Ghost of a chance

On Tuesday I took another pregnancy test. It was way too early to know anything, mostly, but B. was headed off to conferency stuff for 9 days, so I thought if there was anything to know we should find out before he went, even if all we could know was a resounding Not Yet.

Which, I suppose, is what I got. As I watched the first pink line appear, I could just just faintly make out where the second pink line would be, if it were there. Several minutes later, when the first line was dark pink and definitely all done, there was a hint of a shade of another one beside it.

Hmmm. I know what that really means is "Ask Me Later", and I will, on Friday or even Saturday if I can last that long. But having read in several internetty places that no matter how faint the line, if it's there at all that's a positive, my mind has jumped straight into "I'm Pregnant" mode.

Whoops. I vowed last night that I certainly wouldn't do anything so forward and fate-tempting as looking up a due-date calculator until I got a definite positive. I can wait a few days before getting that serious about it. November 20th. Oh, sorry, did I write that out loud?

Fuzzy into antsy

The fuzzy happily not-knowing lasted until lunchtime the next day, when it turned into antsy paranoia and I couldn't concentrate on anything until I had broken out my one remaining pregnancy test and acertained that I am not, in fact, pregnant. Even then, it wasn't till my period properly arrived on Saturday that I really believed it.

I've never so truly not known what the outcome of a p-test will be before: other times I've taken them to calm me down when I knew rationally I couldn't be, but my period just wouldn't damn well arrive till I could stop stressing about it, or the one time it was positive when I knew it would be, it was just confirming what charting my temps had already told me. This time, I was pretty nervous. And then relieved, but then disbelieving. I am ambivalent about how ready I really am for this, but I still want it now, thank you. Anyway, all over for another month.

Monkey's Converse arrived yesterday: so cute.

Fuzzy, fuzzy

Flikr seems to be down. Not only can I not noodle around my own photos, I can't even see the photos of Linda at All and Sundry's new sprog. Woe.

I just ordered a pair of Converse online for Monkey. I am currently expecting a pair of online shoes for myself to arrive in the post. I may be getting addicted to this. But, but, free shipping. Cost you more not to. (Well yes, it would cost you more not to have free shipping. It would, perhaps, not cost me more to buy no shoes, but where's the fun in that?)

Witter witter. Am I pregnant? There's an infinitessimally tiny chance that I might be. I have a pregnancy test stashed away, but will wait till at least midweek to give it a whirl. My period's only a day late, and it's not like I was Ms. Regular Mc28daysipants before. But I like this not knowing and just pretending that maybe it was as easy as that. Though really I wanted a bit more time, too, so knowing in either direction would be, in a way, less fun than this current fuzzy state.

A new resolve

As of yesterday, operation sibling is Go. I hereby resolve to keep a better pregnancy diary this time round (whenever it happens - I mean we're about to start trying, not that I'm pregnant already). Even if it's just a couple of lines noting how I'm feeling, I really want a better record of that weird and amazing time. Or maybe I should just buy a notebook and keep it the old-fashioned way. Hmm.

This time we're going to be more relaxed about it - none of that temperature-taking and stuff - but on the other hand I think I can tell when I'm ovulating nowadays, so we won't be totally uninformed either. And hopefully some time between now and, say July (which will be the third anniversary of conception numero uno), there might be two pink lines on a stick.

Of course, this will be complicated by things like, um, Weaning, and double-um, Night Weaning, which will involve B. taking the nighttime calls from over the hallway for a while (that is, as long as it takes), and there will be tears. But there are already - at 4.00 this morning I fed Monkey both sides and then said "Okay, no more now, back to sleep," and there was much trauma and banging on the door (I was right there with him) and beating me up to try to get the boobies back out. At least B. won't get beaten up, even if there's more of the yelling instead.

Also, since he already calls "Daddy!" over the monitor, we'll just be doing what he's asking for. Except that I'm Daddy too, apparently.

A tiny triumph

Wrote this on Tuesday but couldn't post it till now:

I don’t want to tempt fate, but I’m pretty sure I ovulated yesterday. Finally. After another fake-out on Friday exactly the same as the previous one, except this time I was totally certain I was definitely ovulating. Today’s high temperature was one-tenth of a degree higher than the two fake-out temperatures, and coupled with yesterday’s very tender nipples – a sure-fire indicator two cycles ago – and Sunday’s urgent and primal desire to be shagged good and hard, I hope I’m not being too hubris-laden when I say that I reckon I ovulated yesterday and my Peak Day (in fertility-speak) was Sunday.

So everything’s happy shiny in my world today because we timed things pretty well and now all I have to do is sit around and wait. Of course, this smugness is pathetic when I realise that I Only Feckin’ Ovulated. It doesn’t mean I’m pregnant at all. I have sworn off the pregnancy and baby threads at the discussion boards I frequent, for fear of jinxing anything, and I have to stop myself having conversations in my head that begin with “Boss, I’ll be finishing up in April instead of August…”.

Conception is by no stretch of the imagination a done deal. In fact, I should really assume that the chances are slim. Otherwise, I will drive myself potty.

Trivial Pursuit. Ha.

Emotional rollercoaster, yo. Really, I don’t know whether I’m a lot broodier than I thought I was or I’m just much more used to getting my own way than I’d like to believe, but the difference between yesterday, when I was totally miserable because I thought I’d already ovulated and we’d mis-timed everything and missed the boat again, and today, when my temperature is miraculously low again so in fact I haven’t yet ovulated and we can get back on the procreation bus, is undeniable. And I think I purposely made that sentence as convoluted as possible because I’m a bit embarrassed by the whole thing.

