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2008-07-17 - 11.45pm��previous entry��next entry
Family planning update, and my chart!
Wowwwwwww!! Thank you so much to everyone who left such incredibly lovely and supportive comments after my last entry (at my arthursmummy diary too)!!! That just blew me away. I'm so grateful to you all for taking the time to write and reassure me, and build me up and just bless me. I will now resume just being myself! ;) I really appreciated everything you guys said (Meg: Middle ground accepted and definitely prayerfully considered! :) ).
People, please hop on over to growingzpeas.blogspot.com where my lovely Meg is HAVING A BABY!!!! Wheeeee!!! I am thoroughly blessed to have plentiful comments at my diary when I'm pregnant. Meg is just like me and has waited her whoooole life to get to the stage where babies happen (!), and it's thus extremably exciting. Please read her and leave comments so she writes more often, hehe! :) Hope you don't mind this blatent advertisement Meg! :S
Neil and I had our big discussion and prayer time over the whole family planning thing on Monday evening. It was loooong and drawn out, and we basically laid everything out on the table that we were concerned about (both for and against) and Neil said no. He said he was even okay with just the three children we've got. I got the cold-clutchy-at-the-throat feeling that I mentioned before! ;) And asked him about why he felt that way. We talked about it for ages. See, I am willing to submit to him on this, but it means SUCH a lot to me, and it's over such a majorly huge issue (affecting such a lot in our future and that of our kids (born and not)) that I really wanted to be sure he was making his decision from a godly place, and not based on, "I don't know if I want more kids right now" or "We'll need a bigger car/house and more (insert miscellaneous child/baby related item here) ______, and what if we don't have the money for all that?" It turned out that all of the above were factors in his decision, and he really wasn't open at that time to considering what God was asking of us, which was.... I don't know, saddening, and frustrating.
I said that I needed him to prayerfully consider it all, and read the Bible about it BEFORE making such a final decision, and to make sure he was coming from a place where he was looking at it from a godly point of view and NOT a worldly or fleshly point of view; to make sure that he was right with God over his decision, before it became the final one to which I must submit. He was kind of defensive and said I did not need him to do that, so I rephrased and said I asked it of him, begged it of him. And reminded him that he is the head of our household, he is to lead us. He needs to be sure he's walking close with God to make these kind of decisions. He immediately asked that we pray and wait on God for a while.
Neil tells me this never really happens to him, but he felt God speak to him over the whole issue. He remembered the time that we have had to rely on God for our every need when he has been out of work, and how God has provided exactly what we've needed as the need arose, beyond what we could have imagined happening realistically. And he felt God saying, "Will you trust me?" He said he knew that God was asking him to step out in faith and put our trust in Him over this. We waited on God some more, and Neil prayed just about the most heartfelt prayer I ever heard him pray, it was so beautiful. And then he said with confidence, "Okay! We'll trust God!" :) He still needs to weigh things up and read the Bible and such, but that is where we are for now. He knows he has a tendency to take his eyes off God (don't we all?!) and think of his feelings or the situation instead. So we will see how we go.
We talked about it some more the next night, and decided that, for one thing, I will no longer mention "quiverfull" as something with which I label myself. I followed a couple of links which people left for me to read (blogs and such) about people's criticisms of the quiverfull movement, and I honestly have not yet met anyone who considers themselves quiverfull who is like this, but I am reading about the extremists who are heavily judgemental over anyone who does not choose this way, and I don't feel this way at ALL (or agree with it in the least!). I don't want a label to cause others who have been hurt by this movement to sort of shy away from me. I don't feel that quiverfull (ness?!) is right for all families, but I do feel it's right for mine. Also, we have decided (the next night!) to let the Holy Spirit lead us, so that if we find ourselves at a time where it seems to be detrimental to any of us to have another pregnancy/baby any time soon, we will pray about that and consider whether God might allow us to use a pregnancy-avoidance method for a while (we'd likely chart to avoid, with my love of charting, haha!). And we are also planning to be open to things changing further down the line, and God telling us to do something different than what we're setting out to do right now.
So that is the latest on that!
