How Exactly Am I Supposed To Be?

This is the question I would love to ask of the people who say and think that I just need to relax. However you say it, please elaborate on how it is I am supposed to be.

At my RE's office yesterday, the nurse I saw told me I should "take a break, go on vacation, drink some margaritas, and I'll get preggers." Really? Is that your medical opinion to someone who has been trying over a year and a half and is seeing a fertility specialist? Wow. Why am I paying you, then?

Even my husband says "everybody" tells him I just need to relax. Really? So, at no point in the last 20+ months was I ever relaxed enough to get pregnant? You'd think the odds would be on my side. Clearly not.

My question is what exactly would people have me do? Am I supposed to forget that I want to get pregnant? Could someone give me some pointers in that? Because countless months of varying hobbies, a promotion at work, starting my own business, general life events have not been able to push that out of my mind. It's not on my mind all the time, but given that it is a life goal and it is a priority right now, not sure how to forget about it.

So, let's say I schedule this vacation. What if I schedule it and it's not when I'm ovulating? So, then I relax, have all the margaritas and sex I want but I'm not going to get pregnant. Or, should I schedule the vacation around ovulation? But then wouldn't that sort of defeat the purpose? Hmm . . .

And I'm sure there are many out there who say, "oh, well, you shouldn't worry about all that ovulation stuff." Oh, okay, you're right, it's better to not know about my body. But, let's say, I don't chart and know exactly when. Well, guess what? I do happen to be one of the lucky ones who has very regular cycles, so I ALWAYS have a pretty guess at when it is/is going to/has happened. So, I'm always going to know. I've gotten to the point, though, where I don't worry about it. We've had crappy timing, we've had dead-on timing. We're not pregnant. So, I've relaxed a lot about it. Sometimes I still get upset about, but it's too exhausting to expect either of us to perform under those circumstances.

I'm just so sick of people thinking they know what this is like. Unless you have been there, you do not know how this feels.
And I am perfectly well aware of all the people who have stopped trying or gone on vacation thinking they were getting away from it all and gotten pregnant.

Yes, it happens.

It might happen to me.

But, so far, it hasn't. And I have a right to be upset about it. I have a right to get stressed out by it from time to time. I have a right to feel depressed about it.

Quite frankly, I have no doubt that if I ever do get pregnant, it will be on my own when I've lost hope (and, believe me, I'm not far from that). That's just sort of the thing that happens to me.

But, that doesn't mean I haven't battled IF. I think so many people do not realize the meaning of IF. There isn't always a documented reason. There isn't always an answer. Not everybody comes out on the other end of IF with a baby, so when you are in the middle of it, when you are battling it, it so often feels like a losing battle.

Well, This Is New

Given that we have not been able to time things this cycle and given my utter exhaustion of the whole process, I had every intention of calling off this cycle and possibly taking a complete break. I was just done. I didn't even bother to temp. Sunday morning even though it should have confirmed ovulation.

Apparently, my uterus decided that IT would make those kind of decisions for me.

I woke up Sunday morning, CD13, to bleeding when I went to the bathroom. Um, what?!

This was not just a little blood. Definitely not spotting. Though, I did wonder at first - maybe ovulation bleeding. Never had it myself, but there is a first time for everything.

But, I knew almost immediately, this was not what was going on. I had put a pantyliner on just in case and it quickly became obvious that wasn't going to do the trick. Within a few hours, I was having period-like bleeding, with some clotting.

I've felt sort of "off". Not sure how to explain it. When I first woke up Sunday morning, I actually thought I felt like I had PMS cramping - nothing intense, just there. And I've continued to have that, a little worse Sunday evening. My tummy also feels icky, which is a PMS symptom for me.

And I've been a bit lightheaded.

Seriously, WTF is going on with my body? Here I am supposed to be ovulating and I'm having another period? Without ovulation? Or is something else going on?

