I need a vacation

Okay, I am tired of being pregnant. While I am aware that most women feel this way at some point during pregnancy, I'm pretty sure that usually they last longer than ten weeks. But I'm ahead of the curve. Or something. Really, though, I'm over it. I don't want to like, not be pregnant, either, since I'm rather heavily anticipating the prize at the end, but I wish there was a pause button somewhere, so that I could maybe take a week's vacation from it all and then start back up where I left off. And I could eat raw fishes and soft cheeses and rare steak and have a god-damned cocktail. A girl can dream.

But seriously. I feel like I'm in some sort of pregnancy limbo-land right now. I'm definitely not showing yet, and we're still not sharing the news. The people that do know about it I think have gotten over their initial excitement, and so it's not LETS TALK ABOUT THE BABY!!! time anymore. Our first ultrasound isn't until January. And most of my early-pregnancy symptoms have tapered off. My boobs are still a little sore, but not all-the-time distracting. I'm periodically nauseous, but no longer vomiting. I'm not dead-tired anymore, but I'm still only running at about 80%. I suppose I should be happy about these things, but it just makes me feel like I am in no-man's land. At least I got to be constantly reminded that I'm growing a BAYBEEE! And, you know, I kind of like having something to complain about. Weird, but true. Now it's just whatever.

Lately I have also completely lost my appetite. Food does not interest me. Except for maybe chocolate. But nothing, say, nutritious. Or filling. And as such I forget to eat. And then my stomach starts growling and rumbling and it's uncomfortable and my body is telling me it's hungry, but my head? Still not interested. So then I eat some chocolate ice cream to quiet my stomach so that I can get some sleep. You think I'd be doing everything I could to make healthy choices for my fetus, but um, apparently not. At the end of all of this it's entirely possible that I will give birth to a baguette, since French bread is the only thing that doesn't seem completely unappetizing right now. Great.

Also, I am kind of freaking out. Interestingly enough, I am not really scared of becoming huge and swollen ankles and varicose veins and stretch marks and back aches. I don't fear contractions. I am not afraid of labor, or the "ring of fire," of any of it. I'm pretty sure it will be hard and it will be painful, but I'm completely confident I'll come out on the other side just fine. I think this is the result of spending oh, the last two years reading everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy and birth. Pregnancy and birth are old hat to me. Totally fine.

But everything else? I'm at a loss. I can push a baby out, but what the hell do I do with it afterward? Seriously. I've never babysat, ever. Never changed a diaper. I have given a baby a bottle twice, with supervision, and one of those times I was eight years old and I wouldn't even remember it except for the photographic evidence, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't count. I don't know a thing about car seats or strollers, and I'm pretty sure that babywearing sounds awesome, but as soon as I start thinking about the myriad options for slings and carriers I start panicking.

Lately I've been spending my time reading the archives of Alphamom, because it's so much more interesting than doing the dishes, or like, putting on pants. So last night it occurred to me, all of the sudden that not only am I going to have a baby, but at some point that baby is going to become a school-aged child, and perhaps a  TEENAGER and we'll have to talk about SEX and what the hell have I gotten myself into?

When did I get so crazy? Before getting pregnant I had all sorts of modern, positive ideas about age-approriate lifetime sex education and blah blah blah and this sort of stuff never worried me before and then hormones and you read one silly blog post about teenage boys and internet pornography and your brain explodes.

Did I mention I need a vacation? Welp, we go to Paris in nine days (holy crap!), so there is that. I will probably be pretty lax on the avoidance of fancy cheese and bubbly alcoholic beverages, because really, I need a break, and moderation and all that. Okay.

Let's talk about...

SEX! No, really. Kyle and I haven't had sex since we found out I was pregnant. Well, we tried once, but it was uncomfortable for me so we stopped and yeah. And we only did it once between conception and the positive test, and I don't think you could count it as good sex, since I was too distracted by my boobs hurting to be paying attention. Pathetic, yes I know.

So anyway. When the hell are we going to do it again? I think Kyle's actually appreciated this time he's had without me bugging him, since my sex drive has normally been irritatingly high, but like normally if I don't initiate for a while he still does and it's been a month and a half and nada. I don't even feel particularly like having sex, really, but I miss the intimacy and I'm kind of afraid that we'll just never have sex again. Like we'll just forget that we ever liked it and how to do it and we've been okay for this long so why bother? Is that stupid? I don't know, but that's where my crazy, hormone-addled brain is going right now. And then I start worrying about how we'll ever have another baby. As if I needed to start even thinking about siblings yet. For real, I am a mess.

Maybe vacation will help. France in sixteen days!


In other news I am nine weeks pregnant as of yesterday. Actually it was more like HOLY CRAP NINE!?!?!?! WEEKS! Yeah. Still no pictures as I still have no camera cord. I am dutifully taking them still, though. I feel a little bigger this week, maybe, but in a lol, where'd my waist go kind of way. Definitely not looking pregnant yet. I did wear a maternity dress yesterday, but it's one that I bought back last spring just because I thought it was cute, and there's no way it will actually fit me when I am in fact needing maternity wear, so I don't think that counts. Oh well.

This post is going to be all over the place.

I really think I might be pregnant this time.

I told myself I wouldn't do this. I sad that I was going to wait out my two weeks with out going on about this and over analyzing every hint of a symptom, but I can't hold out any longer. Every other time that I have been in this place, I have been creating symptoms out of thin air, feeling them for just a second and wishing and hoping that they would come back and totally doubting that anything was really happening, but I couldn't let go of the thought that maybe... possibly...

