonna keep going. So my filter's not exactly in tact right now.

My cousin and her husband were in town visiting us tonight--we had dinner at the Iguana Grill overlooking Lake Travis at sunset--awesome view, great food (it's where we had our rehearsal dinner), good times. Especially 'cause she told us she's pregnant. Woohoo!

Yep, that's right folks. She informed us that she went off birth control in May (hmmm...I went off birth control in May, too). She started taking prenatal vitamins ahead of time so that the folic acid could accumulate in her system, 'cause if you start when you find out you're pregnant, that's not enough time (no shit, sherlock. Good thing I just had my NINTH'S month prescription filled). She then went off caffeine and for the most part alcohol all summer and started charting her cycles so that she would know when she ovulates. And they they tried in August and HOT DAMN, WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAM, she is KTFU on shot number ONE. Which, she told me like an old school marm talking to a 10-year-old fresh off the fucking farm, is because she knew so much about her cycles. Because she was so prepared.

Well fucking shit. You mean all I have to do is KNOW about my cycles?? What the hell have we been wasting time on then?? Oh, and I'm SURE all the 16-year-olds who get knocked up in the back of their boyfriend's trucks know ALL ABOUT their cycles.

To her credit, she doesn't know we've been trying for five months. She doesn't know I do know all about my fucking cycles. I know the exact day I ovulate. I know about not having sex every day. I know how long my luteal phase is. I know WHAT a luteal phase is. I know about prenatal vitamins, and mucinex, and baby carrots, and alcohol, and caffeine, and cervical fluid, and cervix position, and OPKs, and charting your cycles, and god freaking dammit if all it took was being PREPARED and KNOWLEDGEABLE I would have five babies by now.

So you can take your condescending, haughty, I-got-pregnant- immediately-because-I-knew-exactly-what-to-do-and-when-to- do-it bullshit and shove it, right up there with your land you bought for $100k and are going to have paid off in 5 years and your promotion and your huge house that you don't even clean yourself.

What's the bright side of all this? I could pound margaritas and enjoy my fajitas while she sipped on water and picked at her beans and rice. Nice of me? No. But the universe has to fucking even-out somehow.

And I really was doing so well.

Lucky Me

So, there it is. AF. And all that it means. I'm not going to elaborate on all that it means. There's a point at which this all becomes repetitive.

Here's what I do have to say. TH took me out to dinner last night. We went to a dive catfish parlor that has been locally famous for longer than I've been alive. We've been wanting to try it ever since we bought our house out here more than a year ago and just never found the right time.

As I walked into the glow of the neon signs reflecting off red-checkered table cloths, as I listened to him say one of his million funny things, I was suddenly wholly overcome with peace and happiness. I love my life.

One year ago I was recovering from cancer, from a surgery that left us tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Cancer. At 28. That we were lucky--LUCKY--to catch when we did. And I am here today, was there last night, with my best friend, in a dive restaurant, surrounded by his love and his friendship and his dedication to me that is more powerful and overwhelming and total than I ever imagined I would experience.

If there's one thing I learned last year, between the time I heard I had to go back to "discuss my results" and the time I was home recovering from surgery, and even to this moment and every appointment I have where I am declared still clear, it's this: life is a beautiful experience. Be thankful every moment you have it.

I am lucky to live the life I do with the person I do. Even if we never have kids, if nothing ever changes for us, I will have had the most incredible time here. Because even in the face of sorrow, he somehow makes me happy.

I Prefer Not to Think of it as Chicken Shit

I confess: I didn't test this morning.

I jumped up and peed before I could give myself the chance to cave to the temptation of the waiting tests under my sink. I know it seems illogical, given that this is my longest LP yet, and as of tomorrow I'll be officially "late," and isn't it just better to know??

You see, if I don't test, if I don't see a fourth single line staring back at me, mocking my hope, mocking the way I can hear my heartbeat in my ears as I lay in bed waiting for the mandatory three minutes to pass, if I don't see that single line, I won't have to deal with all it entails, with the concreteness of the no. I can live one more day with the hope. And over the last four days, I've learned that the hope of the maybe is better than the reality of the no.

So maybe that's chicken shit of me. Maybe I need to put on my big-girl panties and just take the frickin' test and woman up to the results, one way or another. I prefer to think of it as choosing the path of zen.

