George, I did not miss you.

Man, I'm feeling crappy today. George arrived very shortly after I posted that he was MIA on Saturday. For all of Saturday and all of yesterday, it was light and I wasn't cramping too badly. However, I woke up this morning feeling super terrible. My uterus is rebelling against me, and my lower back is aching and I'm hoping I will make it through work without ruining any clothes. :( I can't wait to go home for the day and get my pj's on and lay on the couch and do absolutely nothing.

Yesterday was really good! Sunday school was great, although DH and I are stepping down as teachers since we don't feel like God is telling us that He needs us there any longer. We're thinking about joining the choir, as crazy as that is (neither one of us can sing very well). Lunch with DH's family was super tasty, and his mom made my favorite dessert of all time and it was just perfect. Took a nap after church with my kitties, then last night we did a prayer walk for our community and for our upcoming revival. An hour and a half of constant walking in the heat and the sun shining right in our faces later, we made it back to the church and had some tasty BBQ. I didn't eat much 'cause I was feeling pretty dehydrated and drank a ton of water, but I ate enough to feel full and actually didn't snack at all the rest of the evening! Yay for me!

Last night was also nice. I went upstairs to see what my husband was doing, and he had his headphones on and was listening to our song. :) So, when I came in he unplugged the headphones and restarted the song, and we danced. It was so nice to have that little moment of romance. We've been getting so caught up in life lately that we haven't been taking the time to do things like that. We spent the better part of last night just spending time with each other. It was nice. :) We're going to start setting aside 30 minutes a night where we just spend time with each other: no tv, no cell phones, no computers. Just us (and maybe the kitties).

I typed up part of the letter that I will be sending to Letters 2 My Uterus (http://www.wix.com/Letters2MyUterus/L2MU). I'm writing it to our future child. I have so many more I want to write, but I decided to start there. I encourage all of you ladies (and their SO's/DHs) who are struggling with infertility to think about writing it down in a letter and sending it in. For me, it's been theraputic to write what I'm feeling down on paper (or in MS Word).

BFN

I think the title explains it all. ;)

Still no sign of George, other than some mild cramping. Gonna just take it easy the rest of the day. DH and I both slept 11 hours, which is crazy. I never go to bed early, but I was out like a light at 11pm last night! Yesterday really wore me out.

DH and I took a walk in the park today. It was so nice out, not too hot. We did a mile then headed home since he had to go to work. Now it's just me and my kitties hanging out. I'm trying to decide what to eat for lunch. I'm thinking maybe a hot dog with cheese sauce. Mmm...

Another long day...13 dpo!

Quick update 'cause it's been a long day, I'm exhausted, and I'm gonna go to bed:

Still no George. Tiny bit of tan/light pink spotting this morning but it's been gone since around ten. Temp went back up today. Gonna test in the morning.

Cookout tonight with international and US college students went great. Had a ridiculous amount of fun. :)

Disaster relief training at church tomorrow from 9-2:30. Another long day. It'll be worth it, though.

Go away, George!

My temp plummeted today, all the way down to 97.6 from 98.2. I'm also feeling really crampy and yucky, so I'm about 99.5% sure George will be arriving this afternoon or definitely by sometime tomorrow. It sucks, but at least I will be moving on to a fresh cycle, which I haven't gotten to do since April!

I do, however, have some great news: I switched doctors yesterday!!! I'm so super excited. I finally decided to do the right thing and drop my doctor. He hasn't called me back in over two weeks, and quite frankly, his attitude toward my situation and the lack of common courtesy to return my messages left a bitter taste in my mouth and I just got to the point where I was sick of being given the runaround. So, I will be heading out to his office tomorrow to sign a release so that they'll fax my records over to my new doctor. I'm really pleased with the service I've received so far with my new doctor's office and after spending 10 minutes on their website, I am confident I will receive excellent care. They fit me in for an appointment on September 1, which is just six days away and that makes me so happy! :-D I'm so relieved to not have to wait another 2-3 months to try to see a doctor to get anything done. When you've spent a year and some odd months trying to get pregnant, having to wait to see your doctor every 3 months seems ridiculously stupid.

