Saturday, June 26, 2010

What do I win?

I keep my feminine hygiene products in an intricately hand carved South African breadbox.

My flow has slowed to something more bearable, so I am keeping up with things and not surprise! bleeding all over everything. I guess this is manageable, but I hate hate hate it. I feel like I am going through puberty again, and decidedly not in a good way. As if there could be a good way.

It is probably ridiculous, and possibly pathetic that a woman my age is writing at such length about menstruation, but I find it taking over my thoughts in the same way it did when I was barely a teenager, certain that everyone could tell, paranoid about bleeding all over my jeans.

It doesn't help that I'm getting over a cold/flu/monkey Ebola, so that every time I cough or sneeze I can feel a spurt of blood being forced out. Disgusting. I don't want to do this anymore.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Cycle one, day two: please kill me now.

Did I mention that I am on my period? Did I also mention that this is the first period I have experienced that hasn't been induced or mediated or averted by the use of artificial hormones since I was seventeen years old? I know that I am in no position to complain about, well, anything, but what. the. hell? Who decided that bleeding from the vagina was a good idea?

Okay, so, when I was about to start seventh grade and I got my period for the first time, I thought I was an old hand because my mom had already had the talk with me, and I had my own special little stash of junior sized maxi pads in my bathroom, so I just put one in my panties and went about my business and didn't make a fuss about it. Well, little did I know, but apparently one pad all day wasn't going to cut it...

That is how I feel today. Back when I was on the pill my periods were significantly reduced, and I only really ever even had to change a pad because it had been there for a while and that was gross because I never soaked them. And then after I got my IUD inserted my period came, oh, once every never, and I tended to catch it with either the thinnest of panty liners, or just say fuck it and wash my underpants out at the end of the day because it was less of a pain than bothering with feminine hygiene products. Especially when it was only for two days or so.

But what is happening to me now is unholy. I managed to soak through both a tampon and panty liner this morning at work, and my skirt managed to remain unscathed only because my job sucks and I never ever ever get a chance to sit down. And there are cramps! Cramps that are made worse by tampons, which I now remember why I hate, but what I hate more than tampons is that sweaty bloody stinky vag feeling I get from a pad and having to wear unattractive pad-accommodating underpants and WHY ME, GOD?

I suppose I should be happy that I am building up a beefy, embryo-nurturing endometrial lining, and I am, but I would like it to just do it's god damned job and catch a baby so that I don't have to endure this bullshit again for as long as I can manage to extend lactational amenorrhea. Don't you know I will try.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

BLOOD!

In my underpants! Huzzah!

Finallyfinallyfinally!!! It's insane to me that I am so excited to be confirmedly not pregnant, but I'm relieved to be in a place where I know where I am in my cycle and what I can expect going forward and when I can ever realistically worry about whether or not I am pregnant. So I guess this is cycle one, day one. I'm going to start charting CM, but BBT I just can't do because of how erratic my schedule is. When you wake up at 3:30am one day, and 8:00 the next... well, it's just not consistent. Maybe I will try anyway. Just to see.

Technically I'm still just spotting, though, so I couldn't help but google "implantation bleeding". Of course.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Where am I?

I still have no idea what is going on. I took tests every morning in Eugene, I got three negatives, two duds, and one inconclusive, but not in that order. And another negative when I got home. But my period hasn't shown up either. This means I'm not ovulating. This is bad. Lady Doctor said that with my IUD I was still cycling, so my cycle should be normal right away. I hope this isn't normal for me. It's been more than a month and ... nothing.

At this point what I want is just for my period to show up, so at least I can be charting and figure out WTF is going on in my body.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Oh, disappointment...

So far, two negative pregnancy tests. I don't know that this really means anything, as I am only 12 days past ovulation, that is, if I actually ovulated at all. Who knows. Since I haven't had a regular cycle in oh, seven years or so, I don't know how long mine is, or when I should be expecting my period, so I suppose I will just keep testing everyday until I get a positive or start bleeding.

For the couple days before I started testing I was so sure that I would be, and now... I'm thinking no way. Logically I know that nothing has changed and I still could be and its so early and I could wake up tomorrow and get a positive... but I'm not feeling optimistic.



I would really like to know something in the next two days, though. Good news or bad. I'm going down with my parents and BFF to sister's college graduation, and I really don't want to be in this limbo while I'm on vacation. For one, I wouldn't have to abstain from all the fun (read: alcohol), or at least I would have a good reason to do so. It will come in to question, I am sure, and I don't want to have to tell my family that I could be pregnant and it is too early to tell, because that is a can of worms that just doesn't need to be explored.