TH is going out of town tomorrow, leaving the house at 4:30 a.m. So I have to decide if I'm going to test tonight before he leaves, or if I'm going to test while he's gone, or if I'm going to wait until Friday when he's back. And amazingly, it's actually a hard decision.

CD 32, 14 DPO

No, No, No

No AF and 2 negative tests = 3 no's = not a happy camper.

If I'm not, let's freakin' get this show on the road already. IF I start AF tomorrow, TH will be away on business CD18-25. That means we'll have ONE shot next month the morning he leaves, and that's only if I O on CD18 like I did this month, which I know is such a long shot.

If I am, well body, it's not a nice trick to play on me, especially on a weekend we're having to deal with TH's parents and my sister all having an "off" weekend. I don't know if the tears on the way home were just pent-up stress from the visits or heartbreak over having to try again.

Somewhere, from one side or the other, I need a yes.

Just when I think he has it down...

TH is pretty much all over this TTC stuff. He knows about my cycle, what the temp things mean, etc. But sometimes he just catches me off guard with his innocence (or naivety).



Example 1: After my pre-conception doctor's visit.

Me: yeah, I was expecting her to tell me a lot more, but she basically just said to take prenatal vitamins and come back when I miss my period.

TH: (blank stare).........why would you miss your period?



Example 2: This morning, telling him about giant temp fall and rise from yesterday/today

Me: Well, there is such a thing as an "implantation dip."

TH: (blank stare)

Me: You know, implantation

TH: (blank stare)

Me: (circling hands around uterus) you know, the fertilized egg....

TH: (blank stare)

Me: ....IMPLANTING...in my UTERUS

TH: .....why would it do that?



Example 3: Breakfast this morning

TH: I'll just be happy when you're pregnant and you can just relax and stop worrying about anything.




I let him hold onto his innocence on that last one. No need to burst THAT bubble just yet.

Let Me Count the Ways...

...that my thermometer tortures me.

1. I have dreams about temping. Sometimes it's that my thermometer is broken, explaining why I got such a shitty temp the day before. Sometimes it's that my thermometer just keeps reading and reading and never reaches a decision (and causes my tooth to fall out...but that may be just dream randomness). Sometimes it's just that I dream that it's morning and I wake up to temp and get ready, and I dream that three or four times before it's actually morning and time to wake up to temp for real and get ready. Anyway you look at it, I'm losing restful sleep.

2. I've convinced myself that if my mouth falls open while temping, my temp will be lower, so I purse my lips together tightly. That one's not really so bad...just annoying. Makes it harder to go back to sleep if I have to concentrate to intently.

3. My mood is directly related to my temperature. If my temp is up, I'm a happy girl. If the freaking bottom drops out of my temp like it did yesterday, it's probably not a good day to whine about anything in front of me or make lame excuses about work (sorry design girl on our team). Luckily my job is all about rules--there are specific grammar rules to follow. Language is something I can control. There is a beauty and simplicity in that, and it was so nice to bury myself in that world yesterday and escape this one where I felt like nothing was specific or beautiful or simple or under control.

4. Why, oh why would you have an almost 1.5 degree drop in the middle of my 2ww??? An implantation "dip" is supposed to be .3 degrees or more, leading me to believe I must be growing quadruplets in there if that was really an ID.

5. Quit messing with me, please. You went back up today. I had started to come to terms with another disappointment this month. I had started my grieving process. And then you had to go and go back up this morning and now I have such mixed feelings of lingering disappointment from yesterday and stubborn hope from today.

I didn't buy any tests yesterday because I figured I was out for this month (I still think I probably am). I guess if temps stay up for the next two days I'll try Sunday morning while we're still in Dallas.

I'm just praying for my thermometer to be nice to me until then.

Waiting

When TH and his family left the former USSR as refugees, they went to Austria first, and then an international aid organization sent them to Italy. They lived in Italy for six months with a host family who took them in and gave them a room to sleep in. My FIL painted pictures of the scenery and sold them for pennies. TH washed car windshields on street corners to help make ends meet.

Once a week, they, along with all the other refugee families placed in the small beach town, would go to a park and wait. Once a week, a representative from the international aid organization would arrive and announce to the waiting crowd the name of a family, or two, or more, or none. The families whose names were announced had been selected, finally, after all their struggles, to start their new lives in their new countries. A spot had opened up somewhere, in some state, or in Canada, a spot with a local aid organization that said they had room for one to look after and get situated, and that family would cheer and cry and rush home and pack and leave that small town on the coast of the Mediterranean, that town that had served as a beautiful limbo, that waiting town. And the rest of the families would slowly turn and slowly disperse, back to their borrowed rooms to face another week of window washing, or painting, or house cleaning, or whatever it was they had found they could do to survive.

