!

1) I accomplished something at work that makes me enormously happy. It took the equivalent of 2 full business days (longer in broken up real time), but by God, I figured that fucking formula out AND how to do something my boss couldn't do. I am quite pleased with myself, even though I can't figure out a way to make the tedious cell population go any faster.

Please oh please oh please oh please let this stuff reflect positively in my review. I feel it hanging over me and while I know that my boss is pleased and even that my review last year wasn't even really bad (it was fairly mediocre, however), I'm so worried it won't be good this year. I'm not looking for (nor would I acheive) perfection, or even the highest level on the review. I'll be quite happy with 'Fully Meets Expectations' - that, at least, is where I would rank myself.

2) My new ttc toy (finally) arrived yesterday. (sidebar: When making spontaneous purchases from Ebay in a fit of ire, do be sure to check where an item ships from, as the free shipping may seem like a good deal until you belatedly realize it's shipped from Hong Kong and won't arrive for nearly 2 weeks). I bought a saliva microscope to act as a back-up for my other stuff.

You can read about how that works here. The pertinent information is that as ovulation approaches, your saliva (when dried and magnified) displays a crystalline pattern known as 'ferning' - at the most fertile, it appears in a pattern like fern leaves.

I have been concerned that by taking the soy and potentially moving up ovulation, I wouldn't know when it occurred and might miss peak opportunities for procreative sex. This is partially because of a shift in days, but mostly because I was unsure how my body might react (some women experience less cm, some more). I would have the opks, of course, but I was concerned because I have ovulated the same day as the positive opk, or the day after, and that doesn't necessarily make the best time for sex. The days before actually boost your chances by a small percentage.

Because estrogen is the hormone that causes the saliva changes (it changes the levels of sodium chloride, if you are interested), and estrogen peaks (shortly) before estrogen does, monitoring your saliva for ferning can give you a little better insight into your cycle and a little more warning. And should you not produce a great amount of cm, it can give you some guidance there as well.

So, I got it. Yay! And I figured out how to use it. Yay! And yesterday was a partial fern. And so it was this morning as well. And this evening? Full ferning! Yay! It was so pretty, like a snowflake.

3) and that brings me round to the soy update. My ovaries went from twingey for a few days to full out pain yesterday and today. Wheeee! They seem to be working! I can' really give you a dominant side, if I'm honest. Yesterday the pain was on the right, today the left. So we'll see.

I started noticing a small amount of ewcm yesterday, which has continued today. Cervix agrees, as well. So I'm hopeful, in combination with the microscope combination, that ovulation will occur the the next few days. The opk is actually still pretty faint, so I don't feel like it will be tomorrow or the next day, but if it's before next Wednesday, it will have been moved up into normal ranges. If it happens before then, well, fuck. That's just awesome.

4) My husband got an A on his first paper back in college. He was SO nervous about it I was concerned he was going to drop the class rather than finish the paper, but he DID finish and I was proud of him for that. It took guts. And to have done SO well, I could just burst with pride. He is taking a big risk and just doing so well (as I knew he would). And best of all, he seems happier. That is the most wonderful thing in all of this.

And that's all. It's dinner time and Tuesday, which means, in our home, eating in the living room while we watch NCIS, NCIS:Los Angeles and The Good Wife. Hamburgers tonight!