The 2ww, Another One is Preggers, Decisions, and more waiting....

Lots is new.

Still on the 2ww. I am now 6 DPO, and fighting the good fight so that I don't start peeing on HPTs too early! Surprisingly, this time around, it's easier. We've been so busy that maybe my mind isn't as occupied. Maybe that's a good thing? Maybe not? Who knows. :)

I learned today that another one of my friends is pregnant with her first. I totally guessed it - she cancelled our lunch 2 weeks ago because she called in sick, and then today, she told me she is 10.5 weeks pregnant. When you are TTC like I am, it's AMAZING how quickly you pick up on others who are pregnant and either not yet showing and/or not yet telling people.

I am so glad I guessed it ahead of time, because before I met her for coffee today, I kept telling myself in my head, "Okay, Mrs. D., if she tells you that she's pregnant, you HAVE to show the excited emotion. You need to be SO EXCITED for her - don't let her think for a moment that you aren't thrilled for her." And I truly AM excited for her. Had I not guessed it before our coffee, I am not sure what my reaction would have been (I am sure I would have been happy, but it would have felt like a knife in my stomach).

It's just that horrible feeling of "why not me?" We've been married so much longer than they have - not that our wedding date makes us any more deserving than others. Mr. D. and I went to her wedding in Chicago in August 2008, and I'm sure people judge the fact that we haven't had children yet. Either they think: 1) you don't want children, or 2) you're having problems trying to get pregnant. I got "the look" from my friend today as I was celebrating her special news at Starbucks. It's almost like people just know...they give me this subtle look, that, to me, screams, "Oh, honey, you're having problems trying to conceive. That must really be rough." Ugh.

As if TTC isn't taking over my life, we are signing papers this weekend to put our house on the market. More to come in this area of my life, but let me just say that we haven't even signed the contract yet, and I am freaking out. What if nobody buys our house? We will know within a few weeks if our house is going to sell - Mr. D and I are prepared to put it on the market at a very low price and pay off the mortgage we owe. It's been a long time saving tons of money, but it's the right decision for us. I just pray it sells!

I seriously pray all the time. With all of these different - crazy - things Mr. D and I are both focused on, I feel guilty asking Him for everything that I want.

Instead, I ask Him for help, strength, and to guide us to make the right decisions and give us the right blessings at the right time. If that means that selling the house is the right decision right now, then I pray that the Lord will help us with that process. If it means giving us a baby, which I have dreamed and prayed for, I know the Lord will give us a child when it is the right time.

If we move forward with putting the house on the market (which is pretty much solidified at this point), I am thinking about what that would mean for my TTC efforts. I am considering taking a break... almost like a leave of absence :) I haven't talked to Mr. D about this, and have no idea what his thoughts are yet.

As I am typing this, I am sitting at my computer in my second bedroom (which I thought would have been our baby's room by now), absolutely bawling, thinking that I will be postponing my dream. But I have learned a lot about myself lately. I don't do well with not being able to get something I plan for. It's never, in my life, happened to me. I wanted a husband.... BAM, I found him. I wanted a kick-ass job in HR... BAM, I got it. I want those new stilettos at the mall... BAM, I buy them. But... I've worked my ass off for everything I've received - don't get me wrong. With hard work comes reward, and I know what I need to do in order to give myself what is yearned.

But this TTC thing is out of my control.

I am exhausted, sad, and empty more than anyone knows. It's been a really rough road, full of ups and downs, and I am really tired in so many ways. The best thing is that I put on such a great face for those around me, who have no idea that I am in so much pain.

So, as I contemplate my next steps, I pray for the following:

- ...that my 2ww will turn into a healthy, beautiful pregnancy, and I will finally have the opportunity to start the family I've prayed for and wanted for so long
- ...that God will watch over us as we make some tough decisions about our house and - if I am not pregnant - about our TTC efforts for the next few months
- ...for my well-being. Nobody in the world - including Mr. D knows how horribly depressing this whole process has been, and the toll it's taken on me as a woman. I am ready to be whole again - whether that be with baby or not.

Thanks for listening. I keep praying that THIS IS THE MONTH!!

Low, low, low, high, high, high... PEAK

It has arrived, my friends. No, not AF (come on now, who would be excited about that?) .... the big O.

CBFM and I had a little heart-to-heart this morning before I peed on a stick and plugged it in. It was basically a plea to my beloved CBFM, hoping that I am not crazy, and those were in fact ovulation cramps yesterday that I was feeling.

