I think this is the first month I havent "thought for sure" that I am pregnant. I feel like I am just waiting till AF (aunt flow) visits so I can get on with the next step (this was my last cycle of Clomid). I have an appointment on Wed to see what is next. I am anxious to see where I go from here. Maybe since I dont have my hopes up this month and I am 'just relaxing' I will get pregnant. Isnt that what everyone always says? Just relax and it will happen? Oh how I wish it was that easy!

Today will be a fun day. My husband and I do wedding photography as a hobby. We have a wedding to shoot today and we always have fun doing it. We work really well as a team when doing it and love looking at the pictures at the end. It is great being a part of the couple's day and seeing all the happiness, love, and excitement. The wedding we are doing today is a very non-traditional wedding so it should be fun to get some unique pictures.

Optimism

My temperature finally spiked! YAY, I think! So either my body reacted slowly to the hormone release or I ovulated later than I expected. The OPK was positive on Sunday and, of course, we did what we needed to do but my husband has been out of town all week so I hope I didnt wait to ovulate until yesterday! I am hoping my body just reacted slowly to the hormone that was released. So, there may still be hope this month, although a small hope, at least it is hope. I am feeling optimistic today and I am excited my husband will be home tomorrow and has a 3 day weekend!

Now, if I would quit procrastinating and get some work done I would be doing great! So here I go... off to work!

Temperature

Today is day three of the wait. But, I am not sure that I ovulated this month. I am on Clomid so I should have, and my ovulation predictor kit indicated when I was about to, but my temperature did not go up. It is still the same as before ovulation. Now I am assuming that most people that read this blog knows the significance of temperature but for anyone that doesnt I'll explain. Once you ovulate your body produces a hormone that is more thermal so it raises your body temperature. If you dont ovulate, no raise in temp. So, I am worried that I have not even ovulated.

The biggest reason that waiting is so difficult this time is because of my home situation right now. I work from home so I am by myself all day. And, my husband is now out of town for work for the next 10 weeks, coming home on the weekends. So, during the week, not only am I home all day by myself, I am also home all night by myself. It makes the wait seem longer, they days longer. If I worked somewhere else I would be around people all day and then have the evenings to myself, which wouldnt be so bad. So I have been trying to keep myself busy. I went to the dentist today, I am going to lunch with some of my old coworkers on Friday, I went to the movies last night, and to the bookstore the night before.

Ok, enough complaining! The rest of today is going to be great! I am going to get the stuff done I need to for work, I am going to swim in my pool, and I am going to see if my friend Jess wants to go out to dinner.

Until next time....

waiting...

I am in that horrible two weeks of waiting. The time between ovulating and peeing on a stick hoping for a "pregnant" on the readout. Two weeks of no alcohol (I can handle that), no caffeine (a bit harder to handle), no lunch meat (at least I like pb&j), no soft cheeses (this is the hardest one, I LOVE cheese!), eating lots of folic acid and taking prenatal vitamins. And waiting.... each day seams like a week. Each morning I wake up, immediately stick a thermometer in my mouth and pray that the temperature stays high. And I wait.... for another day to go by, one day closer to an answer to the always present question "Am I pregnant"? During all the waiting, I am also analyzing. I analyze my energy level. If I have one day feeling a bit more tired than usual I think surely that is a sign. I analyze my boobs, I almost will my boobs to be tender becuase that is another sign. I analyze any sick feeling and I hope for nausea becuase... yup, you guessed, another sign. All these unpleasant feelings that most people dont want to happen, I pray for them to so I have some hope that I am pregnant this month. I dont know why I do this to myself, I am so dissappointed when I find out I am not. I hate waiting... I just want to know one way or another. I am only on day two of the two week wait, how am I ever going to last another 12 days?

I get to pee on a stick (POS) on my birthday. It's funny how POS brings such joy to me. I love when I wake up and get to POS, it makes me feel like I am doing something instead of just waiting. Whether I POS to determine if I am ovulating or to determine if I am pregnant I feel like I am getting answers instead of just waiting. I am a little bummed each morning that I wake up and dont get to POS. I almost miss it during the wait between ovulation and expected aunt flow visit. So I get to POS on my birthday. It may be the BEST birthday of my life, or it may start with some bad news. If it does start with a negative test, I'll handle it. I assume that I am not pregnant, so it will be dissappointing but not anything I won't be prepared for.

I really like this whole blog thing. I started it yesterday and posted twice and had to keep myself from posting all day. It is such a great way of getting out the feelings I have been keeping to myself. Even if no one reads it I feel so good getting out my frustrations. I have been reading other blogs, too. I realize that my story isnt NEARLY as bad as many others. I have only been TTC (trying to conceive) for a year, some others have been TTC for 3, 5, 10, even 12 years! I dont even know how I would feel if I am in this same boat 3 years from now. I dont think I could be in this situation 12 years from now, I would be institutionalized instead!

In my current job I spend a lot of time researching infant development; emotional, social, physical, cognitive, and brain development. I feel like as I research and attend conferences I am constantly preparing to be a Mommy, which doesnt help. Usually people can dive into their work in order to forget for a little while, but I cant. Even my career is a constant reminder about what I am missing.

Wow, this blog is becoming quite long. I already admitted I may become obsessed with blogging! I will try not to post 5 more blogs today, but I'm not guarenteeing anything!

Just quit trying...