I've often wondered about those gatherings, about the emotions coursing through the veins of the weary mothers and fathers and children who had no home, who had only the hope of a home, the vague notion that somewhere, at sometime, things would change. They lived their lives in one-week increments, and on the day of the gathering, the tension and fear and hope and anticipation of finally, after all that waiting, hearing their name called must have been overwhelming. And yet when I picture it, I picture a group of tired, but calm, people. Imagine the disparity between the violent rush of emotions on the inside, that surely was so powerful the people should have been shaking, and the stoic outward appearance. And it all hinged on a single moment, a single word from the aid worker.

Imagine the disparity afterwards, when one family's lives are changed forever, and the rest of the crowd has to return to their waiting. Did they smile for the ones whose names were announced? Did they have it left in them to feel happy for them? Did their own disappointment over it not being "their" week fill them with a disappointment so strong and bitter they could no longer feel happy for others? Or were they so practiced at their stoic approach, at being rocks to weather the storms of their lives, so used to living behind their stone walls, walls that protected them from so many harsh realities and cruel disappointments that many on the planet will never have to face, that they no longer felt sorry for themselves nor happy for others. It just was. Another reality they had to face without complaint, because complaining didn't sell paintings or wash windows or feed children.

Who among us can really understand what these families went through, the ones who had to wait? There were families who arrived and were called away the next week, because it wasn't a first-come-first-served process--it all depended on where you had applied to go and which location had a spot open up. Those families, the ones who lucked into asking for the very location that had room, never understood, could never understand, the agony of the waiting. They never knew what it was like to have that agony become familiar to you, to become an expert at balancing the hope with the fear. They had faced other hardships in life, other disappointments, but of this they only knew the hope and excitement they felt at that first gathering, and the joy they felt when they heard their names. They never faced the wait. They never had to attend the gathering, week after week, forcing themselves to believe that eventually it would be their turn, that surely this week was their week.

And, of course, on the other end, who could ever understand the families whose names never got called? The families who ran out of money, or who had a child fall ill, making them temporarily ineligible for relocation to their new country, or who eventually just lost hope and settled there, there in the waiting town.

It is the waiting that is the challenge. The finding things to focus on between the gatherings. The finding a way to mitigate the disappointment you feel every time you don't hear your name called, and the pain and the anger at knowing you're going to have to wait again, and the fear that you live with while waiting, fear that next week won't be your week either, and ultimately the hope that begins to blossom against all odds, against all historical precedent, hope that next week will be your week. The waiting for it to be your week.

It is the waiting that is the challenge.

Enjoying It While It Lasts

So today I am officially 3 DPO. We had perfect timing this month. My temps are looking beautiful. And I'm not obsessing.

Wait, what? NOT obsessing?? What gives?

I finally decided it was too hard. Too hard to think about it constantly. Too hard to be jealous of others all the time. Too hard to feel bad. Too hard to be constantly stressed about it. Just too hard. It took a lot of energy to do all those things. I was exhausted all the time...not just physically, but mind-tired.

I posted last week about my neutrality this cycle. I attributed it to fear, but I can honestly say I'm not scared right now, after the two positive OPKs, after my beautiful temp spike. I'm not scared about getting another BFN. I just am not thinking about it. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won't. Honestly at this point I'm expecting the "won't." If we did everything the same this round, isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome? But that's not to say I'm pessimistic, either. I'm just...neutral.

It's still hard to hear that someone got pregnant by accident. Or to have all conversation around me centered on pregnancies. But it doesn't make me upset like it did last month. Maybe this is just a defense mechanism. It seems to be cyclical--I was super excited (and let down) the first month, much less so the second month, super excited (and let down) the third month, much less so this month. But, whatever the reason, it's a welcome break, this normalcy. I didn't even double check my chart today after entering my temp. Ok, maybe I did once. But not the usual three or four (or five ::insert ashamed face::) times.

So, I'll enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe (probably...most likely...of course) at the end of next week, when it's go time, time to test, time to find out again yay or nay, maybe then I'll obsess. But right now, the calmness of it all is so nice.

