Back to the Drawing Board... Cycle day 1

Started my period yesterday. Yes, Aunty Flo came knocking loudly on my door around noon. I dared her to show up by wearing brand new, light grey t-shirt colored undies (ok it's true they were protected with a liner). But she took me up on my challenge all right. This month was the first time in 3 months, that I did not get it on the 27th. But I guess it made sense that I'd get it at least 2 days later, given the fact that I ovulated so late in this cycle (on day 17).

At least it's good to know that Fertil Plus really does keep my cycle pretty regular! (Btw my New Year's Resolution is to be a lot better about using my checklist, religiously, to make sure I take it at the right time, 3 times per day... 8am, 3pm, and 10pm). The month I did get pregnant, I had alarms set up to remind me to take it at the same time every day, but lately I've been bad about it. So maybe there really was something to it.

On one hand I am disappointed that I didn't get pregnant this time, and can't help wondering if maybe I'm just not meant to have children. I'm starting to wonder if getting pregnant might be one of those things that will happen for me only when I don't really care if it happens or not. You hear about that kind of thing happening all the time. Women decide to finally stop trying and BAM! They're knocked up. But it's frustrating that it seems to work that way. Can't I just admit that I really do want to have a baby?

It's kind of like being in a relationship with someone, and wanting that person too much. It's only when you truly don't care, that they start calling you like crazy and can't get enough of you. Maybe babies are just like that. Maybe we're not supposed to want them in some crazed, possessive sort of way, like that's just bad karma. We're just supposed to be doing our thing, being busy with our lives and enjoying our lives. And then the babies are supposed to show up, just like men do, ceremoniously crashing into our lives when we could care less, as if it's some kind of big test of God, to see just how much we can really handle at once.

Well, I'm not going to stop trying (and I'm getting to the point where my FertilPlus is about to run out so I am going to have to order more soon). My guess is that I was just under way, way too much pressure this month, to be able to conceive.

Reasons I think I didn't conceive this month include:

-Putting myself (and my husband) under WAY too much pressure!

-Getting into a pretty big fight with the hubby, about 5 days after I felt like I'd gotten pregnant. If that didn't drive my cortisol levels up to the roof, I don't know what could. No, the fight wasn't pregnancy related. We don't fight all the time, but when we do, it is not pretty. Luckily we made up and he was very apologetic, but sadly I no longer felt pregnant the day after the fight.

-Maybe the timing was just wrong and I didn't get pregnant after all, and the "pregnant feeling" was just caused by the progesterone cream. Although I did think we had the timing right (we did it about 10 hours after I took a VERY positive ovulation test, and had been testing every 12 hours), I am wondering if maybe it was just too late. This cycle I need to be sure we do it at night, more often. It probably would have been better if we'd done it the night before!

-Maybe it was just a bad egg or the wrong sperm fertilized my egg. I did kind of wonder, as I was practically standing on my head in order to help my hubby's sperm reach my egg(s): "Could I be making it easier for the wrong sperm to get to the egg?"  What I was doing was, after all, kind of going against Darwin's theory. You see YouTube videos of magnified sperm under a microscope, and you can't help thinking... ok, clearly there are some sperm that are just supposed to be left behind. Some are swimming around in circles, crazed, dazed, confused, directionless.  But being in the vertical position that I was... I couldn't help wonder if maybe I was encouraging some of those spermies that just... weren't... right.... to win the big Egg Marathon.

So if the reason I didn't get pregnant this time around, is because the egg/sperm/zygote/blastocyst just wasn't as strong as it needed to be... I want to thank God for the intervention, because getting a monthly period is like a vacation to Cabo, compared to what it is like to go through a miscarriage.

The other thing I am grateful for, is that I didn't wind up with an ectopic pregnancy. Which I was slightly concerned about, since I could swear I was ovulating from my right side for the first time that I can ever remember. In 2009 I had an HSG test which showed that my right tube is slightly blocked. Or at least, it took a lot longer for the dye to go through it, than it did for the dye to go through the left tube.  I really felt like I was ovulating from both sides. There were strong pangs going off from the left and the right, for over a week.

So the whole time, I was a little worried that I could wind up with an ectopic pregnancy. I know this will sound completely insane, but there was even a day (after I thought I'd conceived) when I took about 3x my usual dose of oil of evening primrose, and then went jogging, in an effort to somehow try to help the blastocyst or zygote keep moving along the tube. It was hard for me not to picture it getting stuck in the tube! Who knows, maybe I caused it to just keep on sliding and never stick in my uterus at all.

See, THIS is why it's probably better for people like me, to get pregnant by accident, when you're not even thinking about it. Because thinking about it all the time, every day, will make you insane and do crazy things that you probably shouldn't.

Anyway, my plan for this month is to keep good track of what I'm doing, get enough rest, keep a checklist of everything I'm supposed to be doing (including taking supplements at the right time, drinking lots of water). And we'll see what happens from there!

As usual... will post my progress as I go along!

EB