On testing:

So, since today could be the first day of a missed period, or six days before the first day of my period, I tested yesterday, and got no second line. Obviously. I only tested early because it was Dave’s birthday, and I needed to know if I should include the Misfits attire with his gift. I did not.

Testing is F’ed up. I tested once or twice in the past, back when I was THRILLED to get one line, but now it’s all about peering at the stick, looking, desperately, for that second line to show up. It’s like Magic Eye books, “maybe if I relax my eyes a bit, I’ll see it. Maybe I’m looking too hard.” But, if it’s not there it’s not there. It doesn’t mean you won’t fish it out of the wastecan later that night, just to see, just to make sure it didn’t form while you were working, or that you were too tired to see the line.

And testing is expensive, yo. Basically, expect each test to cost 5 bucks. Expect each negative test to feel like you’ve pulled a fiver out of your wallet, peed on it, and flushed it away. Because that’s what you’re doing. Unless you’re one of those steel-minded people, who can wait, and wait, and wait for their period to be REALLLLY late before they test, you will literally piss money away while trying to conceive. I could never REALLLY wait; because just when I’m convinced I should, or that I will, I read on some internet forum “AF was due in three days, but I tested anyway and got a BFP! WHOO!” and you think “that moron who can’t even spell the word ‘healthy’ found out early, why can’t I?” And, well, because that would be too easy.

So, now I have a schedule. My cycle last month, as mentioned, was a week longer than normal. That “Get 25% more cycle days, FREE! with any purchase of a multipack of HPTs!” bonus of last month mean that I would either start/not start today, or, anytime until next Friday. Or longer, if my body is really screwing with me. My schedule is this, all contingent on lack of bleeding of course, I’m not THAT nuts, yet:

* I will test tomorrow. Again, only for sentimental reasons — we are going home for the weekend, kate and pete are here from Colorado, and we are going to celebrate my parent’s anniversary/Dave’s birthday, both of which were yesterday, and it would be cool to tell them while we were together.**

* If it is negative, and I am still not bleeding, I will probably test on Thursday or Friday, as my sister leaves on Friday, and we wouldn’t be all together, but I would get to tell her in person. (she knows we are TTC, rest of my family has NO IDEA. Hah.)

* If it is still negative, I will do a line of cocaine***, and test on Sunday. Such reckless behavior would CERTAINLY result in a positive test, don’t you think?

So, in a nutshell, I have a long week ahead o’ me. Yay.

**I don’t plan on telling people right away, except for my immediate family (and not Dave’s.) If something were to go horribly wrong, I would want them to know that, too. And I’m threatening them, if I have to tell them, that if THEY get all verbose about it, I will never tell them anything again. It would basically be Dave, family, Internet. And in months and months, I’d tell work and Dave’s family.

***Oh, ferfucksake, I’m kidding. You know that.

Anyone who really knows me, knows I have this ridiculous ability to make anything into a Sign. And I am an agnostic, fercryinoutloud! But, there it is. Signs.

For those of you that know me and are already rolling your eyes at the screen (and I know who you are) you might not want to see my Index of (Possible) Signs of Impending Pregnancy that lies behind the cut.

Continue reading →

I am so. tired.

Anyway, I was tired yesterday too, and took a nap from about 6-7:30, which is a really shitty time to take a nap, so when Andy called at 9 and asked if I wanted to get Dunkin’ Donuts and drive aimlessly in the dark, I was all “HELL, YEAH!” It was fun, I got decaf and we ended up on random rural backroads, and at one point Andy said “I have no idea where we are. Which means I’m probably going to pop a tire.” I didn’t voice it, but in my head I was thinking “I forgot my cell phone. Which means Andy’s probably going to pop a tire in the middle of nowhere at 10 pm.”

Alas, he did not!

I was in bed by 11, I think, yes, because I saw the last 2 minutes of The Amazing Race and was bummed that Charla was out. Note the non-mention of Mirna. Anyway, I went to bed, had some crazy dream that I woke up late in another state and could not get back to the school in time to teach my Multimedia session, and woke up at 12:45 in a panic, and realized that 12:45 was not 9:19 am, and I was fine.

