I am not going to make it.

No way. No how.

There is no way that I am going to be able to resist testing until Sunday. I had to go to the store today for some other things, and it just seemed to be a good time to buy a test. Ugh. I shouldn't have, but I did. I can't help it. Every time I walk by the bathroom drawer, I think "Oh...I could just do it real quick. Just to see." And then I think, "No, just wait. It's still early yet. Just wait. Do you really want to look at another negative test?" "No...I want to see a positive one...which it could be." It's a mental struggle that no one should need to endure. I am going to try my hardest to not test tonight, because if I'm already testing "early", then I should definitely wait until morning to test with FMU. Although, my max. LP was 12 days, so theoretically speaking, if I don't get my period tomorrow, and I test, say, Saturday, then I won't really be testing early. My period would actually be a day late. I think I said that right.

Geez, I just don't know. I think if I do test tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to hold it in. There are certain people who are going to suspect early on-people who know we are trying. Two friends were just commenting the other day about how they are never going to be able to figure out when I get PG unless I tell them. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I eat ok, I already pee a lot, and I am a master at being cunning. Just to be a brat, I told them that all that was true...I could be PG right now, and they'd never know. I got some killer looks for that one.

It's sad when you buy a household product and it becomes the highlight of your day. Our kitty had a little bladder infection going on, and had an accident last week on the carpet. She's better now, but I can not seem to get the spot out, no matter what I put on it. And I've tried everything just short of straight bleach. So today when I was at the store, I decided to purchase the Bissell Little Green. It's a deep cleaner. Now, I cannot wait to finish this so that I can go clean my carpet. Man, I am a L-O-S-E-R. Whatever. At least I'll be a loser with clean carpet.

And I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up testing tonight. I suck at life.

I will not get excited.

I will not get excited.
I will not get excited.
I will not get excited.

Keep repeating to self.

My temp went up this morning. I am just waiting for the horrible plunge, followed by the horrible cramping, and then the horrible realization that it didn't work. I told H last night that I was probably going to get AF any day, so I was sorry for turning into a crazed, homicidal bitch. He is funny because I was totally fishing for him to tell me to take a test (I wouldn't be able to tell him no), and he never caught on. He just stood there, eating his ice cream, nodding his head. I would love to hear his thoughts:
"It's hot out. It's a good thing I have ice cream. I want to go fishing. Look at those guys fishing. Why don't I get to fish. I wonder how the Tigers are doing. Man, they suck. I can't believe they traded Pudge. What idiots. What's Lynette saying? Oh. Yikes. Something about her period being due any day. Please let it happen while she's at work. I wonder if it's really cold in the ice cream factory. Hmm..."

Haha. Sounds about right. I thought about testing last night. I didn't. I thought about testing this morning. I didn't. I still haven't opened the drawer in the bathroom to see what my testing options are. I'm pretty sure all I have are the cheapies that came with my OPK's. And judging by how well those worked, I don't think I could trust any result I got. I would love just wait it out and not test until the very end (unless AF shows up, obviously). But 18 days? That's another week! There's no way I can wait that long. I do not have the will-power or the patience for that. I'm thinking maybe Sunday would be a good day. Although H has already informed me that he will be hungover that day. Hmm...maybe not the best day to possibly tell him that he is now expected to clean up his act and become a responsible father. Ha...I can hear it already.
Me-"Honey, did you have fun last night?"
Him- "Hmrmmmmph....yeah. Turnalightoffffff"
Me- "Good, because that was your last night out. Surprise!"

Hehe...oh, the possibilities. I am now, however, keeping a hawks-eye on my "symptoms". Of which I have none. Well, except for peeing every 4 seconds. But since I normally pee every 5 seconds, that's not saying much of anything. Maybe a slightly increased appetite, but I'm pretty sure I just eat that much normally and don't want to admit it. Crap. There goes that one. I didn't feel very well twice yesterday morning. But once was because I drank my cranberry juice too fast and on an empty stomach. And then again because I ate eggs, which already do not agree with me 50% of the time, and I had all that juice still sloshing around in there. So yeah, neither of those count.

11 dpo.

So I have it for later...

...because I've spent the last 20 minutes searching for it.

HPT accuracy DPO

10 dpo : 35%
11 dpo : 51%
12 dpo : 62%
13 dpo : 68%
14 dpo : 74%
15 dpo : 80%
16 dpo : 88%
17 dpo : 92%
18 dpo : 99%

I'm excited because I'm not letting myself get excited.

Which may sound confusing, but it's good because it means there's a tiny part of me that wants to be excited. A small piece of me is hopeful. I feel like it's my brain and hearts natural instinct to try to protect me from a major letdown, so they just aren't letting the excitement build up like in the past. Interesting defense mechanism there.