My boss actually recommended this practice months ago, and I was stupid and didn't listen. She saw the head ob-gyn at this practice for both of her pregnancies, and she just couldn't praise him more. I won't be seeing him, but I'll be seeing another ob-gyn whose credentials look great and he's also a Christian, which makes me really happy! They also have 3 midwives at this practice, which is also great because I really wanted the option to see a midwife when I get pregnant.

I guess I'm just going to try to will George away for the next 3 1/2 hours! Stay away, George, stay away!

10 dpo!

Well, I'm four days away from testing!

Symptom spotting for today: nipples are still sore, but not like they were around 6-7 dpo. Feeling sleepy a lot, but not super tired. Had some weird tightness in my abs today, like they were all tensed up.

At 7 dpo, I had some crazy cramping near my right ovary. Of course, I Googled like a mad woman to see if it could be anything pregnancy related. Lots of people said it happened to them around implantation, and lots of people said they had it and weren't pregnant. So, who knows?

I nap every day, and still go to bed at my normal time (which is like, midnight). I always hear people say pregnancy fatigue is just overwhelming, and mine's not anything like that. I've noticed that I'm getting winded much more easily and simple tasks like walking downstairs to get the mail at work is just exhausting me. My workouts are also wearing me out pretty badly, and I've been doing the same one for about 3-4 weeks now, and it's a really simple one, so I don't know what that's all about.

Work is getting more hectic, but I'm actually getting things to do now so I don't mind! Lots of fielding phone calls and stuffing envelopes, but I love it. :)

7 dpo (creative title, I know!)

Well, I'm officially now 7 dpo. I noticed this evening that my boobs feel heavy and stingy when I'm not wearing a bra. That's definitely a new development, one that I hope won't last long! I still have sore gums and the super sensitive nipples. Don't have a clue if any of it is out of the ordinary for me after ovulation or not, but we'll find out in a week!

My goal is to not test until 14 dpo (next Saturday). I want to wait that long because then I can test in the morning and DH will be here. That way, if it's a BFP, we can celebrate together. :)

I've already come up with some good ideas on how we'll tell people. I won't say anything here yet, just in case one of them finds this blog...:-P

I OVULATED!!!

WOOHOOOO!!! I OVULATED ON MY OWN! :) :) :)

My temps, cm, and super duper sore nipples have confirmed it! I can't believe that on day 129 of a (so far) 133 day cycle, I actually ovulated! My poor ovaries tried so hard for four months to do it, and once we got into that fifth month, they managed it! Now, I don't know if it was a strong ovulation or a good quality egg, but I don't care 'cause I ovulated!! :-D

I'm officially 4 days in to my first official 2WW. I've been trying not to "symptom spot" because at 4 dpo, I wouldn't have any symptoms to begin with. Of course, I'll be looking for an implantation dip sometime between 6-10 dpo ;), and once I hit 6 dpo I'll start endlessly searching the 2WW websites to see if I have any of the symptoms they list, but I think that after the crap I've gone through to even get to this point, I can allow myself a few days to pretend that we could've caught the eggie. We actually BDed on the day of ovulation, so we have a good chance.

If we didn't catch the egg, I am gonna have one heck of a bad George. Not looking forward to that at all!

Did I...?

So, for the first time in months, I really, truly think I ovulated! My poor nipples have been so sensitive, and that's only ever happened after I ovulated. My temps have shot up, too, in correlation with the day I think I ovulated (DH's birthday!) and the day my nips started making me feel uncomfortable. I really hope I'm right! My cm also matches up; I had a stretch of days where I had watery cm/EWCM, and now it's all back to infertile cm. How awesome would it be to know we conceived a baby on DH's birthday! :)

Just about five minutes ago, I heard a cat crying on our back porch. We have a lot of strays that roam around, so I thought it was one of the ones I'm familiar with. I opened the back door and peeked out. I saw a kitty's head poking out from under the fence (it has a 5 inch gap between the bottom and the ground), and I couldn't tell who it was so I whistled for them to come over. Imagine my surprise when all of a sudden, one of my cats came around the corner! We have four cats that are strictly inside cats, and one of them decided he wanted to play around outside when I went out to take some trash out. I'm so very lucky he realized that he was lost and cried for me to come get him. He's done this once before, and we were lucky to find him that time. He's now under extreme lockdown and will never go outside again. I'm going to lock him in the bathroom when I have to go out!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DH!

