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>Even though I am getting ready for vacation, the two week wait is worse than ever this time. I think it’s because I don’t feel all that great, and my breasts are so sore. I know it could be something – or nothing – but those little reminders make it awfully hard to forget that what I’d really like to be is pregnant!
Usually, I feel fine until the last day or two of the 2ww, so it’s hard to not get your hopes up when things are different. Why can’t our bodies just work the same each month??? At least we are leaving for vacation today, so I will be distracted.
We’ll be seeing our in-laws and some of M’s friends. It will be interesting to see if anything about ttc comes up. M has been getting more outspoken about it, which I think is good. He said he talked to some friends at work about it, when they were all out to lunch and asked him when we were going to have kids. He was with a group of guys that all have children already. One person was talking about how they are trying for another and using OPK’s. M explained we were using the fertility monitor (although I doubt he called it that, honestly). Something about a group of guys having lunch and talking about what types of fertility monitoring devices they were using made me laugh a little – in a good way. 🙂
It’s a little bit harder for me, I think, because I went through this once before. It’s hard for me sometimes to separate the two. Even now, I realize that some of my feelings (like the 2ww) are still leftover from ttc in my previous marriage. It makes me feel like I have been waiting for SO long, since the first time I started trying was almost 8 years ago. I have to remind myself that it’s really only been 8 months, and for M, it’s only been 8 months. The fact that I ttc in the past for four years is not really relevant to our current situation, since it was with a different person.
So, we’ll start our vacation, and I’ll try to put my 2ww anxiety aside. Maybe I’ll come back with good news!
>I know most people who are ttc give up drinking. Sometimes I feel like I should, but so far, I am not one of those people. I don’t go out and have wild nights of binge-drinking, but I do really enjoy a couple of glasses of wine each night. Sometimes, I just have one, and sometimes I have two (although the glasses I use are quite small, so it probably equates to one and a half glasses). Every now and then, I have a little bit more, but I try to limit it. Some days and weeks are better than others.
I would have no problem giving it up if I were pregnant. I just don’t think I should have to give it up before then. I know that on one hand, I should do everything I can to increase my chances of getting pregnant. On the other hand, though, I wonder how much difference really makes.
I lead a really healthy life, and drinking is my one vice. I exercise, eat a high fiber, low-fat diet, I don’t eat red meat, I almost never eat fast food, I almost never eat dessert, and I take vitamins. I probably have one soda every other month. I try to use as many all-natural ingredients as possible and make as much as I can from scratch. I don’t drink coffee, and I have one cup of tea per day (although I do drink more tea when I see my in-laws, since they’re British, and I do drink iced tea fairly often).
M and I have a glass of wine almost every night – either during or after dinner (or both!). In the winter, I sometimes had a glass of wine with dinner, but sometimes I skipped it. The problem with the summer is that we love to sit on the balcony, drink wine, and chat. We make dinner, eat, take the dog for a walk, and then hang out on the balcony for the rest of the night – drinking wine and talking.
I’ve considered giving up wine, but I wonder how much it would really help. I know there are studies that say that alcohol is bad when ttc, but it just seems so odd to me. Eating an unhealthy diet is ok, but wine is not? Do people really get pregnant as soon as they stop drinking wine?
I love our life together, and I obviously want to have a child. I know, though, that there are no guarantees. I don’t want too much of our life to become wrapped up in ttc and infertility, and I want to focus on the positive. I feel like giving up something I enjoy will just be another reminder of what isn’t happening. Drinking is the one thing that I’ll need to give up once (hopefully) I am pregnant, so it’s almost like a silver lining. Things may not be going well on the ttc front, but at least I can enjoy a glass of wine. 🙂
>I mentioned that I’m going on a vacation last week. What I left out is that M’s ex-wife lives in the town we’ll be visiting. My in-laws have a condo there, so we are meeting them there. It’s a small town, but my issue with the trip isn’t that I’m afraid of running into her. My problem is that my in-laws (or, more specifically, my MIL) are still friends with her. Some people may think this is normal, but it drives me crazy. I know it doesn’t mean that they like me less, but I can’t help but feel like they wish M was still married to her. M gets mad at his parents when they see her, but he doesn’t confront them about it. I don’t expect him to – he really can’t without making me sound insecure and petty. When he and his ex-wife lived in the same town, they were friends. He was initially angry when she asked for a divorce, but his feelings changed over time. They were on friendly terms before he relocated (they haven’t stayed in contact since then), which probably led his parents to think that continuing a relationship with her was fine. But for me – I just don’t get it. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it does. And the part that bothers me even more is that she went to visit my MIL last week so that my MIL could see her new baby.
I want to be excited for my vacation, but today – I am just not feeling it.
>After getting the peak fertility symbol on the monitor for two days, I knew yesterday would show up as a high fertility day. We meant to have sex last night (although to be honest, M is just not totally getting the whole low, high, peak situation and what it all means), but we were tired. Plus, M had a few drinks after work, and that didn’t help anything. He got home late, which is fine, but it makes us eat late, walk the dog late, and go to bed a little later than usual. It’s sort of funny, now that I think about it…we do the same things in essentially the same order, regardless of what else is going on. So if we get home an hour later than usual, everything is just off by an hour. It’s sort of odd, now that I think about it.