But, given my lack of thoughts on the subject, there's not really much to offer you here, on this blog. So I thought I'd leave you with an oldie but a goodie:

Several months ago, there was a post on the boards about the things you say (before you're a parent) that you'll never do as a parent. It had a ton of really interesting responses, so I brought it up in conversation with TH.

I asked him "What is one thing you will never do as a parent?" I was expecting something deep and meaningful, about trust, or responsibility, or respect.

His response?

"I will never tell my kids they are ugly or stupid."

*cough, cough* Gee, honey, I'm so glad we got that settled before we have kids!

:-)

My first smiley face!! I was so excited. Sure there was no reason to believe I wasn't ovulating before, but having digital verification is so gratifying.

Here's to hoping the rest of this cycle is "normal" (i.e., no double positives, no moving of my O date by FF)...and that it's my last one for a while.

The Return of the Spot

So we were at the follow-up appointment for TH's blood work this morning (100% normal! Yay! AND his doctor said if nothing happens by 6 months, to come back. His words: "We used to say give it a year, but we are being more proactive now." I could have hugged him! Yay for proactivity!), and I noticed one longer nail on TH's hand. This is highly unusual, as TH is a compulsive nail biter when he's stressed. And given the fact that he spent last weekend at his mother's, all his nails should be gone.

I looked closer, and sure enough, it was the one nail with the big calcium deposit...the white spot that, when it reaches the edge of his nail, according to TH's superstition, will signal our successful conception.

Let me make this perfectly clear to everyone: he hasn't cut that nail so that he makes sure the white spot hasn't officially reached the edge of his nail yet. He was convinced the spot meant it would happen last month, and since it didn't, it's like he's giving his spot, and his belief in the good luck it portends, one last chance to be significant.

Rather than looking sheepish at his trading trimmed nails for superstition, he looked at me and excitedly told me his plan: he's going to cut the nail next week, which will cut approximately half-way through the spot. That's when I should be O'ing, and to TH this is going to "open the present." Then, 2 weeks later, at the end of the 2ww when we should find out again, one way or another, he's going to cut it all the way off so that we can "receive the gift!" He was so excited...it's like he figured out the trick about why it didn't happen last month...he solved the riddle, and now he's ready again.

I'm so glad I have such a fun, funny, enthusiastic, spirited, superstitious, silly, strong husband with me on this journey! He makes every day better.

Scaredy Cat

One of our cats is a bold, beautiful, confident, often disdainful, bit of a punk-ass cat. He knows what he wants. He knows what he likes. He does it. He lets us know when he's unhappy. He's, well, confident.

Our other cat is none of those things. He's quiet, sweet, chubby, friendly, eager to please. He follows us around the house, just wanting to be near. He runs from loud noises, bags, balls, and most everything else that moves. When he's in trouble, he doesn't run; he crouches, cowers, and twitches his back. Poor baby.

I'm on CD 13. This should be when I start to get wound up, when I start to get excited. When I get hopeful. Sometime in the next 5-7 days, I should ovulate, and we should make a baby. Nothing is more exciting than that, right? My sadness is gone. Last cycle is behind us. Nothing left to do but look forward and make plans. Hopeful plans.

But the thing is, I haven't been thinking about it. I haven't been making plans. Not hopeful. Not excited. Just...neutral. And I'm not generally a neutral person. I haven't wanted to talk about things. Haven't wanted to think about things. Haven't wanted to post. Haven't been visiting the baby boards. Have really been avoiding the entire issue.

I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me at lunch today. Am I finally just chilling the f--- out? Am I finally relaxing, not worrying about when it's going to happen, letting go, letting God, and all that? The thing is, if that were the case, I would be feeling, well, relaxed. Put at ease. And I'm not. I'm feeling a little sick to my stomach when I think about it, which, I realize, is probably why I'm not thinking about it so much.

What I finally realized is that I'm feeling scared. I'm scared that it's not working. I'm scared that we'll fail again. I'm scared that there's something wrong with us, that we're part of what makes up the percentage of the population that needs medical help to get pregnant. I'm scared of the pain that comes with each month's AF--not the physical pain, but the much worse emotional pain, the pain my heart feels when it whimpers with let down, with disappointment. I'm scared of becoming bitter. I'm scared of becoming angry. I'm scared of our TTC journey changing us, stealing our happiness and our innocence and our blithe approach to life. I'm scared of failing again and again and again.

