Whoooaaaa, man, deja vu.

My temp has been the same (96.8) for three days now, and for three days now, it's been high/soft/open cervix and eggwhite fluid. I made DH take his temp to test the thermometer. It gave a different temperature, so I guess it's working ok. That's not abnormal or anything, it's the average pre-O temp. It's just odd to see the same temp three days in a row.

I hope I ovulate soon, but I'm settling in for at least a few more days, as I am still getting twinging on both ovaries, indicating follicles are still developing on both sides. That's not a bad thing necessarily, since we ended up not having sex last night after all. That was unintentionally keeping with the 'plan' of 2 days of sex, 1 night off. Sad thing was that I actually wanted to have sex yesterday, but circumstances kept getting in the way. While sex ended up being very, erm, enjoyable on Friday and Saturday, not really feeling up for it going in was a let down. Missing out on an actual urge for sex blows!

I am feeling a lot more relaxed this cycle so far. Like I've gotten out a lot of anxiety and can be more patient. I guess I'm feeling more like it's out of my hands. I mean, apart from making sure we actually have sex so that we're not attempting to recreate the immaculate conception, it is out of my hands. Maybe I'm feeling more philosophical about it all this cycle. I don't know how long it will last, so I'm just trying to enjoy it.

You know what I think the big thing is? It's more normal now. I don't feel like I'm walking around wearing a sign that says "I'm having unprotected sex in the hopes of creating spawn!" (or something like that). It's not a Thing! anymore, it's just what we're doing, like eating well or trying to hit the gym more or working on my hobbies. So that makes it more familiar.

Still, I'd like to go ahead and get pregnant. Cause you know, we want kids and all.

It's Friday.

Hallelujah.

I am so tired of work. I just want to be at home. This is the first time on this job where I have been so uninterested in making an effort. However, I worked pretty hard today and got lots of stuff wrapped up, so I'm feeling pretty good about this week overall. Actually accomplishing some stuff has made me feel better (as has things returning to normal from a disruption post vacation), so I think I will enjoy rest this weekend (I intend to sleep a LOT) and then I will be back in the swing of things on Monday. God knows there is plenty to be done.

So nothing much has changed from yesterday. I'm starting to feel more interested in working out. I think the more regular plans for Wednesday nights are making me want to get the rest of the week into a better routine. That means working out Monday, Tuesday for at least 30 minutes, and then the same Thursday and Friday. I don't care if I go home and swim (I like that a lot), but the weather has not been cooperative and unless they clean the pool this weekend, I hesitate to use it, honestly, because we've had so much rain. And then yoga on the weekends. That is a feasible, good routine. Now to actually make it happen!

I really, really am looking forward to getting home tonight, snuggling up in jammies and curling up with the laptop. I have found a few new sites of interest and am enjoying making my way through them. The Dh has two new video games - so I'm not just shutting him out or anything. These have been fun evenings this week.

Time out

I'm a little annoyed with Dh right now. He had to be at work at 8 today; we normally arrive at 8:30-8:45. Getting here by 8:00 requires that we get up a full hour and a half earlier, so that we can stumble around a bit and leave ample time for dealing with heavy traffic (by 8:10, around when we normally leave, traffic has lightened up considerably. It takes 20 minutes instead of 45+). I can't argue with his needing to be there when the office opened - I've done it too. What annoys me is that he failed to remind me last night. I stayed up late working doing a bit of research for something I think I'm going to try and write. Normally, my rule of thumb for both DH and myself is that if you are stupid enough to stay up late, then you are going to have to suck it up and be tired and not bitch about it. After all, we're adults here who are capable of understanding and dealing with consequences for our behaviors. But this time, I blame DH, because he let me stay up without once saying "Hey, don't forget we have to be up early tomorrow, so you might want to wrap this up." So I wanted to kick him in the face when he woke me up nearly two full hours earlier than I was expecting. Five hours of sleep isn't enough and it leaves me VERY cranky.

But I am a big girl, and he did mention it to me at least once yesterday, and I chose to stay up late, so I'm limiting my annoyance to here and one nicely phrased request that next time he remind me in the evening before it gets too late.

In other news, we went out with our friend Dave last night. It was his birthday, and it was fun to see him, since it's been about six months. We always say we need to do this more often, and never follow through, so he decided on the spot that we need to do this the first Wednesday of every month, and maybe a little more often as the case may be. Dh and I were both happy with this arrangement, since we really do miss seeing him. Of course, that means next week, but hey, why not? I think it'll be a good way to get in the habit of adult time now. I think making Wednesday our default date/outing night and getting used to budgeting that timewise and moneywise is a great idea.

