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

And the pregnancy test reveals...

... a BFN!

Yep.  I should have known better than to take a test on Christmas. I just couldn't seem to help myself, I guess largely because I knew I was going to be tempted all day, so I decided to just get it over with. At this point I'm 11 days past ovulation. I do realize there is a chance I could still test positive within 4 or 5 days but I'm not going to put too many eggs into that basket. I checked that test strip about 3 times and there was not even the faintest sign of a positive line. True, it was a test strip that I'd cut open over 2 weeks ago so maybe it wasn't good anymore, but... I had it all wrapped up, with the silica gel packet still inside, so I would think it would still be good.

As much as I was feeling and seeing weird symptoms, I have not been feeling fatigue.  Though... ok I have to say, I don't think I really felt that much fatigue the first time I was pregnant. But I do remember my back hurting quite a bit. And this time, the back pain is even worse.

I really do feel like I have been showing pregnancy symptoms, though. It's weird. Even the amount of discharges that I've been experiencing. It's been a lot, and that's not normally the case (though it was while I was pregnant). I remember, when I was pregnant before, I sometimes felt like I had my period, because I was wet down there so much of the time. So I'm not sure what is going on, or what happened, but... all I can do is try to look at the positive side of things.

On the positive side, I feel like I can probably go ahead and have a cup of decaf coffee if I want. And I can breathe a sigh of relief that I have a little more time to secure a full time job without having to worry about my employer and co-workers (rightfully) accusing me, 4 months down the road, of getting a job, right after I got pregnant, knowing I was pregnant and would have to take maternity leave.

It's hard not to go over in my mind, all the things that I could have done differently. If I hadn't gotten into that argument with my husband the evening before I ovulated, we could have had sex the next morning and I would have gotten the timing just right. Or, if I had been pregnant, maybe if I hadn't been under so much stress about 5 days ago, maybe the pregnancy would have "stuck." Or if maybe I hadn't had that glass of wine at Christmas Eve dinner. Or maybe if I hadn't talking about every single little thing as it happened, giving the blogger play by play. Or maybe if I could just take a chill pill and stop worrying about every little thing so much! One thing I definitely know for sure. A lot of my worry is money-related, so I need to figure out a way to fix that.

I definitely do plan to keep trying, and will be increasing my dosage of CoEnzyme Q10 to try to make sure my eggs are as healthy as they can be. I realized I was only taking about 200 mg per day, but I really could and probably should have been taking 400-600mg.

I spent the morning eating junk food, sweet bread rolls with lots of butter, watching the Disney Christmas Parade and throwing myself a little pity party while my husband is still asleep in bed. I guess I had to just get it out of my system.

Now I'm going to go get on my exercise bike and listen to Madonna and get pumped up to start all over again. If this cycle is like the last 3 I will be getting my period on the 27th. If for some reason that's not the case, I'll do another post!

EB

REALLY white discharge... a sign of pregnancy?

I just went to the bathroom and when I looked at my undies I literally said "Whoah." The discharge on them was really, really white. Usually it's not very thick and maybe kind of white but not all that white. But this evening, it was a lot thicker. Didn't smell bad or anything, it was just really noticeable.

I've been trying to wear dark colored undies lately (today they were red) because I have been wanting to keep track of what my discharge looks like. The last time I had that kind of thick white discharge, was when I got pregnant almost a year ago. The last time before that was in my 20's, when I just had a lot more hormones raging through my system, and I just had a lot more discharge in general.

For several months, I've been looking at my undies, hoping to see some kind of thick white discharge, this is the first time I saw it. But I am still scared to take a pregnancy test, because it's Christmas Eve and I don't want to be disappointed. And I don't want to be disappointed on Christmas day either. But I may end up giving in! It would be a pretty cool Christmas gift to find out I'm pregnant. But... again... it would really suck to get a negative test on Christmas!