We are now four months into our journey. Our lives should have been changed by now. We should be painting our nursery and telling our families and worrying about what I eat and laughing at not fitting into my clothes anymore and every night TH should be kissing my belly gently and telling his child, our child, how loved he/she is. And every month that our lives didn't change, every month when I started my period right on time, just like I have for the last 15 years, it hurt.

And now I'm scared of that hurt. I'm like Pavlov's dogs, gradually being trained to a stimulus. The hurt comes from the hope of trying to make a baby, so to avoid that hurt, avoid that hope. I'm like our sweet, chubby, twitchy cat, who cowers on the ground, trying to hide from the punishment.

And I know, I KNOW it hasn't been that long, and that this is normal for most people, and that it will happen for us, and that you have to stay positive and think positive and create a positive reality with your thoughts and attract positive things with your energy and visualize your goal happening, and be thankful, even when you don't have that thing yet, be thankful as if you did. And I know my stress now can adversely affect the very thing we are trying to get, that my attitude and approach can make or break this.

While my head knows all that, my heart is cowering. twitching. hiding. And I'm not confident. I'm scared.

So I think I'll just stay crouched for now. Maybe after next week, when I realize our window has passed and now there is really nothing left to do but hope, maybe then I'll feel free from the pressure of getting it right. And I'll get back on the boards, and I'll start talking about it again, and my productivity at work will plummet as I become less and less capable of thinking of anything else.

But for now, I'll stay down here. Me and my twitchy cat.

Weekend One-Liners

The best one-liners from this weekend (you can see why TH and I are constantly laughing):

TH: Babies are fine china. They aren't tupperware or paper plates.

AND

Me: Your sperm production isn't like movies on demand, it's like cable.

Exercise = Control; Control = Sanity

I got back on my bike this morning.

It's been three months since I've gone for a ride. Which, on the one hand, isn't that shocking considering I have no one up here to ride with, and motivating yourself to go on a long bike ride by yourself is a lot harder than motivating yourself to sleep in and snuggle with your husband. On the other hand, it is shocking. Five months ago a 30-mile bike ride was my "recovery ride." Five months ago I would spend three to four to five hours out on Saturday with my team, riding until I was shaking, with just enough strength left at the end to feel just a little bit like a bad-ass.

At the end of my training, training that had consumed my free time and my mind space, training that had dominated six months of my life, training that was ultimately one step crazier than I actually am, I had completed a half-ironman. I had reached the pinnacle of my athletic career. I had closed the first major chapter of my life--young and athletic and driven--with a grand finale worthy of the years that had led up to it. I was ready to turn the page and start the next chapter: motherhood. Not that I suddenly wasn't young or athletic or driven any more...I just knew that as a mother, you can't devote yourself to your own selfish pursuits the same way you could when you had only yourself to worry about. And I was ready for that. I faced my workout-free future with glee.

I didn't really worry about not working out all summer. I felt like I deserved my break from training, and we were going to try to get pregnant in July, so why continue to bust my ass when I was just going to get blissfully plump? Because of a change in credit cards and the woefully inept bookkeeping department at my gym, my membership lapsed. I let it go. Because of the plantar's fasciitis in both of my feet, I stopped running and walking, trying to give my body a chance to fully recover from the beating I had put it through.

Only here we are, October, with no baby belly and a closet becoming more and more full clothes that don't really fit. Uh oh.

But there was more to this morning's bike ride than a need to be physically fit. All my life I've been in athletics. All my life, I've been involved in a pursuit where your own input directly relates to the output. In other words, the more you put in, the more results you see--you get faster or leaner or better. It is a world of control. If you exert a little more concentration or effort, you can lift the heavier weight, you can get up the hill a little faster, you can get to the finish line a little quicker.

But now I find myself involved in a pursuit where effort has nothing to do with outcome. NOTHING. It doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are about your body and your cycles, how relaxed you are, how much fun you have with it, what vitamins you take, if you chart, if you know when you ovulate, if you time sex correctly, if you moderate you diet, nothing. None of it matters. Or, at least, none of it has mattered so far. I feel like I've devoted my full effort to getting pregnant, and I have nothing to show for it. I have come to the realization that there's NOTHING I can do to actually affect any kind of success in this department.

And it is driving. me. crazy.