I have a busy week ahead of me, so that's good. The dog just got fixed yesterday, so I'm busy helping him recoop. Although, he seems to be in excellent spirits and health today. And, while we're on the subject, I just decided that I don't like to say my dog got "fixed". "Fixed" implies that he was broken, that he needed repair. He wasn't broken. But I can't remember which gets spayed and which gets neutered. Boys neutered, girls spayed? I don't know. Whatever. My Chip can no longer create little Chips. There. Done. I really hope he calms down after all this. He is insane.

So, on Sunday, I went to a friends baby shower. It was mainly attended by people that we work with, so it was a umm... colorful group. I couldn't believe how many people were hungover or still drunk. That's just...special. So anyways, we were passing around a baby pool to guess the birthdate and weight of the baby, and someone suggested that we start a pool for who's going to be next. Immediately, I felt about half the eyes in the room bore into me. It stung for a second, but I saved face pretty fast and remembered that very few people (2, actually) in that room knew about my issues. Luckily, the girl who's having the baby is one of those people, and she just said, "When she's ready", and immediately changed the subject. Love her! Everyone at my work is so into everyone else's business, it drives me insane. Sure, it's nice when you need to talk to someone, but not when you come to work on Monday to hear the latest not-even-remotely-close-to-what-you-said story that's going around about you. And people don't seem to have the same communication skills at my work as most people in the everyday world do. Most people will realize when they bring up a subject and you immediately go quiet-that maybe that's not something you want to talk about. Next topic please! Not here though. If you get up and leave the room, they just follow you.

It's getting so hard for me to not be rude to people when they ask about our future children. I just feel all this rage and inner turmoil, and I want to scream in the person's face about how that's not a nice question to ask someone with fertility issues. And I want to kick them. Just once. Not hard. In the shins. Usually, I just say, "Oh, I don't know..." and kind of play it off. But I get even angrier at myself thinking about how I want to respond so cruelly to these people. Chill, Lynette. They don't know. They have no idea. They are asking a question out of genuine curiousity- they are not implying that you cannot have children. Sometimes I concern myself.

Tomorrow is the first day that would serve any purpose to test, in my mind. I don't think I will though. I think I'm just going to wait it out and see what happens. If AF shows up, well then, that's that. If not, then I might allow myself to get a little excited. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Please.

So, I finally got crosshairs for this Month! FF says that I O'd on Sunday, which is possible. And decent timing. I had to work a double that day and didn't get to use my OPK for that day, so I may have missed it. I'm happy to finally have crosshairs and I'm really happy that I was able to predict what day they would be on even before they showed up, just based on temps and my body's signals.

I'm feeling a little... odd, I guess, about this entire month. I mentioned it the last time that I blogged, and I am nervous because the anticipation is not building. I am 6 dpo, and it's not really a big deal. Even though it sucked, waiting in nervous anticipation, with that little voice in the back of your head saying "Maybe...", I wish I could experience it now. I am not getting excited, or nervous, or anxious, or anything, really. I'm just waiting it out. It feels like something has been lost, like my flame has been snuffed out entirely too early. 4 months is not that many, but it seems to be enough to have thoroughly disappointed me. Before I spent hours plotting in my head about how I would tell my husband, how we would tell our friends, and his parents. And now, I just don't care. I just want to see that test positive. That's all I want. I don't want to say that I have lost hope, but I'm beginning to wonder. We'll see next week, when it gets to be time to test.

Please let this work.

Rollercoaster... of love.

My chart is way wicked this month. I have pretty much no idea WTF is going on with it. I don't even know if I O'd this month, which would not be cool. Can that happen even? I hate my doctor. The temps are up, the temps are down, there is no consistancy whatsoever. Bah!

I feel as though I'm kind of just going through the motions of temping this month. I was wondering at what point my spirit would break, and I would lose that little bit of optimism that's been keeping me afloat. Well, it was this month. Don't get me wrong. I'm still in this 110%, I want to have a baby, I want to get PG, and I want it now. But I think I'm coming to the realization that it's not going to happen now. It's going to happen when it happens, and there's nothing else I can do about it. I'm looking a little online, and not finding any helpful info about if Clomid can work for 3 months and then not work. I am, however, finding quite a lot of sites that say if it doesn't work in 3 months, it's not going to work. Then, I find success stories that have the women on cycle 4 or 5 with Clomid. See...there's so much information out there and I wish someone could filter out the parts that aren't true. That the people who are misinformed would just not post on the internet.

