Goodbye 2011

I don't know about all of you, but I'm so over 2011. While we did have a couple good things happen this year (T's promotion & my nephew), our year was mostly drama and bad news. So, I'm over it. I'm going into 2012 with high hopes about our future and with a positive attitude. I figured if I start the year on a good note, it will help make it a good year right?

In typical New Years fashion, I've come up with some resolutions. They aren't crazy or over the top. They are simple, but hey, I'm a simple girl with simple needs.

1. Lose at least 30 more pounds. I'm proud of my weight loss up to now, but I'm not quite where I want to be yet. I'm close, but not there so back to hardcore dieting and working out for me.

2. Write more. Not on my blog, although it is a nice release for me. I'm talking about writing as in books. I LOVE to write and I've always wanted to be a writer. I just lacked the courage to actually go after it.

3. Get pregnant. Pretty self explanatory there.

4. Stay pregnant & deliver a healthy baby. Getting pregnant is only the first step, the real challenge is getting past the first trimester and then carrying the baby to term.

5. Pay off more debt. I don't have an actual total I'd like to hit, just focus more on getting it taken care of.


6. Do more projects around the house. I would LOVE to complete our bigger projects this year of moving the wall in our powder room downstairs and actually enclosing the theatre. After that it's flooring. Oh god do we need new flooring.

7. Be more optimistic. I would really like to ditch my negative nelly attitude and try to focus on the good and good things to come.

8. Either find or build a tv stand. We have a behemoth of a tv downstairs and the stand it currently rests on is just too small. We need a new stand because it's driving me batty. I want it to be white.

9. Learn to sew. My mom is a pretty good sewer and I would like to learn how to do it. I would really like to be able to hem my own pants and do any of the tasks that are currently pinned to my "Sewing" board.

10. DIY more. My capiz chandelier was a good start (although I AM going to redo it), but I would like to actually go a little deeper in DIYing. You can save a lot of money and I think there is a lot of satisfaction when you create something.

So there you have it. My 2012 resolutions. I told you they weren't over the top and they probably aren't even that impressive, but these are things that are really important to me. So, here's to good things in 2012!

Just Call Me Veruca

I'm not exactly a happy woman right now. As I figured I got negative OPK's today. Don't let the pictures to confuse you. For some reason they showed up way darker than they actually are in real life. Especially tonight's test. The line is significantly lighter than the control line when seen in person. Even though I was expecting this and I did my best to prepare myself for it, realizing I basically threw this cycle away was a sucker punch to the gut. When I took my test this am I held my breath while it "developed." I kept willing the line to get darker, but it didn't. It stopped and the control line just kept going. I was on the verge of tears and then they hit when I got tonight's clear negative. All that monitoring and busting my ass to make sure I'm on top of what my body's doing and I dropped the ball. I never expected my ovulation to move up this much. Especially so abruptly. I hoped that every cycle it would move up a day or two, not FIVE. I think the worst part of this is I'm so incredibly disappointed in myself. A shot cycle due to my own lax attitude.

GIFSoup


So, we wait now for my temps to rise and then the LP wait. We'll see what my LP does and I'm willing AF to show ASAP so we can move onto cycle #3. Next cycle I'm going to end up being psychotic obsessive testing for my LH surge because it's our LAST cycle to get pregnant before we hit the 1 year mark from our original BFP and subsequent miscarriage. I can't stand the idea of being at 1 year later and still not pregnant. You'd think I would be used to this by now, but nope. I don't care how long this journey is, there is never a point that it gets easier. If anything, it just gets harder and harder.

FFS Body....

This was me this morning....


GIFSoup

Why?????? Because.....

Yeah, I normally don't even start testing until CD15, but this am I felt a little crampy so I figured what the hell, get a day head start. I totally had to do a double take. I'm on the fence with how I feel. I'm glad to see my body is moving my O up, but sweet bejeezus a little warning would be nice. Not to mention I like to get a day or two of sexy time in BEFORE my OPK's go positive. Sure all it takes is one, but when you are up against some hurdles you need every edge you can get. Hopefully this is day 1 of my typical 2 days of positives. Otherwise we can pretty much rule this cycle out. If I get a negative tomorrow a breakdown will most likely ensue. Awesome.

Oh yeah, hope everyone had a great holiday.

Clomid, Day 2

Since you guys are such awesome peeps and follow my boring as hell blog, I decided to show you who I really am. I mean for months now I've just been words on a screen. I could be a computer for all you know. Well, I assure you I'm not. I'm your average run of the mill 1950's style housewife. The only difference is I work full time. So I get up early to get ready to work my full time job, I work hard all day long, then I rush home to freshen up my hair and make up before heading to the kitchen to make my darling husband his dinner. While dinner is on the stove I usually try to mix the hubs his drink and grab the paper for him. He works hard, so the least I can do is make him a delicious meal. After supper I make him some sort of dessert, from scratch of course. He loves my angel food cake with fresh strawberries. I don't mean to brag, it is quite good. After dessert I do the dishes while the hubs retires to the study with his pipe to do his manly things. I don't ask because it's his man cave and he deserves to have that space.