I am a 100%-er. Whatever my current goal is, I go for it with everything I have. Five months ago, I was going for the half-ironman with everything I had. I couldn't think about babies when doing hill repeats--if I had, I would have worried about the stress I was putting on my body, how my extreme efforts would adversely affect the baby-friendly environment I needed to turn my body into. Then I switched completely to baby making. I couldn't worry about working out when trying to make a baby. What if I bounce the little fertilized egg around so much it can't implant?

I haven't yet figured out how to devote 50% to each. But that's my new goal. Figure out how to temper fitness goals with baby goals. Because I have to have something in my life I can control.

So I got back on my bike this morning because I owe it to my body, but also because I owe it to my mind.

And it was a beautiful ride.

Celine Dion Feels Me...

The three TTC amigos: one is taking a TTC break (you'll be back on the train again, soon, B #1!), one is KTFU (wooooohoooooo!!! B#2!!), and one is me.

Of the original 8 or so who would attend the FJHH (Fertility Juice Happy Hours @ Chuy's), let's see...there's me....and....uhhhhh.......

::::drunken singing commences::::

Allll byyyyyy MYYYYYYselffffff, don'twannabe ALLLLLL BYYYYYY MYYYYYYYYYselfffffff

:::::lighter and beer in the air, y'all:::::

Just Because

Just because I didn't want the sadness post at the top anymore.

I'm not excited yet. I'm not hopeful yet. Those will come in a couple of weeks.

But I'm not sad anymore. Sometime between then and now, it slipped away.

Now I'm just waiting, in limbo between the low and the high.

And that is not the greatest place to be, but definitely not the worst. It's a blessing to continue to play the game this month, and I don't want to waste any time taking that for granted.

CD6.

My Sadness Sits

Yesterday, Sadness walked into my office and sat. He came in quietly, so quietly that I didn't notice him at first. He just sat in the guest chair and waited. Waited for me to notice him. Waited for me to feel the weight he brings to my heart. Waited for me to realize I hadn't smiled in hours. Waited for me to acknowledge him. He didn't say anything. He just sat, keeping me company.

Anger, his cousin, is the talker. Anger is the one who bursts into a room and demands attention. Anger is the one who gives the passionate speeches that get you so riled up that you can't help but be swept away with his rhetoric and vision and righteous indignation. Anger visited me last cycle. Luckily he stayed away this time. But Sadness showed up instead, and I'm not sure which is worse.

It was Sadness who kept me from responding to posts I should have responded to. He laid his heavy hand on mine and kept me from hitting "send." It was Sadness, wrapping himself slowly, insidiously around my heart like an anaconda, like Rasputin, a trusted friend who betrays you so seamlessly you don't even realize what's happened until you are staring at the world from the bottom of a pit, a prison built by Sadness.

By the end of the work day, Sadness had slid from his seat in my office to roost on the edges of my soul, of my mind, a quiet creeping weight I no longer cared about by the time I noticed. He came home with me, sitting on my shoulders and hanging from my cheeks, too heavy to shrug or smile away.

By evening, Sadness had spread to fill every part of me left empty by Joy, Joy who didn't show up three days ago as hoped. And it was comforting, not having that empty space. Sadness comforted me, made me feel whole again, like there is nothing I am waiting for, nothing I am missing. Sadness filled me with a satisfying weight, like a heavy quilt, and I wrapped myself around him and wrapped him around me and though the cost of that comfort was tears, the slow, quiet tears were worth the ability to stop pretending like I was fine, like I was strong, like I can just keep going like a bad death scene in a movie where the doomed character is shot but keeps stumbling forward as if nothing had happened.

Sadness sat with me when I lay down in bed. Sadness covered me. Sadness sighed so slowly it may have been my own breath. But he could not follow me to sleep. He is not yet strong enough to hold on when I fall into that other world, the world where I am energetic and smiling and where all things are still possible in the blink of an eye.

And this morning, he had retreated. He had pulled back from the far reaches of my mind. He still sits, heavily, silently, watchful in my heart, but eventually he will slip out as silently as he arrived.

And I will notice with quiet pleasure his absence. And I will smile.

The Funny Thing About Phantom Symptoms

Phantom symptoms. The "pregnancy" symptoms you feel and use to justify convincing yourself that you are KU when in the 2ww.

Phantom symptoms, how I loathe and love thee. Loathe because I do actually use them to convince myself that I'm KU. And then I'm not. And that sucks. Because I was soo sure. Phantom symptoms are the salt rubbed in a wound I don't even know exists until I get that BFN. Love because, let's face it, for the seven days I feel them, I am living every second in the most exciting possible tension, deliriously planning my future with my sweet little cooing chubby bundle of soft baby awesomeness.