Back to saying that I'm just going through the motions. I'm still temping, but I don't sit and stare at my chart for hidden clues anymore. I enter the info, look at the chart, and I'm on my way. Maybe it's because this month, there's no hidden clues that I can find. There's nothing but up and down, up and down. The OPK's have all been negative. So unless I O'd on the one day I forgot or the one day that I was at work from 9-9 and couldn't test, then I either haven't O'd or these tests suck. Take your pick, because I sure as hell don't know. Because of the Clomid, I have an idea about when I'm supposed to O, so that's helps with timing sex. But it's been different this month. I don't know if it's because I haven't been so preoccupied with with TTC and H isn't feeling so pressured, but we seriously cannot keep our hands off each other. Well, mainly I can't keep my hands off him.

For the past 3 months, I have been trying to tell myself that I had no sex drive after O; that I was so "sexed out" from all the TTC sex, I didn't want to have sex just to have sex. Well, this month has proven that wrong. Because I can not believe that there is still an O coming this month. I don't know what could have possibly delayed it this long (::runs off to google in another window about delayed O::). I can't find anything. I'll have to consult with my fastly becoming well-worn copy of TCOYF.

Some people go on a TTC break when they've reached their breaking point. They stop temping and don't time sex. I don't really feel like I'm on a mental TTC break. I am still TTC. I feel like I'm on an "over-analyzing" break. I just slowed down and paid attention to only the things that were blatently obvious. I didn't try to make something into something that it wasn't. And I'm not going to. This month anyway.

I think it's really helping that I'm distracting myself. Not with the intention of distracting myself, but that's just how it's happening. I have found a wonderful new series of books that I'm reading. And anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessive. I find something I like, and I can't stop. I do it all the way. Like TTC, like reading (I read a novel and a half on Monday), like Pirates, like anything. I take off running with things and it takes me quite a while to slow down. And I don't want to slow down. I like the speed. I do. TTC was the only thing that I started obsessing about that was not healthy for me. I couldn't stand all the waiting. I still can't, but like I said, I've slowed down. It's the way it is.

I'm now going to force myself to do the dishes before I start reading again!

I have to admit, I find this all a little confusing.

So this month, I decided to use OPKs. I think I discussed this a little a few posts down, but I don't remember. Anyways, I decided to try it. Obviously, what I'm doing isn't working, so let's add something else to the mix. Now, bear in mind, that I am an intelligent girl. I graduated from college with a decent GPA, and I am no dummy. But, I find the whole concept of OPK's a little mind-boggling. First off, I decide to order them online to save some money. They show up a few days later with nothing. No instructions, no nothing. Just the tests. Uh...ok. I don't even know which end to pee on! Come on people, give me something! So, I go to their website, and sure enough, there's a page for 'instructions'. Super. I read them carefully. I read them again. I go to take my first test on Monday. I look at the stick for answers. I think to myself, "Now, wtf does that mean?" I hop back online to look. It's now Friday and I have yet to master the OPK test stick. I think I should have just spent the extra money and bought the one that gives you a smiley face or a frown face. That I might be able to figure out. I think I should invest in a company like that. We'll develop OPKs that instead of having a boring line, will say 'DO IT' or 'GET BUSY'. Likewise, we will develop pregnancy tests that instead of lines will say 'KTFU' or 'CONGRATS' or, on the negative side 'NO AGAIN', or 'HAHA... NO'.
So anyways, I have consulted their site daily to try to make sense of it, and I just don't get it. I forgot to take my test yesterday, but my temps didn't look promising, so no biggie. I'm going to keep doing them, because maybe I'll figure it out eventually.

WTF?

So, I just started researching for my tattoo. I just wanted to read up on any possible problems with TTC and a new tattoo. I am not PG, and I am starting to realize that I can't keep holding off on everything until after I get PG. So, I'm looking into it. I google "tattoos and TTC". Nothing really. I google "tattoos and pregnancy". Um...it pops up with tons of info about getting a tattoo while pregnant. Really though? WTF, who does that? I can totally understand if you dont know you're PG, and you get a tattoo, but planning to get one when you clearly know that you are PG? I am a scarey-cat and would NEVER get a tattoo in the 2ww. If I even thought that maybe I was PG, I would steer clear of the tattoo shops. Just like I don't drink unless I have my period, I don't get tattoos unless I have my period. Lynette Rule. Ha.

I am scared.

