Thursday, August 28, 2008

My first dildo cam!

I was supposed to get my +OPK on Tuesday, and haven't gotten it yet. Yesterday afternoon I had some fertile mucus so I called the doc first thing this morning and she told me to come in for a sonogram. The sonogram was on the dildo cam, which I was really afraid of until I saw it. I fear this big huge dildo, but it's actually pretty small and painless. Turns out I haven't ovulated yet and won't for 4-5 more days, which will be about a week late. The nurse assured me that this is completely normal and that I shouldn't worry about anything. I'm still a little worried but what can I do.

K has been in a funk all week. On Sunday we both had the feeling that this was going to be the cycle, but by Monday she had switched to feeling like this isn't working at all. It doesn't help that I haven't ovulated yet and every day I don't ovulate depresses her more. I am trying not to worry about it much because I'm supposed to be calm and not stressed in order to make this work. But everyday this week she is depressed, so last night it broke and we argued and cried and hurt each others feelings. We ended with a decision to try to stay positive. We will do what we can to increase my fertility and to get the timing right, but we will stay positive. K has been doing a lot of reading and has some ideas about how to do things better, and we will be trying those options. And we might have a burning ceremony where we write down things that we worry about but we have no control over, and burn them to symbolize that we are letting them go. And we are both going to try to support each other better.

This weekend our college friends are coming to stay. We plan to laugh a lot, and act like we did 10 years ago. And relax and forget about it all. Except that we have to wake up early to pee on sticks and keep hoping for a positive.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Adoptions, anniversaries, divorces, and hope


First, the adoption. On Friday I attended the second parent adoption ceromony for A and baby K. It was such a nice ceremony, A's parents came to it and were very happy, it was just beautiful. We're very happy for them.


Second, we spent the weekend camping in Harpers Ferry, WV, with another couple celebrating K's 29th birthday and our 11th anniversary of when we met. It was K's first camping trip that she enjoyed. We stayed in cabins with AC and the campground had a nice bathroom facility, and that helps a lot. We went tubing, rented bikes, made smores, and ate lots of food. It was very fun and very relaxing.


Third, the divorces. I talked to my dad yesterday for his birthday. He told me that two close family friends are getting divorces from their husbands. One is my age, my best friend growing up but we're not close now. She and her husband have been married 7 years and they have two kids. The other is her older sister, my sister's age, one of my sister's closest friends growing up. She and her husband have been married five years and they have one child. I just keep thinking about how excited my parents were about these two families. Oh, K is getting married! Oh, K is pregnant! Oh, look how adorable K's children are! So much excitement for them, but yet these relationships didn't even last. Our relationship has lasted, will last, but no celebrations will come from my family. It just sucks.


Fourth, the hope. I should be ovulating this week, and we can start again with the IUIs. We've been sad this month since we've been "trying" for three months but have only had one real "try". This feels like a fresh start, like we can leave all of that disappointment behind because we are definitely trying for real this month. K and I both said last night that this feels like the one that will work. Of course, that means that we are setting ourselves up for disappointment, but we really have hope for this cycle.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Still not pregnant

Got my period last night. We didn't expect that this try would work, so now we can finally just move on to the next one. This period came with vicious cramps, which I don't appreciate.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Make room for baby


We live in a two bedroom condo that currently fits us just fine, but we know that there will one day be another tiny person we need to share our space with, so we've got to make some room. Currently we use our second bedroom as a guest room, a TV room, and a storage room. We have to turn it into a nursery, which means most of that stuff has to come out, either by getting rid of it or moving it to another room. For the most part we are putting this off until we are actually pregnant, but in the past couple of weeks we have been making major progress.

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, we went to Ikea and bought the desk we've always wanted - a secretary style (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10115213) with a hutch (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30115212) - and put it in our living room. It replaced a mostly decorative bookshelf, which someone from our condo is coming to pick up tonight. We also bought a file cabinet bench that replaced a coffee table (also from Ikea). This allowed us to move our computer equipment and supplies, office supplies, filing cabinet all out of the study. Now the living room is much more elegant that before, and more useful.

Last week was K's 29th birthday, and I got her CD booklets (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005ATMF) to hold all 400+ of our CDs so that we could get rid of the CD cases. This freed up a lot of space in our entertainment center, so we moved all of our DVDs from the storage ottomans to the entertainment center, and all of our electronics (extension cords, camera equipment, batteries, etc) from the bedroom closet to the entertainment center. Then we moved our tablecloths and blankets from the linen closet to the storage ottomans, and some storage boxes from the bedroom closet to the linen closet.

Then, viola! We have 1.5 empty shelves in the bedroom closet and all of the floor space. It's starting to feel like this will actually work! We moved the coffee table into the now empty closet floor space to be used as a toy chest, though right now it's still full of photo albums that will eventually need to find a new home. We really like living in a small home, but it presents a space challenge. But for the most part, we like the challenge. All of our furniture serves a purpose and there is no place in our home we don't use. And we don't keep things we don't need.

The next plan, but one we have to save more money for, is to buy a bed frame with drawers for our bedroom to move some of the stuff into our room. And to buy a flatscreen TV to move the TV out of the second bedroom and into the living room. And to do a major purge - getting rid of more things we don't need. K's been looking forward to that part for years - getting rid of stuff is her favorite activity. But all of this can wait until we have more money, energy, or need. Right now we are just happy with the progress we've made so far.

We tackled other home improvement projects this weekend as well. We bought a digital converter for our television and went from having 3 fuzzy channels to having 21 crisp channels. The picture is so clear it's like we have cable again. We stayed up late Saturday night watching travel shows on PBS and The Chapelle Show on the CW, both channels we couldn't get before. All for just $23 after the government coupon. Why did we wait this long?

Also we tried to replace our dining room light with a paper lantern that better matches our Asian themed dining room, but we got confused and quit midway through and called our friend A for help. She hasn't come by yet, so basically the cords are hanging from the ceiling. So that was our only failure this weekend. Hopefully we can get that one fixed soon. But all in all it was a very good, very productive, weekend.

Monday, August 4, 2008

White, creamy discharge

Today I have the white, creamy discharge that you get on toward the end of your cycle, maybe a week before the period comes. Does this mean I'm not pregnant, or would this discharge come anyway?