You wanna know what frustrates me more than anything? Well I am going to tell you anyway! I absolutely HATE it when people say "just quit trying and you'll get pregnant". Ok, for some poeople, as soon as they stop trying to get pregnant it happens. But, it isnt fool proof! Not trying would feel like giving up. And I DEFINITELY am not giving up on starting a family. I also hate it when people say "just drink jack and coke, that's what did it for me... ha ha ha!" Or "just have sex in your car on some side road, thats how I got pregnant". JEEEZ, do people listen to themselves!?! As if it is THAT easy! If it was that easy I would be creating a blog about all the children I have, not about my issues with getting pregnant! UUUGHH!

Ok, one more thing that bothers me. I really dont like when people DONT tell me about them or someone else I know being pregnant becuase they dont want to upset me because I havent been successful. As if I am that selfish! Just because I am having problems doesnt mean that I will only think of myself when I hear of someone elses joy! I can, and want to, be happy for other people. What a joy to find out your pregnant (usually!), I would love to share that joy with someone and offer my congratulations. So please, dont avoid the subject in order to spare my feelings because I really do love to hear of other peoples success.

The Journey

I decided to start this blog to get out my feelings and frustrations about NOT being pregnant. Let me start at the beginning...

My husband and I met a little over 6 years ago. We instantly knew we had something special and decided to live together very early in our relationship. And although we have had some bumps along the way (some mere speed bumps and others major potholes!) we really have a great life together. We were married on October 18th 2007 on the beach in Mexico. I could not have asked for a more perfect wedding!

Before getting married we discussed starting a family and both agreed that we wanted to start as soon as we got married. We lived together for five years before getting married so we didnt feel like we needed to 'enjoy married life' first. We already had five great years to enjoy each other, work on our careers, and work out all the kinks in our relationship. We were ready to move on to the next chapter... parenthood. So... as soon as we got engaged we weren't really TRYING to get pregnant, but we weren't really preventing it either. And once we got married, we really started trying.

Let me tell you a little about me. I was born to be a mom. I have devoted almost my entire life to children as a teacher, director of child development centers, and now an infant and toddler specialist for YMCA of the USA. My education is about children, my career is about children, and my everyday life is about wanting children, getting ready for children, and trying to have children. I have also married a man whom I know will be such a fantastic father, and he is really ready for that next step, too. We cannot wait to become parents.

So... as soon as we got married I started charting my cycles. I started reading books (Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a great book! Thanks, Julie, for loaning it to me!) and taking my temperature every morning, peeing on sticks every month to see if I am 'about to ovulate', taking prenatal vitamins, eating right, and drinking right (no wine during the time I 'could be pregant' between ovuation and mensing, which for those that know that I make wine was not my most favorite thing to give up!).

Each month after ovulating I was very excited because I COULD be pregnant. I thought about the excitement, the due date, what season I would be hugely pregnant, if I am getting enough folic acid to promote healthy brain development, I talked about it constantly with my husband (he has been soooo patient with all my pregnancy talk and hasnt acted bored with the conversations at all! What a sensitive husband). I counted the number of high temperatures on my charts, excited that in 5, 4, 3 ... more days I can take a pregnancy test. And then I would think about how I would tell my Mom, my friends, my family all the important people in my life. I thought about how to paint the babies room, what kind of furniture I want in there, what kind of care I will choose for my child while I work, the school district we live in... I thought about EVERY imaginable that has to do with starting a family.

Then my temperature would drop, and when your pregnant it stays high. So I thought the thermometer is faulty, beause clearly I am pregnant! Afterall, I have ALL the signs and we did everything we could have and at the right times. So out to the store I would go to buy a new thermometer (I now have 6 or 7 thermometers!) Then after the temperature dropped I would start spotting or start spotting and then my temperature would drop.

I tried, I really did, to not let it get to me each month. I really tried to say, "oh well, we'll try again next month". But saying that doesnt really help. Each month I am soooo dissappointed that I misread the signs and vow to quit reading into everything that COULD be a sign, and each month I vow to not get my hopes up. But it doesnt really help, I am still really upset each time I start my period indicating that I am again NOT pregnant.

Sometimes I feel like no one really understands how frustrated it can be but I know others are in my same situation. And others have had difficulties getting pregnant, so I know I am not alone but sometimes it feels like it. And sometimes I dont want to hear that others are in the same situation becuase sometimes I wanna feel like I am the only one feeling like this and no ones situation is like mine and no one understands how it feels. Sometimes I am just feeling selfish and only care about my own situation and I dont care about anyone else's situation! But really I do care and dont want anyone else to be in this situatoin.

Ok, so after quite a few months of charting my cycles I started noticing that the time between ovulating and my uterus 'shedding the lining' was not long enough. So that means, even if I am getting pregnant each month there is not enough time for the fertilized egg to implant itself on the side of my uterus. The lining is being shed too early and the egg gets flushed out with my mestruation. So I went to my doctor, who looked at my charts and knew there was something wrong (which I knew but didnt want to admit, hearing it from a doctor really made me face it). So I went to an OB/GYN and she put me on Clomid, a fertility drug.

So far, the Clomid hasnt worked...but maybe this month. And again I am going to tell myself that I am not going to look at every symptom as a sign of pregnancy, and I am not going to get my hopes up. But ya know what? I probably am, and I am probably going to be dissappointed when I dont get pregnant again.