See, I had it all planned. (This is going to get technical and fertility related. Sorry about that.) I have pretty long cycles – last month I ovulated on day 21, which is a whole week later than the traditional day it should be expected. So I decided that, just to be on the safe side, we’d start the campaign for better reasons to buy ourselves children's books on day 14 of this cycle and continue until it was clear I’d ovulated, even if that meant a whole week of regimented daily canoodling (oh, the humanity).
Day 14 was yesterday, Thursday. On Wednesday, we had ample opportunity to go for it, but didn’t, because it really wasn’t necessary and we had other things to do, like sitting on the sofa. On Thursday morning I woke up to find my temperature appeared to have shifted, meaning I’d just ovulated. With no advance warning from the rest of me. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth and imperious demands for a time machine. Well, not so much with the wailing but much pouting and feeling thwarted and telling myself that I should have known better than to try to predict this month on the basis of what happened last month (and every other month since February when I came off the pill and started this charting nonsense). Even though it’s not like I was given anything else to predict with, since all the other signs (which I will not go into in this public forum, but the technical term is “ickiness”) were almost totally absent. “For fuck’s sake,” quoth I, “how the hell am I meant to get pregnant if my Window of Fertility is about twenty minutes long?”

So last night we went ahead with the plan and Got it On Anyway, just in case by some bizarre accident my high temperature that morning had been caused by the two sips of a weak gin and tonic I’d stolen the night before, or the concomitant stress of having to leave a game of Trivial Pursuit half finished.

This morning, my temperature was back down. I have not yet ovulated. The Plan can go ahead. Apparently I have a very emotional involvement with Triv, and the suspense of not winning when I was clearly in the lead caused me to have a sleepless night without even noticing it, which must be what caused the rogue temperature spike. I am all cheerful and a Lovely Person today. Tra la laaa…

Must try harder

So, where was I? Yes - to recap on the lost entry, because I'm a big prat who suddenly couldn't see the "Done!" button and decided I should click "Add an entry" instead, thus wiping everything I'd just typed...

Not pregnant. Well, no big shock there. Must try harder.

Feelings:

A) How can I not be pregnant? We've been having unprotected sex for a whole month. Surely I should be, like, knocked up multiple times over by now. All those occassions when I panicked because I was a few hours late with a pill, or something broke, or something got a bit too close to something else - suddenly it seems like it was a massive overreaction. (Of course, I was younger and probably massively more fertile, so panicking was the sensible course of action.) But I'm starting to think that it only happens if you don't so much want it to. Gah.

B) Clearly, if it didn't work the first time, it must be because it's never going to work at all. Or certainly not the second or third time, which is all the times we have before we have to stop for the moment, due to impending possibly intercontinental move in a year's time. More gah. I hate not being able to make things happen according to my exact wishes.

C) This waiting time is really annoying. It's too early to start trying again, but I'm afraid that when the time comes we just won't have enough sex because we're old and boring and too tired and have to get up early in the morning and crap excuses like that. We're so pathetic. (I'm not complaining about the quality-not-quantity aspect of my sex life, I'm really not. But perhaps in this instance, we need a return to our early 20s.) And then, even when we've done the requisite amount of the horizontal mambo, there's only a 20% chance of it working in any given month. And that's assuming all our various bits are in perfect working order, and who knows, really.

Overall, gah. I want the time to go on quickly, and yet I don't, because at least now I can still be optimistic (call this optimism?) and once I've ovulated it'll be fatalism all the way.

Lost entry

Noo. I just wrote a big entry and hit the wrong button. Gah.

Anyway. Not pregnant. There was more to it, but it'll have to wait till the muse moves me next, because I'm not typing all that crap out again.

Gulp. Tinkle. Prod. Boing. Ouch.

I very much suspect I'm not pregnant. This is disappointing, because I like things to work out exactly as I planned them. But onward to next month. I won't actually know I'm not for another week or so, but I really don't feel pregnant.

I was making a special effort to drink plenty of water last week. This is because you have to keep well hydrated if you're pregnant, and I don't usually drink very much. But I think I was secretly doing it because one symptom of early pregnancy is frequent bathroom trips (because your uterus starts pressing on your bladder). So I was going to the loo about once an hour, and I could hedge my bets as to the reason. Of course, over the weekend I didn't keep up the water intake, and everything went back to normal. On the other hand, how could a week-old blob take up enough room to make anything start pressing on anything else at this early stage?

I keep prodding my boobs to see if they're tender, but again, not really any more than the usual fluctuations of ouchiness - especially when I drive too fast over our particularly vicious speedbump in the golf cart, and have to surreptitiously cushion the girls with an arm. Of course, the prodding doesn't help.

Probably I'm not

I know, I'm completely useless. (My fingers tried to type "useful" there, but that would just be wishful thinking.) I only update periodically to stop the whole thing going offline. On the other hand, would I notice?

Mostly, I was thinking that I might resurrect this when it was time for it to be a pregnancy diary. Because that's what people do when they're pregnant. But how cliched, how predictable, how boring of me.

Anyway, there's an infinitessimal chance that I'm pregnant today. Or maybe a little bigger than that. (The chance, not me. Me being a little bigger than pregnant would be sudden and scary.) But ovulation took me by surprise (if it happened yesterday, which apparently it did but bits of me think otherwise) and I had an interesting lost-and-found experience with my cervix, and I'm trying to get my eight glasses of water in today without fail, just in case something in there needs it.

I'm sure this good behaviour will last all of two days at most. It's very odd thinking that I just might be all of one day pregnant. But probably I'm not.