Back to last night… was hoping to give it one more shot, but I really wasn’t feeling motivated by the time 11 pm rolled around. We caught the first high day and both peak days, so hopefully we have it covered. The last high day would have been good, but whatever. I can’t drive myself crazy over that.
So now we wait! The waiting doesn’t bother me too much – until the last few days. Those are the days where my mind wanders and I alternate between optimism and total negativity. Luckily, I will be away on vacation during the second half of the 2ww this time. It’s a bit lame that I might have my period while on vacation, but at least I’ll be distracted!
>Thanks so much for the comments!
It seems like so many people are feeling a little ‘stuck’ right now…whether it’s because of the uncertainty of ttc and infertility, jobs, housing markets, or whatever else might be happening – feeling like you have the inability to progress and move in a desired direction is hard.
On the overall-geography-employment front, we’re still somewhat up in the air, but content. For a while, I was really opposed to moving…because of the housing market and the loss we would take on our place, and because the job market is horrible in my field right now. There’s also retirement money I would lose if we left within the next two years, and there’s the whole state-mandated insurance coverage for infertility testing and treatment where we currently live, too. It just seemed like moving would be such a BAD idea.
That may still be true, but we’re taking a different approach now. M and I are getting some materials together in case we want to apply for jobs, and that’s going to take a little while. Once that’s finished, we’ll just wait and see. If we really want to relocate, and if it’s feasible, maybe we will. Or, maybe we won’t – but at least we feel like we have a choice. It’s funny how perception can make things seem different, even when the situation remains the same. It might be something that we do down the road- maybe when the economy has (hopefully) recovered – or maybe we’ll take a risk and do it sooner. I think that M has especially benefited from feeling like relocating is an option – even if we choose not to do it right now.
I really appreciated the suggestions for my doctor’s appointment…I think some preliminary testing is probably a good idea. I had some testing done years ago when I was married to my ex-husband, but it’s been a while! I’ve considered calling my old RE to see if they still have my records and if I could get a copy of them, but I wonder if there’s even any point to that. I was a patient there in 2004, and things could have changed. Plus, I wonder if it would make things confusing now. I don’t know if I want a bunch of old records that also contain my ex-husbands results getting mixed into things now.
Surprisingly, I already got the peak symbol (or ‘the egg,’ as we call it) on my fertility monitor this morning! I was surprised…things are 2 days ahead of schedule – at least compared to last month. So, we’ll give it another try and hope for the best!
>Surprisingly, I already got a high on the fertility monitor. I wasn’t expecting that for a few more days, so it was a pleasant surprise (It’s only CD 10, and I usually ovulate late). Luckily, my nether-regions seem to be going back to normal – just in time!
M and I talked a lot about our situation last night. Between stuff at work and ttc, I was not in the best of moods. It takes a lot for me to get into a foul mood, but I think I had just had enough. We definitely don’t know what we want to do, in terms of treatment. M leans more toward leaving things the way they are and is hopeful that something good will eventually happen (and if it doesn’t, that’s ok). I feel the same way sometimes, but then there’s a nagging part of me that wonders if we would be passing up an opportunity – and our only chance. I don’t feel ready to jump into anything major, but at the same time, I don’t like having things up in the air. Since I’m already ovulating, I don’t know if there’s much of a point to trying something like Clomid, but on the other hand, it can’t really hurt, either. Part of me wishes we could just jump to IVF, since it’s covered by insurance and would give us the best chance of success. On the other hand, though, I don’t even know if it’s what we both want, even if jumping right into that were an option. We’re just really conflicted. So, I think that for now, we’re going to leave things the way they are. I have a doctor’s appointment (just with my ob/gyn) in July, and I’m going to ask their opinion and see what kinds of things they suggest. I know a lot of people in my shoes would be headed to an RE, but I’m not ready. I went down that road before, and I know what it’s like. M isn’t ready for it, either. So, we’ll see. I might opt for waiting a few more months to do anything at all, but I’ll see what they say.
We’re also still thinking about relocating. Even though there are a lot of things that make sense about staying here, we have to do what feels right and makes us happy. We don’t want the possibility of future fertility treatment to dictate what we’re doing now – we need to live our lives and be happy.
So, I think things are headed in a good direction. Even if nothing changes, I feel better.
>I’m so frustrated today.
My job has been up in the air for a few months, which is draining. There’s restructuring going on, and it’s been hard. I put a lot on the line when I took this position, and it’s been hard to stay positive. There aren’t any similar jobs open right now, so i have to continue to stick it out…at least for now. There could be some good things on the horizon, but they aren’t here today.
This week has been especially bad. On top of the overall instability, it’s just been a bad week of feeling forgotten and undervalued.