Not sure what I dreamt of after that, but I woke up with the cat’s head in my armpit, spooned up against me (as best a Fat Kitty can spoon) at the appointed time of 6 am, and all was well.

I taught my sessions, and came home at 1:30 with great intentions of going shopping for Dave’s birthday. Instead, I fell asleep and slept until almost 4, and had a glass of Pepsi and forced myself to go out and get shit done. I was tired then. I am still tired now. I also have a headache, and am still feeling hot. But, I did score some stuff at Lane Bryant: 2 coolmax bras (the BEST bra ever, seriously) and 2 shirts for 50 bucks. I was able to take advantage of a “Buy One Bra, Get One Half Off” deal, 2 five dollar off coupons, and a “save 25 bucks on a 75 buck purchase” — which, after all the other discounts, my total was 77. So I totally maximized that discount.

Of course, I noticed some, errr, enlarged veins on my chest in the dressing room, which, along with everything ELSE in the world, COULD be a symptom of pregnancy! so I also went to Hot Topic and bought the Misfits onesie that Dave and I saw in there a few weeks ago. I felt so old. Buying a ONESIE in Hot Topic, with the goth girl in her black eyeliner and plastic tiara being all “Debit or Credit?” after having asked the blue haired even more made up dude where the onesies were. Actually, I dumbed it down and said “baby Misfits clothes” because goth-as-fuck 17 year olds would probably laugh AT me if I said “Where’re your onesies at?”

Anyway. I’m exhausted. I have big veins on my tits. I have a headache. My tits almost feel heavier, not bigger so much, but heavier, and it’s driving me NUTS, the waiting. UGH.

Time to make dinner. And then nap.

The doctor appointment went well. I didn’t get any hcG test of any type, because I felt dumb asking for one. I did, mention that I was TTC, and all that, and they offered a urine test but I KNOW how those work, and I know it wouldn’t show anything this soon, anyway. The DO was really nice, and she let me interview her a bit about her practice and philosophy, and as long as I am low-risk, I plan on staying at that practice. Even if she spent most of the pap talking about Anne Boleyn’s inbred, deformed baby. Of course, it was an offshoot of our conversation beforehand, when the doc looks over my chart and knows I’m TTC at this point, and asks the standard question “Any change in sexual partners in the last six months?”

True to form, I replied “I’m not trying THAT hard to conceive.”

And she laughed and related it to British history and a six fingered woman, all while examining my cervix. I liked her.

But, holy fuck. I woke up twice in the night, with the niggling “Oh, some people say that’s a symptom, disturbed sleep,” and now I’m in the wait where I’m grabbing my tits every few minutes to see if they hurt. I’m also trying to figure out if my love for naps (there’s always been a real fondness for the delicious nap) is making me tired, or if I am cranking out the next generations double-helix and THAT’s why I’m tired. And irritable? I think that has everything to do with school creeping up on me. UGH. I need to go to the school today, at some point (note that it’s almost FOUR and I still haven’t) to get some stuff, or something. I also need to get my house in order (oh! speaking of, check out the new album: Shelter, over there on the left. The images are super-compressed, and some are a little out of focus (I hate flash, and we didn’t think to get the tripod until we were taking my new author photo thing, so the exposures were super long) but you get the idea. Consider the fuzziness the Barbara Walters look.

ANyway, I need to get my house in order as my sister and her boyfriend are flying in tomorrow, and my mother will be here as well, and they all want to see the house. Getting it in order also means hiding all the baby-porn, the TTC books, the new box of pregnancy tests, etc.

