Confounded

It's CD9, and a lot of weird things have been going on, fertilitiy-wise, in the last month.

• Last cycle, I ovulated on day 13 (usually day 19-21)


• Last cycle was 27 days long (usually 34)


• I had some spotting before and after my period, which was lighter than normal (but not "light").


• My cramps were not as bad a usual, but towards the end of my period I experienced this weird scratching sensation where the cramps normally would be. Just like someone lightly scratching my insides with a fingernail.


• I've developed this weird PMS-y backache in the last two days.


• Weirdest of all, my temperatures have been absurdly high during the first week of my cycle. I've also been feeling really overheated, especially when I'm in bed at night. I've been kicking off all the covers--that never happens!

I took a pregnancy test on CD6, not because I thought I was pregnant but I didn't think it would hurt to rule it out. It was NEGATIVE. I was ok with that. But I would really like to know what is going on. I am really kicking myself for not charting the end of last cycle. I need more data!

On CD27 I woke up and took my temperature for the first time in two weeks. It was 97.8--REALLY high for me. I ran to the bathroom to take a pregnancy test, only to realize that I had started spotting. My period was on the way, so I put the test away. I assumed my temp would go down to normal in the next couple of days.

The next morning my temp was still high, but I had had my customary CD1 glass of wine (or 2) the night before, so I thought that might be the cause.

But here it is eight days later and my temps have not been out of the mid 97s. A whole degree higher than normal, even when I take the flax seed oil supplements, which I haven't done for a while. I'm actually LESS stressed than normal, so I don't think that's it. I'm not sick, as far as I can tell. I've actually been feeling rather good lately.

So what gives?

I've been freaking out. What if my period was actually a very early miscarriage, and my temperatures are still high from the lingering progesterone in my system? There's no way to know, so I should just forget about it. But I can't.

I've never been one to take pregnancy tests less than 14 DPO, but maybe I should start. Because, truth be told, I worry that EVERY period is a miscarriage. It might give me some peace of mind to rule it out before the bleeding starts.

And now for something completely different

So I finished the shower curtain. In order to showcase it properly, I'm going to need to show you the bathroom "before" pictures. Brace yourselves.

Oh yes. We actually bought a house with that monstrosity lurking in the basement. The shower worked. Sometimes the toilet did too. But the sink was conspicuous in its absence, there were gaping holes in the drywall and ceiling, and the shower vent didn't actually vent anywhere. It was a beauty. Luckily it was just the backup bathroom.

Even though we've owned the house for three years, we didn't start tackling the project until this June. It actually looked better without the "walls".

There followed significant drywalling, mudding, sanding, and painting. Maybe some wailing and whining and stomping of feet. It's still not done but would you look at that beautiful shower curtain?!


Who cares if the floor is missing some tiles and there still isn't a sink? I declare the curtain a raging success.

I've Got Things to Do

So I have a new project. Ok, several.

The first is...a family portrait!

No one in our circle of friends is a picture-taker, so there are very few pictures of N and I together. Or separately, for that matter. Anyway, I have decided to shell out the cash to have a professional photographer take pictures of us, so I am in the midst of deciding on locations and props and trying to remember how to put on makeup. Yesterday afternoon I actually found myself watching a video tutorial on the internet on how to do my curly hair--made by a college student! I was complaining to N, "How can eighteen-year-olds be so good at this stuff! It's absolutely ridiculous! They've only been on earth for eighteen years and their mom probably did their hair for half of that! How is that enough time to be an expert?"

To which N replied, "Well, you can get really good at anything if its all you do for five or six years." Right. Good point.

Well, I missed that stage in my development, and I am now reduced to asking teenagers for help. Blarg.

Anyway, we're going to give prints of the resultant pictures to our parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles, so it is like hitting a bazillion birds with one stone!

This photo shoot is something I really want to do, but I still have mixed feelings about it. Who wants to see pictures of us anyway? We're no longer cute newlyweds, and we don't have an adorable child to show off. I sometimes doubt that the two of us count as a family. And that's why I need the pictures--to prove that we ARE a family and we ARE valuable and worthwhile as people, even though we don't have children here on earth.

Also, I got a a veritable SHEAF of 40% off coupons to the fabric store in yesterdays paper, so I went hog-wild. I'm making a shower curtain for the bathroom-in-progress and also a dress to wear to the Renaissance Festival in a couple of weeks. I might not be able to complete it in time, but I thought I would give it a shot. I just finished reorganizing my office. I took out the daybed, moved my desk, added a bookshelf, and now I have room for an actual sewing table. It's so exciting! Now I don't have to dig my sewing machine out of the basement every time I want to use it, the process of which often makes me reconsider my desire to use the dang thing.