They are the only part of pregnancy I've gotten to experience yet. And they don't even exist. I'm not going to dwell on how sucktastic that is. Instead, let's look at why phantom symptoms are cracking me up today. Me, on CD3.

I just read a post about peanut butter slices. Kinda weird, right? But then someone responded about peanut butter slices dipped in chocolate and how good that sounded to them.

I considered it. I, the world's biggest chocolate-and-peanut-butter fan, who used to eat one dark chocolate kiss and one scoop of crunchy peanut butter together in one delicious bite.

And the idea made me want to throw up a little. WTF?? Peanut-butter slices dipped in chocolate doesn't sound appealing to me? The very thought makes me feel sick to my stomach? My immediate follow-up thought? ohmygod, maybe I'm pregnant! And then smiling, laughing at my own foolishness, at the idea of imagining pregnancy symptoms while on my period. I mean, if you can't laugh at yourself in this crazy, crazy process, who can you laugh at?

Phantom symptoms, how I love and loathe thee. Even on CD3.

Shrek is an Ass

Ooo, boy. Oktoberfest.

After finishing off nearly a 6-pack by myself after not having drank (drunk?) much lately, I had a fantastic time at our party last night (and am still the reigning beer pong champ) but am paying for it today. A pregnant friend told me recently her first-tri tiredness reminded her of the day after staying up late drinking. Unfortunately, I feel that way today NOT because I'm pregnant but because I did, in fact, stay up late drinking.

TH and I spent the day recuperating on our couch and trying to eat as much leftover party fare as possible. We watched a lot of football...and Shrek the Third. The basic plot line of Shrek III is that Fiona (his wife) is pregnant and Shrek freaks out because he doesn't think he's ready to be a dad.

What an ass.

I actually got up, disgusted. Here I am, with the greatest dad-to-be in the world, who wants nothing more than to have a little one to care for, and freaking Shrek is the one who gets the baby. Or, babies, as it turned out.

Apparently I'm not dealing with it all as well today as I was yesterday. Yesterday I had a party to plan, drinking to do, friends to hang out with. Today I just have two (or more) looong weeks of waiting for my body to gear up again so we can take another shot. Two (or more) weeks of irresponsible, undeserving cartoon dads pissing me off. I blame my teary eyes and hot frustration on my tiredness and dehydration.

Regardless, Shrek sucks.

Top 10 Reasons I'm OK

10. I get one more month of my life to just spend with DH and nobody else--lots of alone time, sleeping in, going out spontaneously, etc.

9. I will get one more paid week of maternity leave since my due date for future child will be after my 1-year anniversary with my company.

8. We have one more month of no car payments.

7. We have one more month of saving up for down payment on new car(s).

6. Chance of being able to go to S. America with TH in the spring has gone up.

5. I enjoyed the hell out of my Dr Pepper this morning.

4. The Super Target by my house is scheduled to open in May of next year, and I will for sure be able to register there now.

3. It feels good to relax about splurging on the party tonight and not to have to worry about saving every penny for baby.

2. I will be able to focus at work and actually get stuff done for at least another 2-3 weeks.

1. I can eat as many brats and black forest ham sandwiches and drink as many beers as I want to tonight!!

Onto cycle 4. Prost!

The Spot

So, about three weeks ago TH held up his right pointer finger and showed me a large white spot on his nail.

TH: (with the tone of someone who just proved ice cream is actually healthy) Do you know what that is?

me: A calcium deposit?

TH: Well yeah, if you want to be all scientific about it!

He then went on to remind me that the Russians (or maybe just his family???) have a saying about those white spots on your nails. Roughly translated, when the white spot gets to the tip of the nail, something good happens.

TH: And this is the biggest one I've ever had! You know what that means, right?

me: You started taking your daily multivitamins???

TH: Nooo! It means when that spot gets to the tip of my nail, you'll be pregnant!

The rest of the month, at least once a day, TH would look at his finger nail, smile, and then reach over and rub my belly happily. His sweet, innocent, total belief in that old Russian superstition is so cute I just can't help but let myself believe in it just a little. He is totally confident in the portent of that white spot.

And the white spot is just about at the tip of his nail...

CD29, 9 DPO