Yes, I have a new box of pregnancy tests. I can’t wait til September 1! No way! I’m due either this friday or next, so I’m going to start on Thursday, for the simple fact that it is Dave’s birthday, and it would be really, really cool to find out while my sister is home and before the Big Weekend o’ Family Fun that is scheduled for Saturday and beyond. It’s weird, I wouldn’t want my inlaws to know, well, EVER, that I was pregnant, but I don’t feel the same about my family. Except for that my mother might have a hard time keeping it quiet, since it’s well known in the northeast US that she wants to be a grandmother, yesterday. Inlaws, though, I’d rather just be really hugely, obviously pregnant and confuse them by never mentioning a thing. Heh.

Alright. I must go to school. Now. Fuck. I feel like the little kid in the Staples ad with Alice Cooper.

Today was a good day, and I can almost keep the knowledge that school starts in SEVENTEEN days at bay. Fuck.

I had a JOB last summer, and I did more stuff and had more free time. I’ve had to do so much professional development and conferences and blah this summer that I did not have “my summer off.” At all. I almost wonder if I prefer a regular workaday schedule with the standard two weeks off — at least there isn’t this feeling of impending doom in August. Fuck.

So, today was spent (after getting one last GOF round in) doing various errands — going to Staples as it was Teacher Appreciation Day, and I got a goodie bag of random stuff, going to Toys R Us to look at Hot Wheels (don’t ask) and where I found Crayola markers on sale with Buy One, Get One, so I stocked up for school… also, we raked and mowed and did some laundry and hung out. Pretty random, boring, regular ol’ stuff.

On the BabyWatch front: I am HOT, so hot that even Dave has noticed my skin temperature. Also, my chin is breaking out (which is pretty unusual, I may get a zit here and there, and blackheads are my nemesis, but to have more than one actual ZIT forming is rare). I have also been tired today, and super thirsty.

I’m really hoping that my doctor appointment will go like this:

“Hi, Gretchen, let’s see, you’re here for a Pap today? Okay, before you get into the paper smock & tablecloth, let’s see…. any changes in medication? You’re off OrthoNovum? Since March? Okay, are you using another form of birth control, or….. Oh, how exciting! When was the first day of your last menstrual period? The 23rd? And your cycles are pretty regular? Well, it would be pretty early for a urine test, but how about we run a blood test, since you’re here. . . .”

I don’t even know how long blood test results take. Or if she’ll even suggest it. This is a new doctor for me, in the same practice. My regular doc was on vacation, but I needed this followup from the precancerous stuff last spring, and since I knew we’d be trying, I chose the OB/GYN in the practice, figuring at best, I’d be up the duff and it could be confirmed or turn into a prenatal appointment, or at worst, I am not harboring the future, so I get the pap and get to interview the OB/GYN at this practice. I’m tempted to stay there just to have it be one less paperwork hassle, but if I don’t get the answers I want, or whatever, I have recommendations for an OB practice that would be pretty in-line with my goals (my friend Jess went there, for endometriosis, then a twin pregnancy that was a c-section (breech babies) and then a singleton unmedicated VBAC, so if they are low-intervention in someone like Jess, I feel confident they would be the same for me, too.)

Anyway, it will be interesting no matter what. And hopefully, there won’t be any abnormal (read:SCARY) results this time.

First of all, while hermia was jetting off to Wyoming on the company AmEx, I was sharing a double bed with my coteacher in a hotel most famous for being where Muhammad Atta and the other guy slept on the night of September 10. That is a pretty good example of the difference between the corporate world and public education.

Anyway.

Damn pregnancy calendar!! I’ve changed it around to suit my new predicted possibilities, which lets me know that I could be pregnant RIGHT NOW. And I COULD feel morning sickness on Sunday. Which makes the fatigue of today so much more . . . . meaningful. DAMN. I was TIRED today. T-I-R-E-D. And because I am bot abstaining from my one vice (caffeine) I was POUNDING it today to try to stay awake. Okay, like, 3 styrofoam cups of joe during the day — which is more than usual, I have one caffeinated drink per day, usually, to get my motor running — and I was STILL beat, so I got a medium iced caramel latte from Dunkin’ Donuts before heading up 295, and by Augusta I was at the point that my head was wobbling on my spine, and I had lost-time moments of complete sleeping-with-the-eyes-open-kinda. And I was driving. I wanted to get home SO badly though, that I pressed on. And when I finally did get home, I crashed on the couch. I then ended up upstairs with Dave and thought “Hmm, I should try towork in my last GOF (Goal Oriented Fuck)” and I was just TOO. DAMN. TIRED. So, tomorrow perhaps?