Now, even though I'm tired, I'm actually feeling a bit more interested and upbeat about ttc than I have been the past few days. Maybe because my cervix is definitely soft and open and because my fluid is very wet (if still a little creamy in appearance) so I can tell things are finally happening. It sounds awful, but I just haven't been looking forward to the sex. I really enjoyed the individual sessions (if you will) last time, but the thought of another two weeks of frequent sex were really mentally exhausting me. We need to have more sex generally, and I thought ttc would help with this, but while the volume has increased a ton, we've been so tired afterwards that we didn't have sex again for a long time. It's just not a huge factor in our relationship like I see it is with some other people. I try not to worry about it, because when we discuss it, we're pretty happy with our sex life. We both have thought we should work on an increase to some extent, and now we are, and we are enjoying each other more, but we're ok with things. So why compare to other people with different lives, you know?

Anyway, despite feeling cranky and grouchy on one hand, I'm actually feeling happier and more optimisitic on the other. I like that.

Not much to say.

I'm just hanging around, waiting to be fertile. I'm at a sort of inbetween point right now. Very milky cm - not quite creamy, not quite watery. Just hanging out. We could go ahead and start having sex, but it doesn't seem either of us are that interested. I've missed a day and a half of work because of bad headaches and exhaustion. I've kept DH up, so he's tired too. So sex just doesn't seem like a big priority right now.

Meh.

We'll probably try to get things rolling tonight, since fertility seems to be just around the corner. I'm really envious of people with perfect 28 day cycles, because I'm tired of hanging around waiting on cd 13, not even being fertile yet.

To be honest, and I think this is a function of feeling utterly exhausted, I'm sort of tired of the whole thing and uninterested. I realized, when replying to a post about ovulation pain, that we had about as perfect timing as we possible could. We had sex about an hour before ovulation (in addition to all the other sex we had). I know with perfect timing and lots of sex you still only have a 20% chance, but damn. It couldn't have been more perfect, and it didn't work.

I know, I know. 80% odds it wouldn't. Still, I'm feeling disappointed about that, and sort of blah about another go round. I know, I know, at cycle 2? I need to shut the fuck up. I'm not complaining, necessarily, just thinking that maybe we don't need to try quite so hard or force the issue, because it'll happen when it happens. And letting it take over things the way it did for the first cycle can't be healthy. I mean, I want to give things the best shot possible, but I guess I also have a sort of fatalistic view that we are meant to have a certain baby at a certain time. So when that time comes, we'll get pregnant and there isn't much we can do to make it happen otherwise. Does that make sense?

I mean, that sort of has to make sense, otherwise, why wouldn't the perfect timing have resulted in me seeing the midwife this week? It'll happen when it happens, and obsessing over it won't make it happen sooner. I can't impose my will to have a child on my body and make sperm meet egg. Very frustrating, that. At the same time, we know that we have to have sex during the fertile period and give it a go to make the chance happen.

But I'm definitely not as excited or enthusiastic this time around. And because I'm tired, I actually feel a bit disgruntled about the whole thing. It doesn't help that the idea of sex feels like a chore right now. I think we'll both feel better if we have sex and if we then get a full night of sleep. I can only hope so anyway.

Breaking the cycle.

So my Dh threw a major temper tantrum this weekend over our laptop/internet connection. Please know that my DH is one of the most even-tempered, roll with the punches, calm and logical people I know. This type of hissy fit happens maybe twice a year, where he just blows his top. He was yelling and cursing and throwing things around and you coul practically see angry red lines rolling off of him.

And I was scared.

My dad used to act that way. And he is a gret guy, and he would never have physically abused us or anything like that, but when he got that way, we all tiptoed around him for days and his temper tantrums (what this was really) would frighten me to death. I still jump when I hear a door slam because that was A.Bad.Thing. in my house growing up. So when J gets like that, I freak out a bit.

What's worse? I get that way too, and more often than J does. I get emotional and when I'm tired or hormonal or stressed out, I have a very thin skin and short fuse. I tend to blow up the same way - fuming, stalking around, loudly opening and closing doors and cabinets and punching pillows and other things. I know that I've caused a similar wary reaction to J and others around me when I'm in a snit like that. It doesn't feel good, but I don't know how else to release that rush of overwhelming anger and frustration.

