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2003-12-13 - 11.50pm��previous entry��next entry
Cycle Day 9 - short cycle this time?
Thank you April, Erica, Laura-Ann and Melissa for your guestbook entries!! :) April, thanks for the link to the hormone site - I have added it to my favourites so I can check it if I do end up getting blood tests for my hormone levels.
Well hello, hello. I'm back and it's Cycle Day 9 already! I do not know what will happen this cycle or if I have much chance of getting pregnant if my hormones are wacky, because they sure seem wacky so far, and it's only CD9! I said last cycle that my hormones had never played up so early in a cycle before, but this cycle has already topped that, so I am kind of concerned about it. Oh well. Here's my news on it so far:
On CD5 and 6 my breasts FINALLY calmed down and stopped being sore from last cycle. But on CD7 I started getting shooting pains in them and they are on the increase (in size) again. *sigh* Last cycle I ovulated on CD15, and they started stabbing me on CD11. But this time it started on CD7, so I am guessing that either my hormones are going to eventually make me a crazy woman, or else I am going to ovulate earlier than normal this cycle.
I reckon the latter, because yesterday I was still spotting at the end of my period in the morning, but then in the evening what did I find, but fertile CM!! Not EWCM of course, since I never produce any of that :( But watery, which is the next best thing, and my most fertile CM. You all are loving this graphic narrative aren't you?! Mmmm. I also got a few spots on my neck and face on CD7, which usually start around ovulation, so that surprised me too. But I guess it must all be pointing to earlier ovulation than normal this cycle. I hope so, otherwise it's worrying!
Anyway, I now have 12 cycles charted with Fertility Friend (see my chart link over there on the left) - twelve cycles. Which makes me a bit sad because it's starting to feel like a while, even though the first 5 (or 6) were before we started TTC. But anyway, it is also good because I remember the earliest I have ovulated so far is CD12, and I have a chart for that cycle. So I was able to check that chart, and saw that I had fertile CM from CD8, and some spots starting on that day too, and then I went and ovulated on CD12, much earlier than I'd expected at the time. So it's a relief to have this kind of thing on record, for when similar symptoms show up another time and I can see what happened the last time as a result. I like that I am much better able to predict my cycles from fairly early on now, after this year of learning to chart, etc.
Soooo it looks like this will be a short cycle. From my symptoms so far, I could be ovulating on CD12, maybe a day either side, I don't know. I am going to start temping again from tomorrow morning. I will have to dig out my thermometer. It feels like ages since I last took my temperature for fertility purposes! I just want to confirm when I ovulate. I might use some of my OPKs (ovulation predictor kits) as well, starting in a day or two, I don't know. I have 10 so I might as well. Anyway we BD'd last night and are planning every other day at the moment. Fertility Friend says that as soon as you notice fertile CM, you should BD either every day, every other day, or every 36 hours (so long as there are no known sperm issues) until ovulation is confirmed with temps.
It's quite exciting to be fully into TTC again, but I am nervous about the bit where you raise your hopes riiiight up and then the horrible crushing bit where they get squished like a bug. I don't know how to avoid raising my hopes when we are trying to conceive the best as we possibly can, so the crushing bit is inevitable when the period turns up.
But let's see, if my cycle will be short, and I DO end up ovulating on CD12 or thereabouts, I should have a 25 day cycle this time. So my next period should be due..... probably annoyingly close to Christmas and family visits! But I'll just work it out..... December 31st, New Year's Eve. Great. We'll be staying with my parents in France then, so I hope my hormones don't ruin the whole stay by that part of my cycle! And I can't help but do my saccharin moment and think how LOVELY it would be to get a positive test result on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day - what a lovely way to start a New Year and see out the old one! And it would be wonderful to find out I'm pregnant when I'm staying with my parents, since I am SO close to my Mummy. I'd love to be able to share that moment with her in person, rather than over the phone. My brother and his fiancee will be there then too. We'll just be missing my grandparents. Ohhhh how I want to be pregnant before the year is out!! But, saccharin moment over. It's foolish to get my hopes up and paint a lovely picture, because it only makes it worse when we haven't been successful. I want my September baby though :) Although October would be wonderful too...