Today's my DH's birthday. I'm so happy that God orchestrated his birth 28 years ago today so that I could be his wife 28 years later! :) We haven't gotten to spend much time together today, since I slept until 1pm today (didn't get to bed 'til 4...long day yesterday!) and he had to work at 3. The little bit of time we had together though was awesome.

I spent the day yesterday sweating my butt off! After work, my good friend and I traveled to Cincinnati for the Skillet/Creed concert. Her car has no AC, so we made the 3+ hour trip in 100-degree heat. Needless to say, our clothes were completely sweat-soaked by the time we got there. We had lunch with a friend from college, which was a nice break (and his place had AC!) and it was so nice to get to see him after all this time! The concert was really fun, though. I loved Skillet! Creed was okay, but I wish Skillet had headlined. I would've loved to see and hear them more!

Since yesterday was such a travel-heavy day, I didn't get to eat healthy. I had two spicy chicken go wraps from Wendy's for lunch and buffalo chicken nuggets from Popeyes for dinner, followed up by a caramel frappe from McDonalds for dessert. The buffalo chicken nuggets did not sit well, and I was lucky enough to make it to a bathroom at the concert before I utterly embarrassed myself. My stomach was still killing me this morning when I woke up, but I haven't had any real problems the rest of today with it. Hopefully that's all over!

I didn't get to exercise yesterday, which sucks. I haven't missed a workout in months, but I'm going to make it up tonight. It won't be as heavy a workout as I have been doing lately since I don't want to do anything to overheat myself and risk getting sick again. I'm going to focus on my arms tonight instead of doing a billion lunges and ab crunches and push ups. DH got me a resistance band so I will be able to use that tonight! I'm still trying to find a body band. Haven't been able to shop anywhere to look, but I'm hoping sometime this week I can get to the mall to see if Dick's has any.

Money issues are sucking lately. My insurance hasn't covered any of my doctor visits and lab tests in the past 3 months, so it's all going to have to come out of my pocket. I haven't gotten my first paycheck from work yet, and probably won't until the end of August, and I've already got about $1200 in medical bills. I'm only going to be getting maybe $550 per paycheck, and I've got other bills that need to be taken care of. It'll take a few pay cycles to get everything straightened out, but I have faith that God will provide the means for us to cover the important things. :)

Not a good day.

*sigh* Today was awfully frustrating. I called my doctor only to find out that 1) he doesn't work on Wednesdays and 2) he wants to put me on BCPs for a couple of months to get rid of my cysts (my PCOS cysts...the itty bitty ones that are basically always there and don't really affect anything). At my last appointment, I thought I made it clear that BCPs weren't an option considering I've been trying for well over a year to get pregnant and BCPs don't exactly help in that aspect. So, I told the nurse today that I would not get back on BCPs. She said she'd talk with him in the morning and see what he says. I'm really hoping he'll do what we'd decided at my last appointment and start me on Clomid. If not, I will ask him for a referral to an RE. I'm quite tired of his hesitancy to put me on Clomid. I know the risks and the side effects, and my husband and I have decided that they are worth it. If I am all right with it, then he needs to be as well. I realize I'm the first person he's had to treat with this type of infertility, but my goodness, something has to be done. I refuse to take essentially a 2-3 month break from TTC when I've tried for so long already. I just hope things work out tomorrow and that I can really start making some progress on trying to ovulate.

Felipe!

