Our Creepy VW Routan Baby

VW has this fun "make your baby" tool, so I tried it out.



And this scares the hell out of me:

Awesome. My phantom cyber-baby looks like neither of us, but has an eerie resemblance to a very surprised Yul Brynner.

On to Cycle 2

I had cramps and spotting yesterday afternoon, but it all stopped in the evening - so I was hoping that it was implantation (9DPO)... but no such luck. Mid-morning today, AF showed up. Awesome.


Though it sucks that I'm not pregnant and that my LP was only 9 days this month, I'm not as upset as I thought I'd be. I'm looking at the positives:

1. My first month off the pill, I did ovulate. It can take months for that to return, so I count myself lucky.
   
   
2. I'm going to have some wine with my dinner tonight, and it's going to be fantastic. I haven't drank a drop since the end of October, and it's amazing how much I miss it.



3. I'm having a fully-caffienated coffee tomorrow morning. Decaf sucks.



4. I'm not taking my BBT until after my period is done, in hopes that I can get back to a normal sleep pattern again (I've been setting my alarm for 6 every day for a month (inc. weekends) because you're supposed to temp at the same time each day. Now, I'm waking up HOURS before my alarm, anxious to temp - but this actually screws the temperatures up! I woke up at 3:30 one night, and last night I woke up at 12:30 and grabbed the thermometer still half-asleep. My husband was still awake and had to tell me it's not morning yet)
   
   
   

Hopefully Cycle 2 will be shorter in general, with a longer LP. Fingers crossed!

Everything's better in a wine glass

Apparently, I ovulated last Wednesday - that makes me 6 days post ovulation (DPO), which means at the earliest, I can pee on a stick (POAS) on Saturday. But to get the most accurate results, I should wait until next Wednesday - my birthday! I bought a 2-pack of tests, so I think I'll test both days. If I get a negative on my birthday, it means that I'll have a glass of wine with dinner to try to forget that I had to get older. If I get a positive, I'll ask for some apple juice in a wine glass to celebrate!

One Word (mostly)

Where is your cell phone? counter
Where is your significant other? subway
Hair color? blonde
Your mother? independant
Your father? funny
Your favorite thing? marriage
Your dream last night? unsure
Your dream/goal? pregnancy
The room you’re in? office
Your hobby? baking
Your fear? basements
Where do you want to be in 6 years? house
Where were you last night? home
What you’re not? sleepy
One of your wish-list items? Rudolph DVD
Where you grew up? London
The last thing you did? theBump message boards
What are you wearing? jeans
Your TV? off
Your pet? none :(
Your computer? on
Your mood? impatient
Missing someone? Bev
Favorite store? Winners
Our summer? far away
Love someone? husband
Your favorite color? black
When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
Last time you cried? last month

Dear Santa,

I know that in previous years, I've been a little greedy. I've asked for everything from a pony to a trip around the world, to peace on earth... with a lot of dolls, shoes, and purses thrown in there, too.

This year, I'm taking a step back, and I'm not asking for much. All I want for Christmas this year is a little line on a stick - specifically, a little pink line on a home pregnancy test. If I knew where to get one myself, I'd pick one up and not trouble you with it at all. But you've always been really great about finding the perfect gift, even when I wouldn't know where to find it, so that's why I'm appealing to you.

Since this might be a difficult task for you and I don't want to be a bother, you can give this gift to me and my husband as a joint gift. You don't have to pick him out anything special on top of the line on a stick.

Thanks so much,

Daphne.

Finally, a firm decision

It's completely done: we canceled the India tickets Saturday, last night I finally told my mom (she's weird about plans changing - even if they're not her plans) and I adjusted my vacation request form at work today. Instead of taking 13 work days off together for India, I'm taking a Monday-Tuesday in November, a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday at the beginning of December (I'm off for my birthday :), 3 days between Christmas and New Years, and I'm carrying 5 over for next year.

It feels so good not to be worried about packing right now.

So I definitely didn't ovulate last weekend. Not sure if I will this month, since the pill likely messed me up. Waiting waiting waiting....

I can't concentrate on anything but baby making. I got absolutely nothing done at work yesterday - I spent the day googling baby stuff and on theBump (I was doing the remote desktop thing to my home computer - I do not google baby stuff on my work computer:) I'm obsessed.
Last night, H (husband) and I were just sitting watching TV and he turns to me and says, "Why do I feel like we have no life now? Like we're just sitting around waiting to be pregnant?" And it's true. Nothing has changed, but now I feel like we're just wasting time. It's driving me nuts.

Anyway, that's it for today. Back to work.

A mathematical equasion

I now understand why people say that trying to get pregnant is exhausting and not a lot of fun. You'd think it would be fun, but honestly, take my word on it. I hate being told what to do on a good day - so being told what to do, how to do it and when to do it by every book and 'expert' is really not a good time. We *think* I ovulated on the weekend (though, since I've been on the pill since I was 16, I really don't know what it's like) so we were on a mission.

My husband is so cute. And mathematical. So there's apparently only a 20% chance that I could get pregnant, based on stats. So he figured we needed to up the odds, by 'trying' at least 5 times while I was ovulating, thereby bringing the % to 100. I know it doesn't work like that, but it was cute anyway.

Long story short, I'm second guessing the Ovulation Predictor Kit's results because they don't match with my body temperature chart. But either way, if I was indeed ovulating, we did everything we could to introduce his guys to my girl. It was weird, mechanical, and decidedly unromantic, but there it is.

So now, we wait 2 weeks, which is going to be killer. But at least the sex will be normal again during this 2 weeks!

My, how things have changed

Okay, so now that I've posted that finally, it's time for an update.