I'm still doubting right now. Fertility friend suggests that I ovulated only last Friday, which would make this a little early for me to be experiencing pregnancy symptoms, but I'm pretty sure that one last low temp was a weird fluke, and that I actually ovulated two days earlier, since that's what would me the most sense considering my cervical fluid, and maybe I am making too much of it, but I had some slight cramping that day that could have been ovulation pain. As it is, if I did indeed ovulate on Wednesday the 20th like I suppose, it was just after I actually managed to have sex. And if that is in fact true, I could expect implantation to occur perhaps a week later, and what do you know but I had some slight cramping Tuesday afternoon.

The idea that I might be feeling implantation did occur to me, as I was sitting there on the toilet at work on my lunch break, but I shrugged it aside, because, as I said, I'm trying very hard not to obsess. But oh, that night. My boobs felt so sore. So much so that when I again was trying to ahem, get down with my hubby I was too distracted to... you know. And they haven't stopped feeling sore since.

I've felt every pregnancy symptom in the book these past few months, but they've all been temporary and fleeting and quite possibly figments of my imagination. But this is real. And oh my god last night when I was getting ready for bed and walked down the stairs without a bra on. Holy hell. I probably look like some freaky perv because I keep touching them to make sure that soreness is still there.

I also told myself that I wouldn't bother Kyle with my neurosis, and that I would let him know if and when I ended up with a positive pregnancy test. But I couldn't help it. I told him last night that I think I might be. Of course, he isn't really interested in discussing the finer details until I'm actually sure, but oh well. And thus, this post, because I have to get this out of my system.

When can I just take a goddamned test? In theory shouldn't it work as soon as I feel symptoms. I don't know. I'm only at the most 8 days post ovulation. Bleck. If I am pregnant, I better get used to waiting. 40 weeks is a long time.

Okay then

So, according to Fertility Friend today is cycle day 32. Also according to Fertility Friend, today is 19 days past ovulation. But according to Clear Blue Easy, I am not pregnant.

Considering my erratic waking times, and therefor erratic waking temperatures, the simplest explanation is that Fertility Friend mis-estimated my ovulation date, and it happened around five days later than my chart shows. If this is the case, then I'm still 14 DPO, which means my period still should be here by now, and I'm not even feeling any normal premenstrual symptoms yet. If that it the case it also means that I had sex the day preceding ovulation, which means WHO THE HELL KNOWS WHATS GOING ON ANYMORE.

My negative test was actually a couple days ago, so I could in fact be pregnant, just with a later conception date than originally thought, and have I mentioned lately that I hate this whole process.

I need to go purchase some more pregnancy tests. Ick.

The Best Laid Plans...

So our super romantic night last night, well, wasn't.

Apparently putting all sorts of pressure on yourself to like, make a baby, makes sex into work and not so much fun, and yeah. It just wasn't happening. And even though I'm pretty disappointed, I don't really want the conception of my child to be some sort of drudgery. So it will be okay.

But anyway, there goes this month. Most likely, at least, as I haven't had that  spike yet, so in the case Husband is feeling particularly amorous tonight... So probably not. Oh well.

I guess the key here is for us to stop thinking about it and talking about it and just let. it. happen. But the problem here is twofold: First of all, I am me. Talking and thinking about it is what I do. That's what this motherfucking blog is for, after all. And it's not like I could stop if I wanted to. I suppose I could stop talking to Kyle specifically about it, but that lead us to problem numba two: the way our schedules are so irregular and non-overlapping and crazy, if we don't plan in sex, we don't have it very often. So if we just "let it happen," it'll probably happen sometime in 2015. Great.

Right now I don't really know what the plan is. Kyle and I probably need to discuss it more when we're not half naked after really bad sort-of-sex.

The Glamorous Life

Super romantic text message from my husband this afternoon:

We can have sex before I go out! I love you :)

It was in response to optimal baby-making time conflicting with his weekly boys' night out. Lovely.

Right now I am feeling like I can't wait until I'm pregnant so I can stop thinking about getting pregnant all the time, but I am pretty sure that when I get there, that pregnancy will be even better at consuming my every thought. But I'm so ready to get started.

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 fiancé, 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?

All systems go!

I really ought to be sleeping right now, as I have to be at work at six am, which because I am incredibly vain means being awake pre-four a.m. in order to shave my legs and dry my hair and slather on copius amounts of makeup so that I can look really nice for all the other early morning metro riders. Yet here I am, tapping away on my iPhone, beaming in the darkness.

I cannot sleep because I am pretty much thrilled out of my pants. After buying husband a post-difficult job interview ice cream cone we stopped at Albertson's for such staples as cat food and Coke Zero, and husband tells me, as we walk past the dairy cooler, that he had been thinking about babies. On his own! Without any obnoxious whiny wife-prodding! Say what? And then husband informed me that he feels like he will be ready for this procreating business just as soon as his job situation settles down (i.e. he finds a job he likes better than his current), and maybe we should move up this "trying" business to August. August!

I'm thinking that this may in fact be the most romantic thing he's ever said to me. Seriously, I wanted to jump him right there next to the cans of Friskies. And this is not just sexy in the oh, well we'll probably need to do that pesky intercourse thing to actually concieve said babies kind of way, but in a deeply lustful, I just had my IUD removed and there's no way I've built up a pregnancy supporting uterine lining yet, but please take me here and now oh baby, oh baby kind of way.

Alas, husband already made plans to discuss potential job opening with a friend (yes in the middle of the night, why not?) and therefor left me alone in bed where I should probably be sleeping. Really, though, I can't. Babies babies babies babies babies! My cheeks hurt from smiling. Babies! Soon! I feel like I am a completely different person than I was last month.

Maybe I will still be awake when husband gets home...