I really don’t want to worry about it too much, or try too hard, which is why I DID have a vodka collins last night with mexican food, and why I DID try to wake myself up with coffee all day. (because, really, a little caffeine is better than a lotta car under a pulp truck.)

I’m hoping that at my pap there is some magical doctor thing that will let me know I am pregnant, but if not, I don’t plan to test until the first week of school. That would make me officially very late, and give me something to look forward to that week. Heh.

For now, though, I will think about every yawn, bellyache, and passing thought as though it may or may not be a Sign. I can’t help but think of all the people that manage to get pregnant despite doing everything “wrong,” and I hope that what attention to detail I DO have will be beneficial.

So. Tired.

I started this last night, but then Dave got home, finally, and he had to go through the whole mental process of “Oh my god, it’s raining in the living room.”

Yes, it wasa raining in the living room last night. Which explains why the nice man named Shawn is in my bathroom with a hacksaw right now.

The basic gist is the toilet overflowed, after a week of acting funky anyway. Sometimes the tank wouldn’t refill after a flush, sometimes there was a secondary miniflush. The good news is that the toilet and bathroom fixtures are located over the stairs and entry area of out house, meaning that there is nothing UNDER them to get destroyed. The bad news is that IT WAS FUCKING RAINING IN THE LIVING ROOM.

Shawn the toilet man figures we have two options: Best case, he replaces a valve and seal and reseats the flusharoo, and I give him 250 bucks. Worst case, I still give him 250, but he leaves the toilet unattached because the floor is too rotten to reseat it. (Actually, he used the word “punky” which I love. “If it’s too punky, you’ll need new floorboards.”)

The worst case isn’t AWFUL, I’ve mentioned before how much I HATE the pink carpet and bathroom fixtures, but we haven’t replaced it because we haven’t HAD to. If we HAVE to, hey, that’s not so bad.

**verdict! Toilet can be reseated, but floor is original, fifty years old, and rooootteeeenn. It needs to be replaced yesterday. So, the toilet is being reseated, but Dave is going to try to get help to replace the floor this weekend. Pink carpet begone!

So, expensive plumbing and structural repair + new jeans in my OLD SIZE that look HOTT (Two T’s intended) + new buton down shirt, only the third to ever fit my gigantaboobs = probably totally pregnant, right? Isn’t that the Murphy’s Law math?

And so, the Wait begins again.

Interestingly, I think Dave has closed the Ready/Not Ready gap between us in the last month. He’s talking about it at work, to the pregnant with twins anchor. He mentioned at the party yesterday that it wasn’t fun because we didn’t have a kid. He’s been, err, very amorous this weekend, even when it’s inconvient. Whoo!

Of course, I’m tracking everything in iCal, just a general B for Bleeding and F for, well, you can guess. This is going to be a big month for F.

And I really feel like maybe this is The Month. I can’t decsribe it — it just feels like it should be, timing wise, readiness wise, everything wise. So, when I do things like misplace the phone for a few, oh, hours, only to find it in the silverware drawer when putting away clean dishes, I can’t help but wonder.

I know. It’s awful.

And, I have a pap on the 16th, so I need to find out when I should refrain from the F so as not to have weird test results. Hmmm….

In other news, I love my guest room. It looks so good. I know I’ve been saying it for MONTHS, but I think I may get some pics tonight, since I’ve been on a cleaning spree. I’ve managed to put most of my random boxes into ONE ROOM now, the Sewing Room HaHa, so that our shite isn’t spread around half of our square footage now, just one-eighth of it.

Yay!!