Hi, I'm Eggo, I'm addicted to peeing on sticks.
Watch out for your popsicles, ladies.
Hi Eggo.
This journey, especially recently, has become more and more mentally exhausting. I find myself doing mental gymnastics to quantify what's what, every day. I plan my grocery list around my cycle, no feta cheese or lunch meats or tuna this week. I plan my weekends around baby dancing weeks in advance. I even have turned down vacations hoping I would be pregnant by the time the trip happens.
In my everyday life, I have not ever had the obsessive quality over anything except losing weight, and writing. But even those things, I give up mid way through because I get bored & tired of putting in the work. With peeing on a stick, there is no let up. Its everyday, twice a day, or more. I have a lengthy cycle, between 32-34 days, so I have to buy the large batch of ovulation kits, and I HAVE to buy the First Response ones, because if I don't, I will give in a few days into the cycle trying to interpret the fuzzy pink line, going cross eyed, taking the damn things apart and run to the pharmacy and spend double what I would have for the First Response ones if I would have ordered them online (link below). By then I have spent almost as much on the cheap ones and I obsess over them until my eyes bleed. Instead of one million dollars in TTC materials and supplies, I have spent 2.5 million dollars. Ridiculous.
While I'm on the subject of TTC supplies...I also cannot understand why anyone would want to buy the digital yes/no ovulation predictor kits. I do understand the results can be left up to interpretation most days, but then there is that one day that you have no other way to view it other than PINK. I like to see the LH surge coming, that way we can do "homework"several days prior to ovulation. Sperm lives up to five days, so the more of those little guys are hanging out PRIOR to ovulation, the better the chances? Ehh?
I am no expert, AT ALL. So if you have advice for me or anyone about ANYTHING I post, please do. These are my experiences, which means, they are fu-barred and probably incorrect. That's just my life and I usually have to learn the hard way. I am still very early into the Clomid, Fertility Monitoring, HCG triggers, and all that encompass them, so I am not one for advice. More often, I am one for comedic relief. Feel free to laugh at my pain. It helps.
I would love to say we only do homework around my ovulation, that would be less stressful. But we baby dance every other day from the departure of Aunt Flow to when she arrives back into town & during my "fertile window" we TRY to dance every day, but that is just miserable for both of us. I find I feel best if we baby dance every 36 hours, once in the morning, next day is afternoon, etc. We're still technically hitting every calendar day, but my husband doesn't hate me as much. If we did our "homework" only around the fertile window, I would be a nervous, miserable, wreck. Kind of like the way I feel after I know the ovulation window has passed, there is just nothing I can do to change the outcome, it is what it is, I just don't know about it yet. But I always FEEL like there might be something I can do about it, like stand on my head and drink pomegranate juice, or drink spinach smoothies around the clock. You know, all the logical things we are supposed to do during the TWW (Two Week Wait).
The every other day theory was advice that my doctor gave us, the very first month of ATTC (Actively Trying To Conceive). And it was the month we got pregnant, (miscarried between 8-9 weeks) and since then, there has been no BFP (Big Fat Positive) and probably not coincidentally, we have been very sporadic with our baby dancing schedule. So this month, starts today! And we're sticking to the schedule!
Today should be cycle day 6, maybe I might even say that it today is cycle day 5.75 because I started over night, around 3am and tomorrow really wouldn't be CD 6, completely, not until after 3am. Last month was the first month my cycle has EVER been off. And when I say OFF, I mean, fu-barred. I started AF the day I normally ovulate, which was disheartening. Also, it was the first and ONLY month I have ever and will ever, ever, EVER, try to go sans ovulation prediction kit. Never, never, again. Its my fault, I listened to silly advice after a friend told me to just relax and not think about it, and I did try, but around the week my fertility app told me I should be ovulating, I ran to the pharmacy in a panic, but by then was about to I start my period. I wanted to punch my already accidently pregnant friend who issued the advice, squarely in the throat. I love that advice people give you...
"Oh it will happen when you quit thinking so much about it."
...Or...
"Throw away all those charts and just go get drunk with your husband and then wait two weeks..."
It just...I can't....I mean.
Ugh.
First, to address these ridiculous thought processes...I am 32, not 24. I do not have years to just wait around for the unicorn to meet the leprechaun and fly off to the chocolate factory and magic to happen. As I have found out, and will address soon, I do not ovulate normally, even if its mostly the same cycle days/lengths, and I would therefore have never accidently on purpose, wound up pregnant. And the longer it takes to get pregnant, the more time passes, the less likely it will just HAPPEN. I would like to at least have the option to be pregnant and then be pregnant again, soon. Ideally, I would love to have two healthy babies between now and the time I turn 36, pie in the sky. I would just be ecstatic for one healthy baby. Secondly, I have the longer cycles, so instead of having 14 chances a year to create a screaming bundle of poop and joy, I have like 8, maybe. If I actually did ovulate every cycle, which it doesn't appear to be the case, I have 8 chances in a year, most doctors wont even discuss "next steps" until after a year or more. Forgive me if I decide to be proactive.
When people say, "Oh just let it happen..." I want to say..."Oh, okay, just like all the colleges came to me, all the jobs searched for me, all the real estate agents just knew I was letting a house happen to me,..and everything just happened because I let it."
Give me a break. For some, 20 somethings, its a totally logical approach, but don't you think I already tried that?
And the go get drunk advice...should I even respond? I mean, yah, everyone needs to go get baby-hammered after Aunt Flow arrives, but to think that drunk sex once a month is better than tracking your cycle is ridiculous. Do I agree and acknowledge that I have taken this "hobby" way too seriously? Without a doubt. Is it unhealthy? Physically, no. Emotionally, at times. If I had a full time job, I would have gotten fired for all the baby board lurking and fertility research.
So my dramatic urine story of the day started out normal. I got up, husband took my son to school and I drew a bath and waited for him to bring back my Friday iced coffee. He's off on Fridays so I get to wake up slowly and enjoy the morning. I put my 'sample' in a cup and sat it on the floor next to the bathtub and put the two different kinds of ovulation test in to do the test and then waited in the bath tub for them to finish. I expected blanks, today is day 6, and I usually don't ovulate for another 20 something days. I did a double take and looked back to see a fairly dark line, not a positive, but definitely a build. Like I mentioned before, I get no line at the beginning of the cycle, but as it goes on, the line gets a little darker each day, until I get my positive. If I look back at pictures of my pee scrapbook (more on that later), it is comparative to about 3 days before I get a certain positive. Which is still usually 12-36 hours before the actual ovulation happens. So, hopefully, I get darker, then a positive Monday or Tuesday, and that should put me "ovulating" about CD13, which is so weird for me, but I will take it.
On a side note of concern, I do have my first appointment to monitor my follicles Monday afternoon, CD10. Depending on what they see, they are planning to give me a trigger shot if I haven't ovulated or it doesn't look like I am about to. Its already been decided I will be put on some form of progesterone. They are trying to bring my ovulation day closer to 14 and lengthen the time between my ovulation and my period, the luteal phase, to a full 14 days. If my body does better this cycle, she still plans on monitoring everything from CD 3 next cycle and prescribing Clomid, the trigger, and progesterone. So we are full steam ahead. Again, I know...very little about this next step. So forgive me if my medical terminology is not med school quality. I will get there.
Good luck everyone! Keep on keepin' on! The battles are brutal but winning the war will be worth it!!
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