I was right. Peak!

Of course, it was a SUPER busy day for me at work today. Since starting my new job 6 weeks ago, I have had pretty much one project... that all culminated with a huge presentation today in front of people who I planned a 3-day meeting for. Lots of important people in attendance, including a couple of high-ups in the field who flew here to participate. My boss, my boss' boss, and my boss' boss' boss were there to support (I mean, critique) me. I was in work by 7 a.m., and just got home now (8 p.m. CST), as there were social hours and dinner after the big day.

The day was awesome. Seriously, I nailed it and my boss was there to witness it. She was thrilled, and I was proud of myself. It was awesome.

But what was I thinking all day during this defining moment in my career?

"I need to get home ASAP to BD. I wonder if I should see if I can somehow go home over lunch and then come back?"

At 7:30 p.m., after dinner with my out-of-town business visitors and team, I race home, wondering the whole ride home how long it will take me to unbutton my pants and slip out of my bra.

I arrive home. Shit. Totally forgot that Mr. D has softball. I couldn't help but laugh - seriously, this whole escapade of planning is crazy!

I just called Mr. D's parents (where our dog is for the day, so I know Mr. D has to stop there before coming home), and told them to have Mr. D call me as soon as he gets there so I know what time he will be home (his cell phone battery died). My father-in-law was like, "Why? Are you okay? What's wrong?" I just shook my head and repeated my request to have Mr. D call.

So, I am at home, waiting patiently for my Mr. D. He knows it's peak, and we have at least one more BD session to do - if not one more tomorrow night. That way, all bases are covered.

Two week wait, here I come.

Insert Foot Here

Call it bad luck, call it coincidence, or call it plain old bad judgement of the conversations I hold. I don't care what you call it, but seriously, I can not get away from women talking about pregnancy.

Not that I mind talking to my friends about it. Truly - and I absolutely mean this when I say - excuse me, type - this... I love hearing from my friends who are expecting or already have babies. I love imagining them as mothers, welcoming their little ones to the world, buying baby gifts, you name it.

But what I can not avoid, for some reason, is women - non-friends - talking to me about pregnancy, childbirth, children, teething, pre-school, and being a mom.

Picture this one. I am sitting with one of my co-workers, C, this afternoon. She is SUPER nice - mid-to-late 30s, beautiful, great body, makes a great living. C has 4 little ones - ages 7, 5, 3, and 1. Two boys and two girls. And she's hilarious. I mean, this girl is always cracking jokes and often laughs about the fact that her life is totally crazy, driven by 4 active kids.

So, we're working on this project together, and we start talking about where she lives. Here was our conversation:

Mrs. D: I know someone who lives in your same town.
C: Oh, really? Who are they?
Mrs. D: You probably don't know them, but... [Mrs. D inserts names and references to people here]. They just had their second baby about 2 weeks ago. Their first kid is almost 6 years old, and it took a lot for them to get pregnant with their second.

Stop here. Damn it. I have no idea why I chose to spurt out that our acquaintences just had a second baby, let alone that it took them awhile to conceive him. I caught myself just as I was ending the sentence. Insert foot into mouth. What happened next was totally appropriate for C's response to my awkward comment, and I knew what C was going to say as soon as I finished my way-too-open-sentence.

Resume conversation:

C: Oh, that just breaks my heart. Why is it that people like me who want to have kids have absolutely no trouble getting pregnant? And I mean absolutely NO trouble... every time we wanted to have a baby, we tried and I was pregnant the next month. Then I hear about people who can't have babies or have a really tough time conceiving, and I feel so bad. My friend had a really tough time getting pregnant and every time I got pregnant, I felt so bad telling her. I know she was always excited for me, but I still felt so bad.

I stared at C for what felt like 20 minutes (I am sure it was about 2 seconds, but you know the feeling when you are in total shock). I have no idea if she has any clue that we are facing issues with infertility - but then I look at our situation from an outsider's perspective and think, "they've been married 4 years, always wanted kids, are in a really good place in their lives.... yeah, they must be having problems."

I kind of said a quick, "yeah, that is too bad" and moved right along in our project. I couldn't tell if C had any idea that she pretty much just described where I have been emotionally and physically for the past 1.5 years, but I couldn't bring myself to talk any more about it. I seriously bring this shit on myself. I mean, who starts talking about an acquaintence who had troubles conceiving to a co-worker? RANDOM.