I am having a little bit of pain down there right now, and I can't tell if it's coming from my ovaries or a fallopian tube or what. I'm just going to hope and assume it is my ovaries being overactive this month.

Whatever the case, I am happy and grateful to have just seen that white milky discharge on my underpants. Whatever it means. It definitely made me feel happy to see it : )

EB

Nausea?

I might have been dreaming this one, but... last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up suddenly when my husband was scratching his foot. He was scratching it so hard, the bed was shaking.

Normally this might just wake me up and I'd go right back to sleep, no big deal.  But this morning, it made me feel nauseous, as if I suddenly felt motion sickness. My head actually felt cold - as if the blood had just drained right out of it. I didn't really feel like I was going to barf, probably because I was only half awake and was able to fall back asleep fairly quickly, but that feeling of motion sickness was definitely familiar.

When I was on birth control pills - Ortho TriCyclen - on and off from about age 26 to about age 35 - I felt a good amount of motion sickness.  I'd never gotten motion sickness before, but suddenly I felt it pretty regularly. In cars driving on winding roads, on boats, on buses that swerved around too much... one time I had to get off the bus and throw up in a trash can. It was a lot like being pregnant, only you weren't. I figured it was the increase in hormones in your system. Ortho Novum 777 never did that to me, but BOY did Ortho TriCyclen.

Anyway, I'm not quite ready to take a pregnancy test. I'm going to wait at least until tomorrow - Christmas - to take one - and might wait even longer. If it would be negative, I don't want to feel disappointed on Christmas. But if I get another wave of nausea or some other really strong signal - I'll probably go ahead and take it!

By the way, I do plan on asking the hubby if he really was scratching his foot or shaking the bed somehow in his sleep. There is a chance he won't remember, though, so it may not even be worth it to ask him. But I do know this... what I felt was definitely nausea - whether it was a dream or not! I'm pretty sure it was real, because I remember it had woken me up from a dream.

More later. TTFN,

EB

Fighting the winter blues... or hormones

OK so I realize this could have nothing to do with pregnancy. But this evening I had this terrible feeling of the blues. It was shortly after I took a shower. True, it's raining, HARD, where I live, to the point where they've issued two flash flood warnings. But I'm usually able to keep my Seasonal Affective Disorder in check by taking extra vitamin D, getting enough exercise, cleaning my house, staying away from junk food, eating really healthy, and keeping the lights on.

But those things didn't seem to be doing the trick today. It seemed unusually bad shortly after I took a shower and put on some progesterone cream, which was weird because previously, it actually improved my mood. But tonight, I literally started to feel like I was going to cry when I was just trying to fix a tangled blanket. So I ended up taking a SAM-e tablet. I'd bought some for my husband a few years ago when he wasn't in the best health and it was making him depressed. Now he is feeling much better and didn't keep taking it so I had a lot of extra, and I'm going to assume it was still at least partially effective since it's in foil wrapped packaging. 

I read a very helpful discussion about Sam-E, by women who are trying to conceive, or did get pregnant. Apparently it's been really helpful, for a lot of women, and there are no known side effects. You can read the discussion here.

I felt "OK" later. Not joyful or anything, just "OK." Which I guess is better than feeling depressed, which is what I felt about 2 hours ago. I also do have a nice heated blanket on the bed, which is helping the back pain that's been plaguing me for the last month. 

When I told my husband I was feeling really depressed like I want to cry, he said, "Could you be pregnant?" And for some reason I instantly blurted out, "no, no..." I guess because a) I didn't really think that could be it, and b) I don't want to worry him too much. 

But now I am kind of starting to wonder. I don't want to take another pregnancy test unless I'm way overdue for my period. This cycle, I ovulated pretty late - on day 17.  And I just looked it up online and apparently it's not impossible to get pregnant if you ovulate that late, according to this discussion. 