M would love to leave his job. If I said I wanted to go, we would probably do it. The problem is that we own our home, and it’s a terrible time to sell. The other problem is that it’s difficult for us to both get jobs in the same geographic area. There are no openings in the area for me where he would like to work right now. I’m sure there would be at some point, but not right now.
So there’s the house problem – and the job problem – which combined, has the potential for making us extremely poor.
On top of all that, we currently live in a state with fantastic coverage for infertility testing and treatment. This other state has no coverage at all.
I know it’s oversimplifying things, but I feel like if I could just get pregnant (and have a child), we’d have some clarity. We would know what’s ahead and could make decisions. We would still have to deal with the job/house situation, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of testing and treatment if (and that’s a big if) we moved. Ideally, I would get pregnant, have a child, and stay at my job until they let me go (and/or take maternity leave). I know it doesn’t take away the whole job/house situation with moving, but the whole ttc aspect just adds a layer of uncertainty and frustration that I could do without right now.
>I am not a morning person, and I am also extremely forgetful in the morning. So, I keep my CBFM on the toilet (with the lid closed, obviously). At 3 am last night, I woke up and had to pee (super annoying). As I was getting back into bed, I realized I didn’t put the monitor back on the toilet, so I got up to remedy the situation. On the way back to bed, I started thinking of whether or not it would be ok to pee right away when I got up in the morning, or whether I should plan to hold it a little bit. I figured (and was correct) that it would be my first day of POAS with the monitor this cycle. I held it for a little while when I got up, and it all worked out. I’m still at low fertility, as I expected!
I am having another small problem, though. About a month and a half ago, I got a yeast infection and bacterial vaginosis – all at the same time. Since I never had either one before, it was a shocking and uncomfortable experience! It’s something I would not like to repeat.
After the infections, it took me a little bit to feel like things were really back to normal. I wasn’t uncomfortable, like I was when I went to the dr., but things were just unusually sensitive and prone to irritation. After a few weeks, things seemed to be back to their usual state of normalcy. After a few weeks, I figured I was in the clear! For the past few days, though, I feel like things are going a little haywire again! It’s not like it was when I went to the dr., but the sensitivity is back, and things just aren’t 100% right.
Between ttc and these new experiences with oversensitivity and infections, I am growing increasingly dissatisfied with the lower region of my body!
>Even though we are not (and probably never will) considering adoption, I loved this article by Nia Vardalos.
There was just something about it that made me smile. 🙂
>I know – rationally – that everyone is not pregnant, and that I am more aware of pregnancies and babies in general because we are ttc. But, there is a big part of me that thinks that really, I am not imagining things!
Someone I work with announced last that they are having a baby this winter. It bothered me more than usual…I suppose because I didn’t realize they wanted to have children. People could say the same thing about us, though, so I know I should let it go. The problem is that people at work will NOT stop talking about it. It’s like they are the first people on the planet to have a baby.
Then, another coworker announced they were having their third child, and they were really stunned by the whole thing.
Then, another person mention that another coworker is pregnant! Since I only work with about 35 people, it seems like a lot.
On Facebook, a few people I know are also pregnant. Only one of them bothers me, though, because she mentions being pregnant about 5 times a day in her posts.
One of our news anchors just had a baby. We decided to watch a different channel (not because of that – but for news coverage reasons) – and that news anchor is freaking pregnant, too! It’s crazy!
I try not to let it bother me, but today, we all had to talk about how one of my coworkers had to leave the meeting early to go to a prenatal appointment. I’m happy for him and everything, but do we all have to talk about it?
I know that there’s not a limited supply of pregnancies going around, and that these people being pregnant has nothing to do with the fact that I am not, but still…it definitely doesn’t help.
No one knows that we’re ttc. My mom has brought it up a few times, but it’s always in a way where I can’t really tell her without making her feel bad. When we filed our taxes in March, we owed money. I was telling her that everyone I know who doesn’t have children who is our age owes on their taxes. My mom said that there was an easy solution for that – have children! She was joking (although I’m sure there was a bit of truth in there), but I didn’t have the heart to respond ‘Not that easy – we’ve been trying since the fall!’
You would think that based on my previous experience, she would be more sensitive. Since they found something wrong with my ex toward the end of our treatment, though, she’s always had the idea that there is nothing wrong with me. I have to admit that when they found that he had an infection, I thought ‘ok, so that’s what the problem was.’ It wasn’t until later that it occured to me that he may not have had that infection for the 3 years we were ttc. Since he is remarried and ALSO having a baby any day now (I found out by accident), I can’t say I’m feeling entirely confident that the problem was all due to that infection. Regardless of what caused the problem, I think that once you have to deal with infertility, it’s hard to be optimistic – even if the circumstances change.
It’s hard to tell people that we’re trying to have children now. We didn’t tell them when we were excited, nervous, and scared about whether or not we were really ready, if it was the right time, the right decision…but it’s even harder now. I just keep hoping things will work out on their own.
And if/when they do, I will not constantly talk about it on Facebook!
triedandtrying 