Although if you were to ask hubs about me, he would say this more closely resembles me at this time. Yeah, doesn't take the clomid long to make me a one woman show. I'm up, I'm down. I'm hot, I'm cold. I'm happy, I'm sad. I'm angry, I'm sorry. It's fun, really. So far I'm keeping the emotions in check (I think), but the hot flashes are once again kicking my ass. I was up at 3 this morning panting and kicking my covers off violently only to wake up at 6 am freezing my ass off because my covers were at the bottom of my bed. To make matters worse, I work in Accounting and our fiscal year is on the calendar year which means I'm dealing with super aggravated people all day at work. Yeah, it's a recipe for major disaster.

Thankfully (?) the holidays are rapidly approaching so I have a lot to keep me distracted from the insanity that is the clomid side effects. Not to mention my sister is in town with my cuter than cute nephew! Yay!! I can't wait to get a hold of that little bugger and just snuggle the bejeezus out of him!

So with the holidays approaching I will be taking a brief blogging break to enjoy my family and friends and try to wrap up my Christmas shopping that still isn't done. Don't worry though, I'll be back with my nonsense soon enough! Happy Christmas all!!


**Disclaimer: In case you haven't caught on to my sarcasm as a person, my first paragraph was complete malarkey. While I would love like somewhat enjoy tolerate a 1950's wife lifestyle, I fear it's so not me.**

Clarification...

I spoke with my doc's office yesterday (had to call about my scripts) and spoke with a different lady who definitely had more info than the last. I'm guessing the last chick got confused with what my doc said. The new chick (who is actually his nurse) said my levels were on the low side, but still within the healthy range so he doesn't want to add progesterone just yet. She said had I gotten pregnant he might have, but only after running my levels again. So no progesterone for me...for right now that is. The game plan is my 50mg Clomid again and see where the chips fall. Here's hoping for a September baby!

TTCAL Cycle #2

Well, all good freak outs must come to an end and my "OMG am I pregnant" one has ended. It finally came to a screeching halt this evening with the arrival of AF. So tomorrow I call the doc so he can call in my scripts for clomid & progesterone and we try again. I was disappointed with not being pregnant, but now I'm just glad the wench finally showed so we can move forward. For someone with a short luteal phase, having an average length one SUCKED! It was long and by the end of it I wanted to punch someone in the face. It's not to so much the length of my LP as much as it is my O did not move up any so my cycle was a nice LONG 34 days! Over a month.

On top of being annoyed with how long my cycle ended up being, I'm REALLY disappointed in myself. I did the worst thing I could and that's let my excitement run away with my sanity. It's hard enough to TTCAL without adding all the internal drama to the mix. This cycle (and any subsequent cycles) I plan on keeping a firmer grasp on reality and my sanity and waiting to test until at least 12DPO. It might even be later than that depending on how things go. So, here we go.....again....

Put The Pee Sticks Down!

Put your hands up in the air and slowly back away...

If I was watching me on tv, I would literally say "bitch done lost her mind" because quite frankly I have. I accepted defeat with my temp drops on Friday and Saturday. It sucked, but I nutted up and was moving forward. I even started to look on the bright side. Then Sunday my temp went up just slightly. No biggie. My temps have done that before on CD1. It was barely a rise so thought nothing of it. Then I temped this morning.....

Uhh...WTF is that body?! Is it the Clomid? Is this my body's new norm? Am I in a family way? Yeah, little jump there pretty much put me in a tailspin. I said goodbye to my sanity and acceptance and welcomed my good old friend, bat shit crazy, back. Of course I did what any BSC chick in the 2ww would do, I took another HPT. You guessed it, negative (you're a cheater if you looked at my results on my chart, just sayini'.)

Now, most calm, rational and sane people would just chalk this up to my randomly whacked temps this month and say it's nothing, AF is on her way. Accept it, love it, move on. Well, as I previously stated the calm, rational and sane chick in me has left the building and Mrs. BSC is back so of course, it had to be that my cheapie tests aren't working. In my defense though, with Spawn, I never got a positive on the cheap dollar store test. No joke. Not even when I had already seen the heartbeat. So I stopped off at Walgreen's on my way home to buy my beloved First Response test. I only got the line tests since I already have a box of ClearBlue digitals (for actual word confirmation when a real line exists.) I bought them to test with FMU. It is possible, highly unlikely, but possible none the less that I could still be in a family way and still too early to tell. Well, Mrs. BSC is impatient and tested tonight. To every other sane person who isn't an emotional basket case right now, it's negative. To my BSC clinging onto what little hope there is with my bloody fingernails side swears there is the faintest of faint lines. You know, the imaginary you so badly want to be pregnant faint lines. **Disclaimer: there really ISN'T a line. I finally uploaded the pic and inverted the colors, so no line there**

Now that I've spent another $17 on tests, just to prove that I'm really not pregnant, I'm sure AF will show tomorrow after I get a huge temp dip. I will then come back, read this post and shake my head at the chick who wrote it. I swore I would never become one of those women (oh don't pretend you don't know what type I'm talking about), but I totally have. I'm going to blame the Clomid for now, even though there isn't a chance it's still in my bloodstream, I'm going to try to work that for all it's worth. If tomorrow should bring even the slightest of temp rises, you know what that means...