I'm not sure what the plan is for the weekend if I don't find anything out before I leave. I'd like to keep testing throughout, but I'm not sure how I feel about the logistics of this in sister's tiny apartment. And if I get good news, well... do I wait to tell husband in person and then maybe he isn't the first to know? Do I call him? Do I try to keep it a secret? (Clearly, no, since I am terrible at secrets.) I don't know. I asked husband what he wanted me to do and he said he doesn't mind if I have to call him or if someone else finds out first, but I have this romantic vision of it all. I'll probably bring a ton of tests with me and decide when I get there. Or maybe I will find out tomorrow. God, I hope so.



Honestly, it surprises me how badly I feel about possibly not being pregnant. We certainly weren't "trying," and really, the timing for me is less than ideal. I thought I knew how badly I wanted this, but even I am shocked by my longing. Earlier I was looking at Facebook pictures of husband's friend's month-old twins and just... I can't even put it into words.

Please please please please please.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Maybe? Maybe! Maybe.

Still waiting. Oh, God, I am so bad at waiting. Everything is a possible symptom, and every moment I don't feel like barfing makes me doubt myself. I am not very good at this game. I think half the reason I want to be pregnant right now is so that I don't have to go through this again next cycle. And we're not even "trying" yet. Although I may be incapable of not trying, as I can't ignore my fertility signs and I can't not think about the possibility...

Husband is being really great. I told him that I thought I might be, and now he asks me all the time "if I am still pregnant." Cute. Answer range from "probably" and "I think so" to "I don't know" and "no way!".  Even though he hasn't actually said as much, I think he really wants me to be pregnant. Why else would he ask me about it twice a day? Never before has he ever brought up pregnancy or babies with me, and usually tries to change the subject when I do. Exciting.

I think I am going to start testing tomorrow.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Waiting Sucks.

So early pregnancy symptoms are my bread and butter. Today I woke up with really bad nausea. I have had my own variety of "morning sickness" (which actually tends to occur in the mornings, instead of possibly all day like in pregnancy) since my teen years. I can smell EVERYTHING, and sometimes things that probably aren't there. I crave weird ass foods. I am highly emotional and cry at episodes of Gilmore Girls. I have to pee all the time. Especially today. But it is too early for these things to be symptoms of an actual pregnancy, and seem to exist just to make me crazy. If waiting wasn't already hard enough.


In other news, a couple of nights ago I had a dream that I had a baby, but it didn't have a name or a gender or anything, and I kept forgetting to feed my featureless baby and then I would realize that it had been nine hours since the baby had eaten and I would freak out and feed it and vow never to lapse again, and then I would get caught up in reality tv or wake up from a nap and another nine hours had gone by... and I guess that sums up my fears about parenthood pretty nicely.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

It took me three hours to write this post.

I may be the only one, but I am so glad that the holiday weekend is over. Between working in retail, and my sister being in town, I am absolutely exhausted, and I am completely relieved that it's Tuesday and I can have a day off.

This weekend has been big events! On Saturday husband and I had sex for the first time post-IUD removal. Kind of a big deal, considering I've spent the last seven years taking all sorts of measures to avoid pregnancy.  I had long imagined that having truly unprotected sex for the first time ever would be somewhere in the realm of terrifying, and that I would probably cry, since I tend to cry, well, about everything. But, no. There may have been a smirk, but definitely no tears.

The weather has been dreary lately. Mayvember, we were calling it. My dad cooked us (me, husband, sister, BFF, her fiancĂ©, our other best friend, her boy friend, himself, and my mother) a full Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night. Amazing. And even better when it is absent the drama and fake religion and bullshit of whatever extended family you are obligated to see and be on your best behavior for. This was just wonderful. My favorite people and the best food and several bottles of champagne and a rowdy and raucous evening, filled with very inappropriate table conversation. These people are my true family. Don't get me wrong, I do love my aunts and uncles and cousins and what-have-you, but with them there are huge chunks of my person that must be suppressed, and God, does that get tiresome quickly.

Anyway. At some point during the meal I excused myself to go to the bathroom. And by excused myself I mean I probably unpolitely announced that "I HAVE TO PEE!" and galumphed out of the room, but who can really remember. Champagne, you know. In the bathroom I was greeted with a revelation between my legs. Behold, fertile quality eggwhite cervical mucus. The first time I have experienced such things when I would actually be able to recognize them, and Oh. My. God. I had a moment in the bathroom with myself. Adding it all up... no birth control... sex last night... fertility... HOLY SHIT!  So I quietly return to the table, and whisper the contents of my underpants to BFF, who was seated beside me. And as the rest of the table was tipsy and boisterous, no one really noticed our not-so-quiet discussion of possible impending pregnancy.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.  I started taking prenatal vitamins yesterday,  but possible conception didn't keep me from a couple of vodka tonics when we went out for karaoke last night. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. How bizarre would it be for me to get pregnant the first time I've ever had unprotected sex? I'd feel like some awful statistic from some 90s teen magazine. Also, how the hell am I going to wait out these next two weeks until I can find out what the hell is going on?

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