For the last 3 months, I always got my period on the 27th. Like clockwork. So I keep thinking, that's when I'm going to get it again this month. So I guess I'll take a test if I don't get it by the 28th. It was just so much easier the last time I got pregnant, when I wasn't really thinking about it, and I didn't test too early, and I didn't have any of that anxiety of, should I take a test or not take a test, or being annoyed with myself because I went ahead and tested too early when I knew I shouldn't have.  Sometimes I wonder if that kind of anxiety can keep a pregnancy from actually “sticking.”  It would probably help if I could just get busy with other things in my life and not think so much about the baby thing.

OK that's it for now. Will write more again soon. 

EB

How long does it take to get a positive pregnancy test?

So, I took another pregnancy test, thinking that maybe I could show a positive result by now. And I was pretty disappointed to see it was negative (and I mean, totally negative, not even a faint line). Again. I know, my bad. I should not be taking any tests at all! I feel like it always just messes with my mind, and yet... it's hard to help myself.

When I got pregnant in January, I estimated that I conceived around January 5th (since that was the day I had the really positive OPK test), and I didn't take a pregnancy test for three weeks (so by the time I did, it was pretty dark). It wasn't that I didn't care at all, but I just had a lot of other things on my mind, which I think is probably how it's supposed to be.

I didn't feel any particularly strong, unusual symptoms, that I can remember, until about 2 days before I took the test. The thing that made me finally suspect that something must be going on, was major fatigue (which I am not experiencing now), bad lower back pain (which I am experiencing but that's been going on for weeks), and bad diarrhea as soon as I woke up one day (which I'm not experiencing now... and yes, don't worry, I made it to the bathroom!)

I did a little googling the other day to find out how soon you can you get a positive pregnancy test after a positive ovulation test (assuming you've done the deed at least once, in the right time frame of course). 

This is what I found, according to this discussion: 

When an egg is fertilized, it takes about 6 to 12 days to implant in the uterus, and then it begins to secrete hCG. It takes another day or two for enough hCG to build up and make its way into your pee. So, generally speaking, the earliest you can expect a positive HPT is 8 days past ovulation ("DPO") and the latest would be about 16 DPO.

I got my positive OPK test on the morning of Friday, December 14th (yes, sadly this was the same day as the tragedy in Connecticut). I also had sex a few times before this, when I thought I may be ovulating also (I've had other positive OPK tests during this cycle but none that turned so dark, so fast). So at this point, I'm just about 8 days past ovulation. But for whatever reason, my hormones still do seem to be acting up. My boobs are pretty sore. Though they do tend to be more sore, during the last 2 weeks of my cycle, when I am on Fertil Plus. So who knows, maybe that's all it is.

It's hard not to have a certain amount of anxiety about this pregnancy since I don't have health insurance at this time, and I need to get full time work. So if there is anything positive about the fact that I might not be pregnant right now, it would be that I still have a little more time to hopefully secure a good full time job that has decent health benefits.

Around 2 days past ovulation I started getting insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night, thinking oh my God, what if more than one egg got released and fertilized. I am pretty positive that I ovulated from more than one side this month. It's funny that I would worry about such a thing, since there was a time when I really wanted twins. It seems like a cooler and cooler idea as you get older, since you don't know how much time there is left to have babies, so cranking out two at a time would seem like a blessing.

But the reality of having more than one kid, with no health insurance, definitely scared me a little. Of course, I would welcome any baby or babies that God chooses to give me. And I would love that kid or kids with my whole heart and just make the best of the situation, no matter how it all turned out. I definitely do have some good prospects for full time work, so I am hopeful.

I realize I must sound really ingrateful.  Here I am, trying SO hard to get pregnant, and it sounds like I'm saying, "Oh my God I hope I don't have twins or anything"....  It's not that I wouldn't love to have as many babies as I could. It's just that I am feeling a little unprepared. If we had more room in this house, and f we had more money, I would absolutely LOVE IT. Just like J Lo and Mariah Carey must be loving it. They can build the biggest house they want, and hire as many nannies as they could ever need. But for the average person, it might not be so easy.