Woo! I just finished a hefty workout. I added BL levels 2 and 3 together today and did them. Boy, were my arms worn out by the time I got to level 3! I toughed it out, though, and now I feel all accomplished. :) I've gotta stop doing these workouts at night, though. I always end up getting really hungry and my sleepiness goes away, which doesn't make for a very awake person when it's time to get up for work! I needed that workout after dinner tonight, though. I had a huge piece of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, so I had to burn that off (or at least attempt to).

Not that it's any big surprise, but I didn't ovulate before. FF still gives me crosshairs, but at 23 dpo with negative HPTs and no pregnancy "symptoms" (signs, maybe? Symptoms are associated with sicknesses or diseases, and pregnancy is neither!), it's just keeping them on there for no reason. I could override it, but I don't want to. I'll do it once I end this cycle, though.

No phone calls today from my doctor, but I'll give him until tomorrow afternoon. If I don't hear anything by 3pm, I'll call and see what's going on. My Provera has been just sitting upstairs in my bedroom, waiting patiently on me to take it!

I've had terrible acid reflux almost all day. It started around 10:30 or so, after I went to get the mail at work. The stairwell smelled absolutely terrible! The smell was making my throat constrict. It was almost like an aniline smell (I was unfortunate enough to smell aniline while in organic chemistry...I do not recommend it!). After that, I just had terrible acid burning in my throat and stomach all day. It made Felipe hurt (long story...in a nutshell, Felipe is a pain near my gallbladder that I've had for 2+ years and doctors have had no idea so far as to what it is), and that's been hurting all day. I've been uncomfortable in every position except laying flat on my back, and since I've been up and about all day, I haven't been comfortable at all! I'm going to be awfully sore in the morning from the constant ache today. It's also made me super bloated. I honestly look 4-5 months pregnant! I sometimes wonder if I could figure out what Felipe is and fix it, maybe that would remove a lot of my bloaty belly...

I think I'm going to start a Couch to 5K program next week. I know DH would be happy to have a running partner, although I'd go in the evenings with him instead of his morning runs. He would like that, too...he runs way more than I do, so I'd hold him back if he waited to workout solely with me.

Worn out

Today was such a long day. We had church this morning, and neither one of us got very good sleep last night thanks to some very rambunctious and needy cats. Then, we went to the in-laws' house and had lunch. After that, we made homemade pudding pies for church this evening. I snuck in a 10 minute nap, then headed to church and did some processing in the library before the service. It was a truly wonderful evening, with lots of prayer. I'm really looking forward to our revival in September!

FF is starting to think that maybe I didn't ovulate. It's always been a bit slower than me on that front. The solid crosshairs are now dashed, and probably will remain that way until I start a new cycle. I should be hearing back from my doc sometime in the next 2-3 days, and I'm hoping it's good news!

Ashamed

I feel like a total failure. Surprisingly, I don't feel like a failure in the TTC department, but in the "life" department. I recently graduated with my master's in chemistry, and in order to pursue my dream of becoming a mother, I continued working at my part-time job at the university instead of taking a really great job in Columbus, OH. My hours are great, the time off is wonderful, and the money is enough to help pay for insurance and other medical costs as well as allowing us to save a good chunk of it. My boss is a wonderful lady who didn't have PCOS but had spent two years TTC her first son. She told me that my hours were flexible and that once I got pregnant, I could come in whenever I needed to as long as I got my 20 hours a week in. I can take off whenever I need to for appointments and tests. It's really a sweet deal, but the real issue comes in with my old professors.

The head of the chem department stopped in my office today and said, "Didn't you graduate?" I felt so utterly embarrassed and ashamed for still being here instead of "making something of myself" and getting a PhD or working at a job in my field. I love the head of the chem dept, he was a great professor and I enjoyed learning from him, but I felt like I was disappointing him by not doing anything with the education he and the department gave me. I don't even want to go near the science building because I don't want to run into any more of my professors, which sucks 'cause I miss many of them. I've taken to just telling everyone that I haven't decided yet whether to get a job or a PhD, because I can't tell them I'm staying here because I'm trying to have a baby. I just hate that I'm so ashamed of myself, because I'm truly where I want to be. :(

My results explained (somewhat)!