It's tough for the TTC thing not to take over your life. My 2:30 p.m. e-mail to Mr. D had no subject line, and in the body said, "what time are you coming to get me from work, because we need to make sure we BD before your softball game."

No, "I love you honey and hope you're having a great day" or, "what should we make for dinner?" or even, "I know I've reminded you 10 times, but I'm getting kinda pissed, so make sure to call our financial planner with the questions we outlined."

It's all about the baby-makin.

My new vow to myself: figure out how not to talk about babies, pregnancy, etc. all the time. That even means with myself... I need to give my own head a break from TTC.

No O yet, but I felt some amazingly sharp, ovulation-like cramps today that must be O cramps. CBFM was still at high this morning, but I bet it will show peak tomorrow (here I go again, making bets with myself). I peed on two disposable OPKs today - one this morning and one after work. Both look kinda positive, but I think they are so hard to read. I'll wait until tomorrow to check CBFM. Either way, I know I felt O cramps, so we're putting it into high gear and BDing now and tomorrow.

It's amazing what you can feel when you are totally in tune with your body. I hope that's the same when I conceive some day.

Do I Look Pregnant, or Just Fat?

Back from the cabin. I was re-reading my last post, and I guess I owe myself $5, because I haven't peaked yet. This is the first and only time I will say this... thank goodness I did not O over the weekend. It took a lot of pressure off me to figure out how I was going to grab Mr. D and make sure we were doing our best to attempt. We actually didn't BD at all at the cabin, which was just fine with both of us... it would have been interesting to attempt sex on a creaky, old cabin bed. I much prefer my own bed.

The weekend was okay, although the sun never popped out under the thick clouds. We were with 3 other couples - two of which are currently expecting (one is who I just went to a baby shower for, and the other was the one who announced her pregnancy to friends during the baby shower... I wrote about that lovely experience in an earlier post). Momma-to-be #1 is about to pop - I think her due date is June 19, so I got to hear all about how life is going to change so much for them in a couple weeks and "oh my gosh, what if my water broke at the cabin?", and on-and-on-and-on. She actually was pretty calm over the weekend, and I am excited for her to welcome her son in the next couple weeks.

Momma-to-be #2 was flat-out annoying, and asked me straight out at least two times, "Do you think I look fat or do I look pregnant?" She's at that awkward stage of being somewhere around 16 weeks, so you could really go either way. My first - polite - answer to that stupid question was, "Oh, I think you look fine - by the way, I really like your shirt" - total line of BS. Mr. D read right into that one as I caught him smirking. When she asked me the same question a couple hours later, when I had a few cocktails down, my response was a bit more irritated. I think I said something to the effect of, "Did you just seriously ask me that again? I don't know if you look fat or pregnant. Who cares?" Maybe that wasn't the nicest response, but I couldn't help it. That was only night #1 up at the cabin, and I was already sick of her ensuring the waiter brought her "VIRGIN bloody marys" and explaining to the waiter that she and the other woman are expecting. Barf. I can see myself being that excited and talking to Mr. D about it, but in front of other couples? Annoying.

I was exhausted this weekend. I think all of the pressure of TTC, monitoring, testing, etc. is really making me tired. On top of listening to pregnant women gush about how excited they are as they rest their hands on their bellies, I was not in the mood to party. I was in bed each night by 10:00 - beating both pregnant women and the others to bed each night. I didn't care. I needed rest.

So, still waiting on the big O. It really should be here any day now, so Mr. D and I had our little fun this afternoon after getting back from the cabin. Given I was on Clomid 100 mgs this month, I would be shocked if I don't O, but of course now I am second-guessing everything. Oh, well, it will all happen in due time.

Planning

It's cycle day 15, and no peak yet. I always get a little nervous around this cycle day each month... are we BD'ing enough? Am I allowing enough time between "sessions"? Am I going to O this month? It turns into a game of planning... calendars, schedules, tests, everything. If my calculations are correct, I should be ovulating on Saturday or Sunday.

A few months ago, we found out that the annual trip we do each year with our friends up north (imagine cabins, a lake, pontoon, bars that are on the lake.... it's so much fun) has been scheduled for this weekend. Great. That means that, between the beers, outdoor time, BBQs, and time spent with friends, I will need to whisper in Mr. D's ear that "it's time", and we get to quietly BD on a old-school cabin full-size bed with itchy sheets and a horrible mattress. All this time, we will be doing our best to not make any noise and make it quick... after all, our friends will be thinking, "are they seriously getting it on in there?" Embarrassing.