My third project is to focus on getting more sleep. Not just more, but more regular. I go to bed way too late during the week, oversleep, then go through the next day groggy and frazzled. Then I sleep 10-11 hours on the weekends. Apparently this isn't healthy.

Last night was kind of a bust though. I went to bed at 10pm, which was amazing! N, always the supportive husband, went to bed at the same time. Then he woke up very early and couldn't go back to sleep, and then his "getting ready for the day" routine at 4:00am woke me up. I was able to go back to sleep finally, but I slept kind of fitfully and then overslept. We might have to work on this a little bit more.

7 Quick Takes Friday Vol. 7

1. Last night N and I babysat for a couple so they could go out for their anniversary. They have a two-year-old and a three month old. I was really nervous at first because unlike most of the other children that go to our church, I didn't bond with the two-year-old when he was a baby and he always seemed very nervous around me. Anyway, N has no experience with toddlers but, thanks to all the time we spend with Godson, he is very good at holding babies. So he held the baby all evening and I played with the toddler, and everything went swimmingly. Whew.

2. I have to take my poor kitty Morwen to the vet this afternoon for her annual checkup. It's been more than a year, but she hates going in the car so much that I have been putting it off to save us both the misery. But, you gotta do what you gotta do.

3. Annual reviews are coming up at work. I've had such a hard year personally, and I know it has been spilling over into my work. I didn't fulfill a couple of my goals from last year. I'm just going to focus on how determined I am to do better next year.

4. I've just started to read my first Agatha Christie novel, and I am really liking it!

5. I took the week off from running. I was just so burned out that I was thinking of quitting all together, but decided to defer the decision until Monday. Training for a half-marathon was just taking up too much time and I was starting to stress about it, which is something that I just don't need right now. If I do take it up again, it will be on a strictly for-fun basis.

6. N has started to lay tile in our second bathroom. After that, we are going to install the sink! When we bought the house almost three years ago that bathroom was a complete nightmare, and it didn't have a sink for some reason, just the hookups sticking out of the wall. I can't even say how gratifying it will be to have a toilet, a shower, AND a sink down there!

7. Tonight is bridge night with our good friends Mr. and Mrs. E. They have been practicing. We haven't. *Gulp*

10 Suprising Things About Me

1. I've written three novels. I have no immediate plans to try to get published because I still want to learn so much more about people and how the world works so I can put all of that into my writing.


2. In a show of youthful rebellion, I got three piercings between the ages of eighteen and twenty, two in the cartilege of my left ear and one in my belly button. I don't wear any jewelry in those piercings now, though. I especially don't miss the belly-button ring. It was just uncomfortable.


3. When I was a teenager, my parents gave me a hand-me-down 1987 station wagon to drive. While it was free (the gas was too, God bless them), it had a bad starter that was too expensive to fix, so my auto mechanic uncle showed me how to hot wire it. Not the cool way that you see in movies by connecting two wires under the steering column. I had to put the key in the ignition to turn on the battery, then pop the hood and connect two parts of the engine with a piece of insulated wire. Presto! I had to go around town hot wiring my own car for more than a year.


4. When I was studying abroad in Mexico I ordered a hamburger that came with a side of crickets. I totally ate a few of them.


5. I once took up smoking to impress a boy. Thankfully I gave up on him before I became addicted!


6. My first job was as a cleaning lady/errand runner for homebound senior citizens. It paid very well and most of the clients were real sweethearts, but some did the crazy white-glove-to-check-for-dust routine.


7. I can't stand the taste of bananas. Not even when its mixed with other stuff in a smoothie. I can always tell.


8. I love science fiction TV shows and movies (I am an unabashed X-Fi.les fan), but I don't like reading SF novels. I'm still not sure why this is.

9. My front tooth is mostly fake. When I was seven I slipped when climbing out of a friend's pool and knocked half of it clean off. My mom was so mad because it was an adult tooth that had literally JUST grown in. I got it capped for my ninth birthday and it is still holding on.

10. I used to be really bad at managing money. I once got to Italy only to realize by bank account was overdrawn and my parents had to wire me money. Twice. Now I am a total budgeting bad-a$$.

Deadlines

CD1 came yesterday, right on schedule. I'd be lying if I said I was ok, but I'm not NOT ok either. I was weepy at daily Mass and then gave myself a good three-minute cry when I got home, but then life went on and I decided to tag along.

Over the past year - almost year and a half - I have been expecting instant gratification of my wish to be a mother. N doesn't really understand why I NEED to be a mother before I turn 30, or before a certain anniversary, or before the next Christmas. In turn, I don't really understand how he can be so complacent about this. He always tells me, "It will happen when it happens and all we can do is hope and pray." In my head I know he's right, but I still can't wrap my head around it.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and I realized that it is a recurring theme in my life. I am driven to be the first at everything. I took the ACTs when I was fifteen, then graduated from high school and went to college a year early. I was the first among my group of friends to get married, then the first to buy a house.