I have sooooooo many baby clothes from eBay. It was a pick-me-up when I got that last period that knocked me sideways. Neil and I looked on eBay and bid on quite a lot of tiny baby clothes in as-new condition, and I won lots of them. There are way too many to list or photograph, but I'm pleased with them. We have girls' clothes and boys' clothes, winter and summer for all ages now. Neither of us care about the fact that whenever we have a baby, and whatever sex it is, we will definitely have to put some of the clothes away without using them, since they will never all be appropriate for one baby. But we don't care. It's fun to buy them so cheap, and to stroke them and look at them while we wait for our baby. And we plan to have several children so they should all get used eventually. Unless we have all boys or all girls, or all summer babies or all winter babies! But even then we won't lose money, because they were all like �1 or �2 each, and we can sell them again for about the same probably, if we don't use them. We aren't bothered in the least, although we have had lots of advice about waiting till we have a baby in the past. That isn't advice we care to follow, because of the above reasons, and because it is helping us through the waiting right now. It's worth it :)
The changing unit isn't here yet, but I'm not sure if it will get here before we go away for Christmas or not. Obviously we're in no rush for it!
I told my grandparents that we are trying to conceive this week. So the whole family knows now. They are excited I think, but mostly sad for us that we are having difficulties. They know exactly how that feels, so they are being soooo lovely about it. Granny was quite teary when I told her, bless her! I now know exactly what their problems were. They had my daddy, and then after a while tried for another baby, because they wanted more children. They tried for 10 years. Granny had tests in the end, and they were all normal. But Grandoug had had mumps when Daddy had it as a baby, and they didn't realise that mumps in an adult male will completely eradicate all sperm from the testes, permanently. It makes you completely sterile :( After Granny had tests, they wanted to do some on Grandoug, but he refused. I think he couldn't bear knowing that it was him who couldn't produce another child. So they only had Daddy. But it must have been so terribly hard for them. I know that people on my TTC boards who already have a child are in just as much despair when they can't conceive as women who have no children.
I don't know if Neil has had mumps, and he hasn't had a vaccine or anything :S Let's hope he never gets it - but then he shouldn't now because of kids being vaccinated against it these days. I had mumps when I was 12.
I still wonder what Neil's sperm count is, and whether there's any point to our efforts if my tubes are blocked up or something. I can't seem to help thinking about stuff like this.
I wrote most of my Christmas cards last week, and I decided to do something drastic. I am hoping to do a bit of reverse psychology on myself! Heh. Anyway, it's this. I have written my news to everyone, even old friends from school, and to ALL of them I said we have been trying to conceive this year and are having problems conceiving. I said I may have tests in the New Year. I am hoping that by going to this extreme of declaring problems trying to conceive (even if we haven't actually got a "problem"), then maybe my mind will relax and think that I no longer have any expectations to live up to - nobody is going to be wondering when I'll produce a child now, as I've been feeling they have for a while. That's such a weight off. It doesn't matter what others think, but it's nice to have it out in the open. I like it so much that I might try it with people at church, because then nobody is going to make insensitive comments like, "When are you going to have a baby then?!" or things like that, if they know we are trying and a) having difficulty, and b) finding it emotionally upsetting. I like things out in the open anyway. I feel funny when I have important things hidden away from everyone I see. I always feel such a sense of relief when it's not a secret anymore.
So maybe that will help too? In any case, if anyone asks about babies in the future, at least they'll be asking how the tests are going rather than whether I'm pregnant yet. I hope!
Well it's late and I'm going to bed now, but I'll update again soon. Need to find my thermometer for tomorrow, since I've no idea where I put it, and Neil's gone to bed so I'll have to hunt in the dark! :P
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