Waiting on CD1

 Alright body, point taken. I am now waiting on CD1 for our second medicated cycle. I know it's on the horizon so I wish it would just come already. At this point I'm pretty neutral about it. I held onto the hope

that maybe my temp dip yesterday was implantation, but my further decline this morning pretty much set it in stone that this isn't our cycle. Despite the fact that my temp dipped, again, I still took an HPT. Stark white negative. I didn't even get an evap line.

So now we move onto our next cycle. Doc already made his decision as to what he's tweaking so we'll try again. I know progesterone is being added to the party, but I forgot to ask if he's upping my clomid. Note to self to call on Monday and ask.

Even though we didn't get pregnant this cycle and we won't be welcoming a 3rd generation Leo, I'm trying to find something positive in all this. I guess that would be at least my LP added another day, possibly two. 10/11 isn't fabulous by any means, but at least it's moving in the right direction. Have to try to hold onto that hope right? I guess we will be literally baby stepping it on this process.

I won't try to lie though and act like I'm taking this all so well. There were tears. Many tears in fact. I know everyone says you have to keep positive and keep your eye on the prize, but let me tell you that is way easier said than done. It's hard to keep the Pollyanna approach to this when you literally did everything in your power to make everything align properly and it still didn't work. It's a little defeating and when you already have a pretty rocky relationship with your own body, this just adds a little more fuel to that fire.

We'll keep moving forward though. There are a couple things I am going to tweak on our next cycle and I'm definitely going back to working out. I took a hiatus because my heart just wasn't into it. Hopefully getting back to running will help with the stress and give me an outlet for my emotions. If anything at least I'll lose more weight and be that much healthier for our next baby.

A Dialogue

My doc's office finally called with my progesterone test results.

Nurse: Your levels show that you did ovulate this month, but your progesterone is still on the low side.
Me: Okay
Nurse: So when you get your next cycle give us a call and he'll call in a prescription for clomid and progesterone. Okay?
Me: Um, okay. If we do get pregnant this cycle does he want me to come in for betas?
Nurse: *chirp chirp* Uh, if you do find out you are pregnant this cycle call us immediately because you will need progesterone.

Nice huh? I'm assuming we're onto TTCAL Cycle #2 soon. :sigh:

8DPO Hell

My brain and my heart are having this never ending war right now. My brain is telling me that all my cramps and back pain are my normal AF symptoms and to stop getting my hopes up. My heart though, it's clinging to that hope something fierce. This internal conflict SUCKS! I kind of wish my heart would just stay out of this because it makes this journey even harder. I know my heart is clinging to this because I want to be a mommy more than anything in this world, but it makes the disappointment hit like a ton of bricks.

I know a lot have the attitude that it isn't over until AF shows, but I'm 99.98% sure she's on her nasty way. I have ALL my typical symptoms which is why my brain has said "eff this, we're out this cycle." Heart, please just stay out of this.

Farewell Good Juju

I'm 6DPO and I can safely say my good juju has taken a hiatus. I'm cramping already so I think AF is coming at her normal 9DPO. I started cramping over the weekend and while some would hold onto the hope that it was implantation related, I know it's impossible to have any pregnancy related symptoms that early. I think the Clomid may not have fixed my progesterone issue. Not to mention my typical cramping always starts at this time anyway.

So now I'm anxious for CD1 so we can try again. I'm bummed, I'll admit it, but I think I kin of expected our first cycle to bomb. I tried to hold onto hope that maybe I was always destined to have an August baby, but it's fizzled so hopefully I'll have a September baby. I like sapphires.

Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying...

Who didn't love the opening to My Best Friend's Wedding?!

That first line of the song seriously applies to my life right now. That's all I'm doing. Why? Well because...

Yep, I'm 3DPO! Unfortunately I didn't O any earlier this month, but at least I was consistent in O'ing a little later. Gotta hand it to my body being somewhat consistent. Thankfully I got my OPK's that I ordered fairly fast so I was able to monitor for my O without any issues. Whew. Speaking of...

So now we're in our first 2WW (2 week wait) TTCAL. It's driving me nuts already which isn't a good sign. Even though it's impossible my mind is already beginning to over analyze every twinge and think it's due to something good going down. I know, it's impossible to have any type of pregnancy symptom at only 3DPO, but it doesn't stop my warped mind from thinking it. Have to hold onto hope right?

Next week I go in for progesterone testing to see if my levels are good. If  not, we adapt and adjust. I've gotten quite good at that, adapting and adjusting that is. If we are so blessed this month, my due date would be VERY close to my birthday, as in 1 day before. That would be the most amazing birthday present ever!