And now that everyone else has children, I can't accept the fact that I am the one being left behind.

Why am I in such a rush? People have always asked me that, but this is the first time I have asked myself. Why can't I just let things happen as they will, instead of (sometimes futilely) trying to force them to happen my way?

It bears more prayer and meditation. I'll get right on that.

On a more chipper note, over the weekend N and I went to an Irish festival that was in town and we had an absolute blast! Among other things, we got to meet several Irish Wol.fhounds and chat with their owners. They were the sweetest, most chill dogs I have ever met. Even with music blasting from speakers, people shouting, and five little kids petting them at once, they were patently unperturbed. We are even more convinced now that we want one!

Waiting

It is CD22, and for the last week I have been vacillating between being absolutely 100% positive that I have conceived and being convinced that I have not. Pretty typical thought pattern for this part of my cycle.

I've got no concrete evidence of conception like extra-elevated temps, because I stopped taking my BBT after I had confirmed ovulation. I've found that this makes me a lot less stressed. I have been wiped out and ravenous lately, but this is most likely due to all the extra running I've been doing (I have to run 6 miles tomorrow; yikes!).

I've got two kinds of waiting to contend with. Currently the open-ended waiting of trying to conceive. Part of what makes it so frustrating is that it could happen this cycle or 10 cycles from now or possibly never.

If I do conceive again, I will then have to wait and see if the child lives beyond the first trimester. Even though this wait has a finite time period, it is so much worse because the child is no longer just an idea, a hope; it will be a living person that I love and want to keep for myself. Instead of waiting for something good to happen, I'll be waiting for something bad to happen.

Can you tell that I'm a pessimist?

N is of the opinion that we have "used up" all of our bad luck and therefor the next pregnancy will be healthy, but I just can't wrap my head around that. I don't like the idea of chalking miscarriages up to bad luck; that's what people always do when they don't understand why something happened. Just because the doctors couldn't find the cause doesn't mean there wasn't one.

In five short days I will know what kind of waiting I'm in for, more of the same or waiting of a more scary, yet exciting type. I kind of wish I could just go to bed and sleep for a week and then wake up and know the answer. But then I guess I wouldn't have the opportunity to develop patience and trust.

Fitting God into My Schedule

I know that's not how it should be.

One of the things I don't like about my field is that, even with a Master's degree, I still have an irregular schedule that includes some nights and weekends.

Right now, there isn't a convenient way for me to get to daily mass. The churches close to home don't have Mass at a time that would enable me to get to work on time. There is a church nearish my work, but they only have a lunchtime Mass, but with the travel time it takes longer than my allotted half-hour. There is one day every two weeks when I start work late and could make it to St. Catherine's about a quarter-mile from my house, but I have been horrible about using this day.

Then there's adoration. I am lucky enough to live near an Oratory which is blessed with perpetual adoration, and I've had an hour for about two years.

One of the few consistencies in my schedule is that I start work at 11:15am on Wednesday mornings, so I take the 10:00am adoration hour. Unfortunately I can't make it to work in 15 minutes, so I usually have to leave five or ten minutes early. Thank goodness I have a more dedicated adoration hour buddy!

But now I can't even do that anymore because starting this month I have to attend a work meeting at 9:00am one Wednesday a month.

I've decided to view this as a wake-up call. No more being a Catholic of Convenience! I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to have to give up sleep in the morning or socializing in the evening, but that's ok because it means I am spending quality time with my savior.

That being said, I had a hard time focusing on Mass today because I was holding a sleeping Godson. I was so distracted by his cuteness that the liturgy was in one ear out the other. How do parents do it?

7 Quick Takes Friday Vol. 6

1. Today is the day that we pay off the car--over two years early! The next phase of the plan is doubling our emergency fund so we have six months of expenses saved up for a rainy day. After THAT (roughly April 2011), then we can start saving for our Enormous Dog Transport Device, aka a minivan.

2. Now that the car is paid off, our new financial plan involves giving to charities on a regular basis. We're not tithing yet--not by a long shot. The amount we decided on is only about 2.5% of our take home pay, but it's a start.

3. School started yesterday. It was so weird and peaceful in the library, and I got so much done.

4. It's my day off today, and I completely forgot to go to daily Mass. I've got to stop doing that.

5. N and I are bound and determined to have a date night this month. We haven't gone out to dinner since February. Indian food, here we come!

6. I have to work on Saturday, but other than that our Labor Day plans include visiting Godson and family tomorrow evening, picnic for N's department at the University on Sunday, and cookout with my in-laws on Monday. Busy busy.

7. Have a wonderful, blessed weekend everyone!