But seeing J like this over the weekend made me see my own behavior more clearly. And one thing I'm sure of - I don't want it to continue. For either of us. When we resolved the issue with the computer, he apologized for his behavior (as I've done in the past) and I told him it was ok, but that we both have to find a new way. I'm not sure what that will be yet - someone suggested leaving the room, breathing deeply to the count of ten and quietly telling the other person where we were on an anger scale. Which makes a lot of sense. We need to find something.

I don't want our kids to live in fear like I did, and as J later admitted he did - his dad is the same way as mine when it comes to this anger thing. More than that, we want to model better behavior for our kids - in relating the incidents this weekend to some friends with kids, they all told me how their own children, even as infants, picked up on their anger and stresses and were upset by them. And how they had to learn to deal with the frustration of toddlers pushing boundaries in more constructive manners, since screaming didn't accomplish anything. And how they see their kids mimicing their own behaviors and responses to things like stressful situations and angry situations.

I don't want my kids to be like me this way. I'm thinking a lot more about the behaviors I need to work on. I won't ever be perfect, and I'll still cry with frustration in the car when we are lost and I'm stressed out, but if I can reduce those instances, or visibly change my attitude and handle the situation more appropriately and more like and adult (more like my mother flashes through my mind), it'll be better for everyone around me.

As J put it - I want to break the cycle.

Thinking about expectations.

I didn't expect to get pregnant on the first try. I hoped I would. I hoped very much I would. I even thought, a little naively, that I had a better chance because I've charted so long, I'm so knowledgable and we had really good timing (as in sex about an hour before ovulation good).

It didn't happen. More than that, the first cycle ttc was humbling for me. I charted for 5 years, and secretly thought I was way ahead of the curve on this whole charting thing. Except I'd never charted for conception and it's a little different. Distinguishing between sperm and eggwhite fluid was never an issue before, and checking fluid internally yeilds different results than glancing at the toilet paper. I quickly took back all the eye rolls and grumblings that happened in my head as I had to fight the urge to ask about every little symptom and to fish for signs of pregnancy (and there were plenty of them).

We had focused for so long on starting to ttc that when we started getting there, I shifted my attention (er, obsession) from weight loss to ttc. Well, my weight loss stalled badly, my fitness level has dropped, and my obsession yeilded a lot of angst and no bfp. So now I have to find middle ground between obsession and paying attention and get back into living a variety in life. Continuing to work on watching my eating and on getting in the exercise even when I don't want to and having lots and lots of sex. I need to work on balance in my life.

Which brings me back to expectations. I think having expectations is not a bad thing, if they are realistic. The tiny part of me that went beyond hoping for pregnancy and smugly expected it to happen was not realistic. Expecting to get pregnant quickly is not necessarily realistic. Expecting to lose weight without effort in not realistic. Expecting my house to suddenly be clean without effort or for weeds to go away in my garden is not realistic. So how you do set realistic expectations?

I'm not sure. I think it goes back to balance. Because having excessively high or unrealistic expectations is not a good thing - it sets you up for failure and a constant sense of disappointment. That isn't good, especially if you are already prone to fits of highs and lows as I am. So balance. I need to find balance between hope and grim reality.

Nothing new.

I have nothing to say today.

There is work stuff that I am not interested in rehashing in a public forum going on. It's consumed most of my thoughts since I returned from vacation.

I'm at least three or four days away from fertile fluid and the sex marathon if things stay on schedule. That bodes well for some non-baby making loving this weekend.

I'm tired and fat. There is that. The scale said I gained 6 pounds over where I was last week. I'm quite certain that is untrue, but I'm feeling fatter and less attractive. We've gotten totally away from the wonderful work out routine and diet we were on, and I just don't want to get back on it. I need to - both to continue to be healthier (and I felt lots better a couple months ago), and to keep my cycles on track. I am so uninterested in going to the gym tonight though.

It's just blah right now. Weather is awful, I have a headache and the weekend cannot be here quickly enough. This is the worst part of the cycle, waiting to ovulate. But I'm not even waiting to ovulate right now - I'm waiting to be fertile. It's all waiting, isn't it?

I suppose that is preparation for pregnancy, and the wait to see the doc/midwife, to hear the heartbeat, to be out of the first trimester, to have the big ultrasound, to get to the third trimester, to deliver. . . and then it's all a roller coaster ride.

Time to get serious.

