Some Rambling

Today was one of those days where your pants are just a little bit too tight.  Just tight enough to make you slightly cranky and feeling fat without precisely knowing why.  Well...to be honest I also had a half a cinnamon roll that was in the staff lounge, then a bag of goldfish, and later a half a donut.  Hmm...yes, that is why I'm feeling a bit of self-loathing today.

I ran 4 miles yesterday!  It's been a long time since I've gone running, but since I'm not playing soccer anymore I need something else to stay in shape...hence the tight pants.

Do any of the rest of you feel like you should be automatically thinner the day after running 4 miles?  Me too.  Obviously a pipe dream.

Read Across America was fun but exhausting...even though I wasn't in charge.  I made a new 5 year old BFF named Kailee. She has a sister and is moving to Georgia and she wanted a butterfly painted on her face, no, not a small butterfly, a butterfly on her whole face and no she doesn't want to dance with the rest of the kids and look at her sparkly nail polish!

She held on to my hand for a solid hour.  Even when she had to stand a step below me to take a picture.

I love kids.  (I'm not so sure about babies. They still scare me a bit.  Well at least other people's babies do.)  When there's a kid at an adult party, I'm usually the one he/she is playing with.

In other news, I'm 2 dpo.  My temp rose when I thought it did.  I had some nice EWCM. And our BD schedule was impeccable.  And in the last 2 days I saw both of the hugely pregnant ladies at work who got married the year after me.

Pretty please fertility gods?  Can I please have this one?

Going Through the Motions

I don't expect this month to work.  At this point I don't even really expect IVF to work.  (Not in a totally depressing way, but in a different way that's hard to describe.)

So I'm just going through the motions. 

We are BDing every other day (until DH goes out of town Wed and Thurs).  It would be very nice to O before that.

I'm taking my vitamins and my temperature.

But there's not real emotions involved at this point.

We are getting our ducks in a row for IVF.  What a bitch it is!  I have an email in to my regular doctor to see if she'll order the new round of Day 3 tests, STD tests, and Anti-Mullerian hormone test that I need prior to IVF.  Also, the "success guarantee plan" has a form that you have to fax in to say you want to apply, but it also says it'll take up to 2 weeks from the completion of any testing to complete the process.  So I'm stressed that we won't be able to get everything done and will get pushed back a month.

Mr. GG says I should just go to a Quest and pay for the tests, because what is $200 or so in the grand scheme of things.  So I guess I should schedule that, but does anyone else have the problem that you know you need to do things, but then time just keeps passing and you just don't do them (or forget).  There's just so much else going on like the papers I need to grade and the classes to plan and the house to clean that refilling prescriptions and getting blood tests just seems too overwhelming.

I even forgot my acupuncture appointment on Friday.  Last night at 3 in the morning I suddenly remembered that I forgot to go.  FML.  Now my lining will probably suck again.

So I'm doing everything (or almost doing everything) I need to be doing, but I really don't expect a BFP at the end of it.  I guess I've just been burned too many times.  I'm sure this will all change when I near 10 dpo, but it's how it is right now.

Which reminds me of a race horse my friend owns a part of.  His name is "Uncomfortably Numb" (based on Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" if you are of my generation and do not have an older husband to teach you about things like Pink Floyd).  That's kind of explains my lack of emotion right now, uncomfortably numb. 

Well, and kinda bitchy and annoyed too.

Hitting the "Window"

In my extensive TTC research, I learned some things I never knew before.  Like that sperm can live for up to 5 days and that an egg lives for 12-36 hours.  And consequently, I didn't need to be so freaked out about getting accidentally pregnant throughout my 20s.  


But I also think this info gave me a false sense of confidence.  I have tracked every single baby-dance (remind me to think of a new term for this!) for the last 14 months.  If we BDd within 5 days of getting an egg on the CBFM or temp rise since I've been charting, I felt like we were successful.  Sure, we tried to do it more often than that, but it didn't always work out.  Mr. GG and I have definitely had at least double the amount of sex in the last year compared to the previous year.  

"Let's just do it tomorrow..."

Here's the problem with our timing; my cycles have ranged from 27 to 40 days during those months.  For the first few months I wasn't using the CBFM or charting temps and we probably quit too early each month.  During the CBFM phase, I don't think it was accurate; therefore, we again may have quit too early.  Since I started charting we've done much better, but life gets in the way some times.


Bottom line: It is absolutely possible that Mr. GG and I have mis-timed things for an entire year, just by accident!


I think my fertile "window" is on the shorter side.  So rather than 5 days, I think we've got more like 12-24 hours.  Last month, we hit it.  This month we did too.  


1 dpo today.  Fingers crossed.

My TTC Mantra: "No Guilt"

I was raised Catholic, but I'm not sure whether that's where my guilt comes from or not. 

On a typical day I feel guilty that I haven't planned my classes better, graded that stack of essays, that I ate that whole Snickers bar, that I'm feeling so guilty...you get the picture.

So TTC threw a whole new guilt-wrench into the equation.  No, don't drink that glass of wine.  Is that chicken organic?  Is my shampoo making me infertile because of all of the chemicals? 

Around the 8th month I decided I needed to chill out.  Hence my mantra, "No Guilt."

And so to quote my favorite animated movie of all time, which is awesome in 3-D by the way,

I will drink moderately, usually not during the two week wait.  I will not stress about whether my diet is 100% organic or whether or not I should have coffee or green tea.  I will live the same pretty-healthy life I have been living for the last 31 years.  And when I am stressed, I will get a massage, do yoga, or have a delicious glass of wine.