Okay, onto what I really want (need?!) to talk about!! My chart, hehe! :)
Yes folks, Obsesso-Woman returns again! ;)
So I'm on my first full postpartum cycle at the moment - that is, the bit where I just got my first period since having a baby, and then wait to ovulate and get another period. My first full postpartum cycle after both of the boys were very similar, in that I ovulated somewhere around 25/26 days into my cycle, and then had a 4 day luteal phase - that is, only four days between ovulating and getting my period. A 4-day LP is waaaaay too short to support a pregnancy, because it doesn't give the developing embryo a chance to implant. Normal window for implantation to occur is 7-10 days, and thus a LP that's 10 days or less (or is it just LESS than 10 days?) is considered a "short luteal phase". Breastfeeding causes short luteal phase, very commonly, and it's my experience too. For me, it gradually lengthens from 4 days to 6/7 over a few cycles, and then up to 10 days, whereupon I get pregnant again :)
I am slightly weird in that my babies implant earlier than the usual window. I have had 6 implantations so far, with 3 pregnancies and 3 chemical pregnancies (each chemical pregnancy was the cycle (or two?) before a healthy pregnancy - a chemical pregnancy is a super early miscarriage, usually occurring right when your period is normally due - most women don't know they're having them as a result, but I'm crazy-obsessive with my chart and very in tune with my body, so I know :) That and a couple of sort-of-a-lines on some pregnancy tests. And the details of the bleeding when my period shows).
Anyway, going by symptoms and my charts, I can see where implantation has occurred on all six of those conceptions, and they are all between 4 and 7 days past ovulation. At least twice my LP has only been 10 days long (or less) and I've got pregnant, so that adds to the whole I-know-I-implant-early thing! I figure I have short fallopian tubes (not abnormally short, but on the short end of the range, since my whole body is crazy short from the waist down!), which makes earlier implantation more likely.
Anyway (again!). Nathan was a 4DPO implantation! My chart even made it 3DPO, which seemed crazy, but an early scan (or three!) showed that I had probably ovulated a day earlier than the chart said I had, making the implantation 4DPO instead. Arthur was 7DPO and Matthew 5DPO. My chemicals were 4DPO, 6DPO and 4DPO.
Also, with my first full postpartum cycle after the other boys, my temps after ovulation were craaaazy and rocky. They flew up and down and hovered around the coverline instead of staying up high. Even for the next couple of cycles (with slightly longer luteal phases) the temps were really rocky and not staying high.
This cycle being my first full one since Nathan was born, I expected the same kind of thing - late ovulation around CD25 (like I said in a recent entry), and a 4-day luteal phase with rocky temps and wild hormones! Then a humdinger of a period (like the other times). I DID ovulate on CD25! How about that! :) I love that I predicted that one, hehe!
But now, the difference starts with the parsnips the day before ovulation with good fertile signs. The "trusting in God" type of parsnips, hehe! ;) It seemed sooooo unlikely that I could possibly be fertile enough to get pregnant that we prayed for God's will to be done, and I even prayed that God would enable my womb to sustain a pregnancy if a baby was conceived. I mean, SCARY soon after having a baby, but still. It seemed soooooo unlikely.
Now, after I ovulated, my temps have been extremely stable. They have climbed 0.1 degree increments every day for the first 4 days! So they aren't rocky, nor unable to stay up. Weird. Then at 5DPO I had a temp drop which made me wonder if I would get my period to give me the usual 4-day LP. I have had crazy cramps since 4DPO, but they have either been THERE (and convincing me that my period is about to show at any second) or completely absent. They come and go. Which is what happened when I was pregnant with Nathan this early on. I wrote about it plenty here, so I am able to refer to it now!
Anyway, no period showed yesterday at 5DPO, and I commented to Neil that I felt like my period was not coming at all at that time. Today, 6DPO my temp has spiked back up to the highest previous temp the day before the dip. Hmmmm! So, no period today either. I have continued to have heavy-duty cramps and even the odd feeling that my period is here, which have sent me dashing to the loo a few times, but there's no sign of it. I have no spotting or anything. I also feel pretty stable, hormonally, compared with my early cycles after the older boys. Mild irritability, vaaaaguely tender breasts, sliiiightly sore to nurse, etc.