Hopefully the big O surprises me and shows up early - as in, tomorrow or Friday. Or, I would be equally as happy if the big O showed up on Monday or Tuesday. But, just my luck, I will put $5 on the fact that my lovely CBFM will show that beautiful, holy peak right when we are ready to jump on the pontoon for the day. Mr. D is prepared and knows that I am expecting to O this month at the worst time possible, but we are totally at the point of just shrugging our shoulders. All of our meticulous planning hasn't got us anywhere yet, so maybe by just letting it happen this month, it will work to our benefit!

The every-other night BD thing is working really well so far (or, at least, allowing 48 hours between BDs). Without giving too much detail, I will just leave it at that. The experts know what they are talking about when they advise to give your man a day to "rest".

Here's to a peak.... soon!!

Not Alone

There are so many people in the same boat as us. Wow. Comfort isn't in the numbers of women who are struggling and numerous stories of TTC. Comfort is knowing that there is a huge community of people who sincerely care about sharing their story (ups, downs, you name it) and allowing others to share in their excitement, grief, and frustration of this process. This blog never would have came to be if I didn't turn to my computer and think, "there have got to be other people experiencing this... I want to find them."

One blog I ran across is on my blog list of ones I follow: http://fertilityfrenzy.blogspot.com/. I don't know what it is about her blog, but Dana, who writes about her struggles to become and stay pregnant (and is now expecting), really captured my attention. I don't know her, and probably won't meet her, but just by her sharing her story, I feel like I am engaged in her journey. And that's what this whole blog adventure is about.

I hope that if others stumble upon my blog, I am an inspiration to them to share their story. TTC is the most private experience, and if you are like me, the last thing you want to do is blab your plans and attempts to everyone you know. But, sharing your story in some form is healing. Or, at least, I have personally found this experience to be a good outlet for me. I can count on one hand the number of people in my life who know that I have this blog... and that number includes Mr. D and myself. Maybe at some point I will want to share with my family and friends, but not yet. It's still sensitive enough to Mr. D and me that I don't want to share with my acquaintences. But sharing it online only helps me gain support and a sincere, humble, reassuring sense of "I am not alone."

Pre-pregnancy Weight?

As I've mentioned, I've been reading a lot. Something that I've come across in my research is a concept that I think is really interesting... pre-pregnancy weight, meaning the pounds women put on as they are attempting to conceive. Think about the Freshmen-10 that you were scared shitless to gain your first year in college... kinda the same concept.

I've totally noticed I've put on weight. Probably 10 pounds or so since December (I rarely weigh myself, but can tell when my clothes fit differently). Ten pounds on me doesn't look all that different on me to most people though - being 5'7", it's one of the nice things about being a taller woman. Ten pounds doesn't look like ten pounds on a 5'2" woman. But regardless, I've put on a little bit of weight.

The more I thought about it in my own situation, it totally makes sense. It's not that I've stopped exercising and became a couch potato eating Doritos every night (although that does sound good), but it's almost like I've been trying to prep my body for a baby. I can't explain it, but I know subconsiously I've been holding out on as much exercise as I should get because I'm trying to "lay low" and relax. I smirk at this, thinking, the cardinal rule of becoming pregnant is to be healthy - in your relationships, body, mind, etc. Maybe I need to focus on the 'body' part of that equation.

So, what did I do this weekend, after I came to the realization that I am indeed packing on the pre-pregnancy pounds? In true Mrs. D style - balls to the walls, so to speak - I worked it this weekend. Oh, yeah, I felt it afterwards, too. Miles of outdoor running on Saturday, miles of outdoor running on Monday, golfing on Monday, lots of walks. I actually feel guilty right now that I am sitting at my computer, sipping on wine, and typing... i should be outside running!

So - my commitment to myself is to my own body, not only for a body that I hope to grow inside of me someday (although that would be a great outcome, too). At work, we focus on the five components of well-being, which I love (check it out... it's based on a great book/author - Well Being: The Five Essential Elements). Health, community, social, financial, and career are the components we work with at my workplace. At first glance, sure, it seems like I've got a good handle on these factors. But really... I could do better in all of these components.

And while I have plans in place to tackle almost all five, I am going to place special focus on the health component, which is made up of physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. After all, it's not only really good for me and in my best interest, but our little one will benefit at some point, too.