Like I said, I would be extremely grateful and happy for any child or children God ever decides to give me, and I will consider it an extreme blessing, no matter what happens. Even if for some reason I am unable to have any children, I will look at the positive side and thank God for the fact that it would probably save me a lot of worry and possible heartache (the normal type that comes form being concerned about a child, your whole life) and remaining childless would enable me to be able to accomplish more of my own personal goals.  But of course I would rather have a baby. I already feel really fortunate for the fact that I have been able to afford to take fertility supplements, and that they have worked to get me pregnant in the past (even if one sadly ended in a miscarriage).  And I feel fortunate for the fact they seem to be working again. Regardless of whether this will be the "lucky month"... I am grateful.

EB

Pregnancy Boobs, weird cravings, and worrying about an ectopic (again)

I'm not sure if it's the progesterone cream I'm using or an actual pregnancy, but something is definitely going on with my boobs.

Last night at about 4am, my husband had to get up to go to the bathroom, and he accidentally pushed himself up by putting his hand on my left boob. Normally, this would make me go "Ow!"  But last night I sprang awake sounding like a machine gun of OWs..... "OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!"  

It seems like when your hormones are going nuts, your boobs just feel any kind of pain with a greater, amplified intensity that you can't quite imagine until someone gives them a good whack.

It might sound funny to be saying all this, when I don't even know for sure that I'm pregnant. I just took a pregnancy test, and got a BFN (yes I was kidding myself that I could wait two weeks to take one). I have to remind myself that it hasn't even been a week since I got a definitely-positive ovulation test.

But I've sure been feeling some weird symptoms. Not just the boob thing. Yesterday I was walking around with a slight sense of nausea, though I realize it could be my brain just playing tricks on me. Also, I've had insomnia every night, since that first night I woke up around 4am with some strange hormonal surge and couldn't get back to sleep. Another thing is, last night my hubby and I were watching the travel channel and they were showing what different American Fast Food chains serve as "regular food" in different countries. Normally this might kind of gross me out, but it seemed like every other thing made me go, "mmmm." I was craving a grilled cheese sandwich but we didn't have any bread. My sweet hubby offered to use one of the hot dog buns we had, though I didn't think that sounded very appetizing (though i have to say he is a GREAT cook). So he made me a bagel with egg, tomato and spinach. It was delicious.

Just as I was writing this, I felt a very sharp pang. Not quite like mittleschmerz, but in a different location... almost like where you would picture your tubes would be. I've always been a little paranoid that I could wind up with an ectopic pregnancy. And I'm especially concerned this time, because when I took an HCG test, I am pretty sure it was my right side that was somewhat blocked, but my left side was fine. Well, this is the first time I can remember ever feeling like I was ovulating from my right side (and I felt like I was ovulating from the left also) So I realize I could be at at an even higher risk for an ectopic, than the last time.

I did some more research to find out, if for some reason I did have an ectopic pregnancy, is there a chance that it could resolve itself. Meaning, could it just spontaneously abort without me having to have a tube removed? And it seems that the answer is, yes, it's possible. 

I think if this were to ever happen to me - if I found out that a pregnancy was definitely an ectopic, then I would start drinking parsley tea and vitamin C like crazy (two things that are known to end a pregnancy). The thought of a doctor going in there and removing a tube really scares me. Of course it would make me sad to have to take measures to end any kind of pregnancy, so I don't mean to sound crass or insensitive about it. I just don't want to jeopardize my own life in the process of trying to get pregnant. And you have to think about these things when you don't have health insurance! My husband and I have talked about getting it if and when I do get pregnant, but I don't have it yet. 

I wonder if going running could help move the egg along, and keep it from implanting in the wrong place. I've been doing a lot of "spinning" lately (opting for an exercise bike vs. running, because it's not as hard on my back) but now I feel like putting my running shoes on and going out for a jog...

Will keep you posted on how all this goes.

EB