It's midnight now, so I must go to bed. But now if I get my period tomorrow, then I will have had a 6-day luteal phase! Which is surprising to me! And a nice stable one with normal stable temps too. I think the chance of conception this cycle for us was pretty high, given that our last two babies were conceived on one parsnip four days before ovulation! We have better odds this time, lol! But the only thing is that my uterus surely can't sustain it? If my luteal phase is longer than expected, maybe the chance is pretty good that I'm pregnant? I worry that a little bean can't finish the implantation that it might have started if my womb is about to empty early. Or that it will be another chemical pregnancy if it does manage, because so far I have always had a chemical pregnancy right before a healthy one, every time.
I also worry because it's Thursday night, and on Monday morning Neil starts his new job, and I will get the shock of my life (!) to be suddenly doing 12 straight hours on my own with all the little ones for the first time in 9 months!!!! And the last time I did it, there were only two of them ;) That's kind of unnerving, but MUCH more so if I get the mother of all periods on Sunday. Or a chemical pregnancy ending on the weekend or Monday morning. The last one made me have to lie on the floor with children climbing over me for a couple of days, I felt so dizzy and groggy, and was bleeding heavily.
If, IF I could possibly slightly maybe be pregnant, which I can't believe I'm even writing, such is the ludicrous-ness of it! If.... then I will be so happy and excited to be pregnant again! And so completely sure of it being God's will, because HOW UNLIKELY, really?!?!
I am eager to see what my temp is tomorrow. I feel sure it must drop because surely I have to get my period soon. It's sort of on the late side for this stage postpartum, for me. I guess maybe it's possible that it might turn up with a 6 or 7 day luteal phase, but I would still be very surprised if it did. And I feel so very UN-periody even now.
I have, of course started to drive myself crazy about it, hehe ;) When I lay on my tummy in bed last night at bedtime, my lower abdomen felt full and heavy, and like there was pressure inside, but pressure which also somehow pulled on my lower back from the inside. I wondered two nights running if I might just possibly have that "sewn-up-inside" feeling that I have mentioned in past pregnancies early on. Today I feel internally hot, just behind my skin and my eyeballs or something. Tonight's sponge pudding with custard might just have had a bitter edge to the taste.... It's all so slight (read: and in my head!! Tsk!) that it's hard to really say for sure.
I have ridiculous brain fog at the moment, which could of course be down to being pre-menstrual. I took Nathan to the ladies' fellowship group at church this morning, and it was only as I was looking for parking that I realised I had just walked out of the house with the baby on my hip, nothing else! What was I thinking?!?! I had no nappies, no burp cloths, no change of clothes, and no money for parking! I thought I would turn back and not go, but I figured the group would not want me to miss it for that, so I went in and begged for nappies and money, hehe! Everyone was very nice and instantly provided me with both :) I just feel like I left my brain at home, and have had many similar instances today at home. I'm very tired but often do get like that right before a period, so who knows.
See now - for the whole time writing this, I have had zero cramps, not one. Just felt totally NON-periody. Even when rocking Nathan and breastfeeding (which I've had to pause to do halfway through this). But just this second I have suddenly got a really crampy periody cramp. It's generalised across the whole of my lower abdomen and my lower back, like a band - lower than my hips. It has been there a lot today, and sometimes for an hour at a time maybe, and then gone just as suddenly for a while. I described exactly the same thing at about this many days after ovulation when I was pregnant with Nathan. Hmmmm.
I can't think of anything else. I have obsessed myself almost into a stupor, hehe! So I'm going to bed. Will temp in the morning and chart it as soon as I can. I guess I'm expecting it to drop right down, but I also have this feeling like it isn't going to. I don't know. You guys know I am ALWAYS doing this, every cycle we've had any parsnips, hehe! Feel free to just smile and roll your eyes at me - I won't take it personally ;) It seems that I have had so few cycles since Arthur was born where I WASN'T feeling like I might be pregnant and turning out to be, that I'm forgetting what a normal run-up-to-a-period feels like. Maybe this is all totally normal for me as I approach a period? I really can't remember any more! But I'll keep you posted tomorrow.
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