The nurse called me back and made me feel much better about my results. When I mentioned to her that my copy of the results said that I had multiple cysts on my ovaries, she was initially quite confused because her copy (my file) said that I had multiple follicles, which is a good thing. She checked the task notes and saw that it did in fact say multiple cysts, but since I have PCOS my ovaries always have little tiny cysts on them. So, she said everything came back perfectly normal (PCOS cysts aside) and hopefully I should be able to start Clomid very soon! Unfortunately, my doctor isn't in the office all this week so I have to wait until next week to speak with him, but knowing that everything came back all right really makes me happy! :)

I'm still having really random, really really light spotting. I've had two times where it was a decent bit of pink/brown blood mixed with cm, and if it had continued at that amount I would've called it a light period, but that's pretty much disappeared. I had terrible crankiness yesterday that felt like PMS, but I guess we'll just have to see. I may have to break down and test again if this continues. My temps are still above the coverline (not that that means much), and with the absence of an actual period, I suppose I could be pregnant but honestly, I doubt it. I don't have any symptoms whatsoever that would lead me to think that other than the absent George, but then again, I also doubt if I even ovulated so who knows.

Tonight is Movie Night at DH's parents' house. We're watching 'Julie and Julia'. It's a movie I never really thought I'd watch, but I will for my MIL. Hopefully I'll enjoy it! ;)

Cysts, cysts, and more cysts!

Well, I got my ultrasound results back today. I've got multiple cysts on my ovaries. Whether they are the tiny PCOS cysts or big ol' cysts is TBD. My doctor's nurse is supposed to give me a call back sometime this afternoon so I can see if my doctor told her anything about further treatment. I'll bet he hasn't, though, so I won't get any new information and will be waiting in limbo until he decided to finally give me some options. I'm frustrated since I really thought I could get Clomid started soon, but I guess it's not time yet.

Had some more bleeding today, but still not enough to warrant the use of a pad or tampon. If it stayed at the level it's at now, but happened just a bit more frequently, I could see using a light tampon, but it's so sporadic I'm not even gonna bother. I wish it would just increase so I could start a new cycle. :(

Anytime now, George...

UGH. I don't think my period's ever gonna come! Sunday night, I had some pink spotting, so I thought, Yay I'm actually having a period! Then, I had brown spotting Monday morning and was excited still. Then....absolutely nothing the rest of the day. So, this morning when I woke up and had brown cm, I thought, Okay, it's coming now! But, I haven't had anything else the rest of today. So, to sum: I have no idea what my body is doing and it's annoying. My temps have leveled out to where I can typically expect to see 97.1 or 96.8. It's strange how it's been jumping between those two temps for the past week. I've never had such an even stretch of temps. I know it's not the thermometer, so maybe my body's finally regulating itself?

I started back to work yesterday, which is nice. I like having something to do, even if it's just piddling around on Facebook somewhere other than my couch. ;)

To move or not to move; that is the question.

Oh, today has been stressful. My mom's been in the process of trying to sell her house, and she's really been hitting me up today to move in to it so she doesn't have to give it up. Problem is, I don't want to move away from where we are now. We absolutely love our church family, and I really don't want to leave them. I would love to be in a huge house with a nice backyard and be close to my family, but I hate the location and wouldn't want to send my kids to school in that district. I just don't really want to move back to my hometown. There aren't any job prospects there. I know we could turn around and sell the house whenever we wanted to move, but I have so much where we live now that I don't want to give up. It stresses me out to think about. It's definitely something DH and I would have to discuss in detail and for a long time. Luckily, we can't move anywhere until May, so we have a lot of time to talk about it.

Temp went down today, but is still above the coverline. I'm not going to bother testing unless DH pushes for it. I know I'm not pregnant, so I don't see the point in wasting the tests (even though they're cheapie Dollar Tree tests). I'm really hoping my doctor will call early this week and we can get the Provera/Clomid treatment started. I'm so excited to finally get the ball rolling and get my ovaries working!