So, even though I don't post every day on thenest.com, I go there pretty often. I just pop in when I'm not busy or have a couple extra minutes. And I have to tell you that while I love it there, all these women suffering miscarriages scares the heck out of me. I read that someone got PG, and then a couple weeks later, I read that they miscarried. Sometimes it brings me to tears, sometimes I cry. I think it's so heart-breaking. And I know that while finding out I'm PG will be the happiest moment in my life, I know that the next minute will be filled with sheer panic. I mean, so many of these women, and other women, do not do anything wrong. It's not their fault. There is nothing that they could have ever done to prevent this from happening. I just feel like when I first started thinking about TTC, I knew it was a possibility, and it happened. That's obvious. But I guess the numbers just seem so high. According to my sources, the probability of a miscarriage is 20%. But, it could be higher (40-50%) because some women miscarry before they even know they're PG, and don't really know that they have, in fact, miscarried. So, even if you just consider the 20%, that's still an alarming number to me. Every cycle, with perfectly timed sex and all, you have a 20% chance of getting pregnant. Then you have the same odds of miscarrying your child? Frightening. Very frightening. I have just found another site that says the odds are more like 10%. Still scary to me. And then, if you have a miscarriage, your odds of having another one are higher.
But, I am really putting the cart in front of the horse here. I need to just not think about this until the timing is appropriate.
In other news, I have been considering getting another tattoo, and I am now seriously looking into it. I want another one. I've got a pretty good idea of what I want, and anyone who knows me, or has read any of my blog, knows that waiting is not my thing.

Random Thoughts...

So, I am sitting around waiting to O. I have no idea when it will happen, and I find the entire process a little frustrating today. I started OPK's today, which I am not so sure about. I ordered some cheapies from a pretty popular website, and now I'm wondering if I should have just spent the extra money and bought a name-brand OPK. We'll see at the end of this cycle, I guess.
I find myself wondering what I have done in my life that is making it so difficult to get pregnant, and I can't figure it out. I am pretty much a good person, I'm honest, and I am genuine with people. I like me. I don't think it's anything that I've done, but you can't help but wonder about things like this sometimes.
We ordered new carpet and laminate flooring last week, which is very exciting. When we decided we were ready to TTC, I told H that we had to get new carpet asap. I couldn't imagine bringing a child into the world with carpet like this. I am honestly shocked that I can walk across it without wearing shower shoes or slippers or something. Now that I've thought about it, I will probably be disgusted when I do have to step on it again. It's going to look so nice when we get it all installed. Yay. And we are tearing up the carpet that's in the eating area and putting laminate flooring there. This was also a decision based on the fact that we will soon (hopefully) have children. Who puts carpet on the area where your child will be eating spaghetti and other messy foods? Who knows.
On another good note, the dog tried to rip down the curtains in the bedroom, which in and of itself does not sound like a good thing, but... in trying to rip them down, he bent the curtain rod, which is ugly and needs replacing. So now I can replace it and not feel so bad about fixing something that isn't broken. I'm going to look around for other things that I could break and blame on the dog. Ha!
I can't wait to be PG and start showing and wearing maternity tops. I think that's exciting. I'm sure I'll feel like a fat cow when it happens, but as of right now, I am looking forward to it. Note to self: read this when hugely pregnant and laugh at your own stupidity. I hope my boobs get bigger. And stay bigger. Chances are they won't stay big, but hey, a girl can dream.
I think I am going to start eating healthier. We still have lots of junk in the house, because we both are huge sweet eaters, but I think when it's gone, it's gone. No more Oreos, Snickers ice cream bars, cookie mix, or Drumsticks. Oh...Oreoooos. Yum. Gotta go. :-)

I made it.

So I survived six days from hell. Well, really it was three days from hell, but combine that with having to sleep in a tent one of the nights and realizing right before bed Saturday night that I was out of tampons, we'll call it six days of hell. The first 2-3 days are just horrible. I think it's just Karma coming to kick my ass. I never understood those girls whose periods were "Sooooo bad...." and thought they were just being sissys and milking those 7 days for all they could. Not so. I retract any previous statement I may have said about any cramping/whining/period-related anything. I have to because I am now "that girl". And I don't want to be that girl, but it just sucks. H was actually really nice and supportive the first few days when it was so bad. I am one of those people who is never 100% healthy. I always have allergies bugging me or a stuffy nose or my leg hurts or I think I'm developing a tumor on the back of my neck, etc. I am kind of a sissy. Not in the aspect that I make it up-I don't. I just do not find it easy to ignore physical ailments. But when I am really sick, all I do is lay in bed and sleep. Or just lay there. No TV, no book, no music, no food, no nothing. I have even considered kicking the cat out of bed when I'm not feeling well, but she cuddles me and makes me feel better most of the time. So after I spent the first day after work in bed, H knew that something was definately up. He actually told me that he was happy he wasn't a girl, because he never wanted to feel as bad as I looked. Not exactly a compliment, but it helped. So, in summary, I am still alive. I finished Clomid tonight. And it's our 2-year anniversary. Yay us!

I am emotionally unstable.

So, as I sit here trying to write this, I have to stop every couple minutes to squint my eyes and double over in pain from stupid AF. Yes, she showed up and she is a cruel bitch. Clomid has made my not so bad, only light cramping on the first day periods turn into heartless painful and pretty much horrifying cramps kind of period. Combine that with not being PG, and you get a freaking mess. Which is me. I am maxed out on my dosage of Midol, and yesterday all I wanted to do was lay in bed. Bahhh.