From that discussion, things have snowballed (in a good way). I went off the pill for the first time since I was 16 - having no idea what this would do to my body. Some people don't even start ovulating again for months after the pill or take a long time to get into a predictable cycle. So that was step number 1. And I started taking pre-natal vitamins - which thankfully, don't make me feel as gaggy as regular multi-vitamins do.

We've bought a ton of literature on trying to get pregnant, and just had to wait to see if I'd ovulate. And we started second guessing our trip to India. Is it the right time to go? Should we postpone and try to get my cycle normal instead of traveling? Should we go anyway, and just deal with my potentially raging pms while on vacation? Should we try to conceive now, and risk finding out if I'm pregnant while we're away with his parents halfway around the world?

It's been a couple of weeks of spinning and worrying and reading and figuring out if we can do this now, and trying to convince ourselves that waiting isn't the end of the world. It's not the end of the world - we know that rationally. But tell that to my brain and body. And his, too.

Our tickets to India are bought. The trip is entirely planned out. We're supposed to leave on November 19. But we're canceling today. Here's why - yes, work is nuts - his work is screwed if he goes away, and my boss will go nuts without me right now. But that's not really it. We found out that if we're trying to concieve (TTC), we can't take the malaria tablets we need to go on our trip - they increase the risk of a lot of things, including stillbirths. And if we did go and took the tablets, we'd have to wait 3 months after we go off the tablets before trying again. We hummed and hah'd, and today, we're canceling our tickets. My in-laws think it's because of my husband's work, and just don't understand why he can't tell them "too bad". They're disappointed we're not coming with them. When we find out we're pregnant and are ready to tell them, we'll tell them the real reason we canceled our tickets and I'm sure they'll understand.

So.... we've started tracking my basel body temperature - this helps you pinpoint when you ovulate, and therefore your most fertile time of month. And we bought an ovulation predictor kit (a pee-on-a-stick thing). And long story short, I found out this morning that within the next 24 hours, I think I'm ovulating - my first cycle off the pill. I'm ovulating. So I woke my husband up and told him to brush his teeth and get back to bed. We're having my best friend and her mom stay with us this weekend (they came this morning, will be out all day, but will be back later) so our window of opportunity is small.

So today was the first time in my life that I had sex with the intention of getting pregnant, instead of being fearful that I could get pregnant. It was bizarre. So that settled it - we're not going. We won't be able to take a pregnancy test until the day we should be leaving for India, so we're not going.

And now... we'll 'try' again a few more times over the next 12 hours (when Bev and her mom are out) just to up our chances, and we wait.

The probability is small - only 20% chance that we'll concieve, but wow, would that ever be exciting!

So now I have to wait 2 weeks - a little less if I try one of the early prediction kits, but it still seems like AGES away.

tick tock tick tock

I can't believe how quickly and easily everything in my life has changed.

Turning Over A New Leaf

I haven't blogged in ages, but I'm going to try to get more regular about it. I started writing a blog post a few weeks ago but never finished, so I'm going to post it now unfinished, and then just move on from there.

Started October 20:

I’ve been doing a lot of unexpected soul searching over the last few months, and I’m pretty weirded out by it all. I’ve always been in the “no kids” camp – in fact, I’ve been camp counsellor all my life. I could never picture myself with kids, never wanted that kind of responsibility, and while I liked other people’s kids (to a certain degree – just as I like other people’s dogs: nice to pet in the elevator, but I wouldn’t want to have to walk them every day and for the love of god, can’t you get that thing to stop barking??), I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there. In contrast, I have friends who have heard their biological clocks ticking since they were teenagers, and have looked forward to becoming a mother for as long as they could remember. I never thought I had a biological clock – and was perfectly happy with that.

My no-baby policy has always been a bit of a sore spot with my husband and I. I was upfront with him, and he agreed that we certainly have to be on the same page, and if I say ‘no way’, there’s not much he can do about it. But I told him I’d be open-minded, and nothing is set in stone. I knew how much he wanted kids and how much he hoped I’d change my mind, but still, I didn’t ever see it happening.

Then, something weird happened. In June, I attended a funeral for my best friend Bev’s grandma, and the family said such wonderful things about her – how she had passed her values down from generation to generation, how she would live on through the many people she had touched over the years, how proud her children are to see something of her in their children. And for the first time in my life, for a brief moment, I thought about my own life and what it would be like if I became a mom.

Just as quickly, I pushed the thought out of my head because, jeez, that’s nuts! However, over the months, I had more and more thoughts of what it would be like… mostly, I had these thoughts when I was with my brother & his son. NEVER when I was with my husband’s side – the kids are nuts, and the parents have no lives. Not something to aspire to - I'm a firm believer that a couple has to remain a couple, even after kids. If they become nothing more than parents (the marriage was given up for parenthood) there's nothing holding you together later. That's just my two cents - call me a hopeless romantic, but that's what I think.

Anyway, from the occasional 'what if' I've progressed very quickly to the "I want to get pregnant". It's freaking crazy, but it's all I can think about. I guess I did always have a biological clock, but it was dormant or something. I think a lot of it has to do with how solid my marriage is and how great my work is - so very baby-friendly.
So one night, my husband was rambling on about his day and how nuts work is and how they were asking him to cancel our trip to India later this month. He stops and looks at me, and says, "you're stressing about this, aren't you?" I replied, "I can't stop thinking about babies". I think he almost choked.

On thanksgiving weekend, we discussed the possibility of kids years away, and were both cool with it. But now, I want it now and there's nothing that will make it go away. I can't even explain it, but it's like an urgency I've never known. I'm anxious to get on with my life. I feel like we're wasting time - whereas not even a month ago, I couldn't fathom even thinking about a baby for years.