My period is nearly gone (thank God. As I get older, PMS gets much, much worse.). Since I lost 30 pounds, my period is much more bearable. Predictable, normal cycles and average cramps and bleeding. So much better than previously, and incentive to get my still-fat-ass back to the gym tomorrow and work on losing more weight. Just a little brown spotting today and that's it.

So that means we started the temp taking process again. It was somewhat high this morning, but I was tossing and turning last night and hot. I made a note - it's still too early to worry much about it. It's also time to start checking my cervix again, and hopefully it'll be a bit smoother now that I know what I'm feeling for.

I'm hoping to have plain old normal fun sex before the concentrated sex marathon starts. We took the time to enjoy it (and we had at least 1 top 10 all time sex sessions in that last run), but since we tend to average 3 times a month, 10 times in 2 weeks wore us out. I'm hoping my fertile phase isn't quite so long this time, because I'm not sure I can take it! To be fair though, I did enjoy it last time, and we are going to work harder to make our sex life a higher priority than previously - hence why we are hoping to have sex before the marathon starts.

So, here we go again. . .

Reunion

So, yeah. I'm old.

J and I traveled home to attend my 10-year reunion this weekend. I was really unsure of whether or not I wanted to go - there were a handful of people that I really wanted to see and I had no idea if any of them would be there. High school was ok. It wasn't tragic and it wasn't the highlight of my life. I had friends there, most of whom I lost contact with in college (since I went far away), and I had good times, but I definitely moved on from high school.

We had a good time. The tickets were expensive, the bar was cash only (and we never carry cash) and the music and food were abysmal. But it was still great because the person I most wanted to see, my friend K, showed up. In fact, most of that circle was there - all of us the same story -- we weren't sure we wanted to be there, but we went on the off chance we could see each other.

It was so great sharing the stories with people who were there and could understand why the practical joke on Christine was so fucking hilarious. It was fun to catch up and see where people are now, and my fabulous husband was wonderful, especially for having met none of these people before ever. Very good times.

Afterwards, K and her fiance an J and I went to IHOP to get something edible. K and a few others and I used to go there frequently, because it was the only thing in our town open after 9:30, lol. Boy have times changed - but it was nostalgic. The best part of everything is that K actually lives about 30 minutes from where we do. She may be leaving next winter, as she begins her OB residency - but she expects to be staying. It's her first choice, as her fiance is local to that area. We are already making plans to get together. Most of the night was spent reminiscing, with some general updates. I'm greatly looking forward to coffee and a long chat about how her life is now and what she's doing.

It's so funny she's in obstetrics now. I am crazy natural homebirth lady, but when I told her that we planned a homebirth, she asked a couple of questions (CNM? why home and not birth center?) and when I explained, she just laughed and said it sounded like we'd done our research. How refreshing!

I'm really glad we went and caught up with folks. The plans are in the works for another reunion in 5 years, and I'm good with that. There were folks I hoped to see who weren't there, but I'm so grateful for reconnecting with K. That was beyond what I could have hoped for.

Begin Cycle 2

So, my period came today. Which was a relief. Because I was starting to freak out. Really bad cramps, bad mood, bad PMS and no spotting (and a bazillion negative pregnancy tests) and being 13 days past ovulation had me getting worked up. I've never ever gone more than 12 dpo (and for that matter, never less either. I like consistency, thanks).

The first cycle ttc was weird. I was hypervigilant, and I had to learn some new things that just didn't matter for the nearly 6 years of charting to avoid conception. I either didn't have sex during peak fertility times or we used lots of condoms. So sperm masking eggwhite fluid was never an issue. I felt like a total newb. And I was anxious. I noticed things I've never noticed before, and it was disconcerting. Who knew I get dog nose to the extreme during the luteal phase? Not me!

I took probably 12 pregnancy tests. I recorded every twinge, looking for patterns. I analyzed our timing over and over. It was really good (if severe, crippling ovulatory pain is to be believed, I ovulated about an hour after our last round of sex). All to no avail.

Not pregnant.

Hence, moving on to cycle 2. DH was worried that I would be really depressed, and unhappy, and convinced there was something wrong. He didn't want it to ruin our vacation. I am annoyed, and a little disappointed, but that's it. I'm kind of looking forward to this cycle, hoping it will be less stressful now that I'm in the swing of new things.

I hope things work soon, of course. I would like very much to be pregnant - of course, that is the point, right? But I feel sort of peaceful. We still have goals to reach, and I still want to lose weight and now I can work on those things. We have at least another month to ourselves, and that's not a bad thing.

(but, um, a March baby would be lovely!)