I won't lie. I wondered about a miscarriage. My period two weeks ago was mostly normal on paper, but I thought it felt off. Maybe I'm crazy. And my post period temps have been mostly normal except for the two big drops, but my CM pattern has been completely off.

I REALLY don't want to call the doctor. I've mentioned before my issue with calling doctors. But, I have to, right? I mean, this is NOT normal. It is now 24 hours later and the bleeding is still significant.

I just really can't handle another issue at this point. I'm at my breaking point and this is just not helping.

Out of The Hubby's Mouth: Father's Day

"Happy Father's Day to my Father and all the Fathers out there. Pray that I will be a Father one day!!"

The Hubby's Father's Day Facebook post.

These are the things that make me remember why I want to have children with this man and also make the disappointments 1,000 times harder.

The Hubby is so different from me when it comes to trying and to the emotions of it all. He doesn't understand why it hurt to see my grandmother so enthralled by the itty-bitty newborn that she was holding that she didn't even greet me when I walked in the house or to hear my mother, once again, discussing pregnancy woes with someone who isn't me.  He can't comprehend the emotional toll that wacky hormones takes on my body month after month, day after day. He doesn't share my fears of how to live my life if it never happens.

But, every once and awhile, he pulls something like that out of his back pocket and makes up for all the rest.

NBA Finals Win Defeats PMS?

As it turns out, MY Dallas Mavericks winning the NBA Championship is the only thing in this very long TTC process to make me say (in regards to declining temps over the last two days; on 12DPO today) "but, that's okay; Mavs are NBA Champs!"

Who knew?

You might call me pathetic for admitting that a sporting event is the one thing that could make me happy despite the struggle when so many other good things have happened during this time - babies born to friends, nieces born, pregnancies announced, I got a long-awaited promotion, friends did not lose their jobs, baby brother graduated high school. There have been a lot.

Maybe it's because this wasn't personal to me. I don't know. Maybe I just love sports way too much - that's not really even a maybe.

But, I do know that, without a doubt, for today, I don't really care that my temps are dropping, that my boobs are killing me, and that I have definite cramping going on. I have fleeting sarcastic moments of "hey, great, I'm cramping" but then I can't help but smile. Because my team won a hard-fought, much deserved battle to get their their championship rings.

I'm riding this wave as long as I can!

Conquering a Demon?

We have a three bedroom home: master and two smaller rooms. When we bought the house, the first spare room was to be a game room for The Hubby to play his video games in, but that didn't happen because we got a 52" TV for the living room and that was clearly the better place for gaming (inser eye roll). So, that room became the workout room - Bowflex, exercise bike, and, eventually, an elliptical. It was great when I was going through my great get in shape phase. In December, we sold the exercise equipment in favor of the gym membership. The goal was again for that to be a gaming room, but we don't have a good enough TV (not another big screen, but better than what is/was in there). So, we hoped to turn it into an office.

The second spare bedroom became the guest bedroom. Except people never spend the night at our house. I think people have slept in that bed once, maybe twice, in the five years we've been here. But, it was the place to put the spare queen bed and the extra bedroom furniture and my teddy bear collection. (Yes, I have a teddy bear collection. I've had it for years and I refuse to give it up. I love them. Don't judge.) It has also become a little of a catch-all and the closet is actually storage for my massive amounts of Christmas decorations.

That second room was also to become a nursery should we have a baby while living in this house. (I say that because we originally intended to be here 3 to 5 years, so I wasn't sure if we'd get pregnant in that time. We'll be here a while longer.) It was even decorated as a beautiful little girl's nursery with light purple (my favorite color) walls and white furniture in the model home. I've always let my mind wander, fleetingly, how I would transform the room.

Until we started TTC.

From time to time, I let that room go and it becomes TOO much of a catch-all and bit messy. It was getting that way when we started trying. Now, 20 (or whatever) months later, it's actually gotten worse. In the beginning, I kept thinking I'd get myself in there for something to do. Not to get it ready to be a nursery, but just in case.

Eventually, it became the black hole. I kept thinking I didn't want to clean it because I didn't want to jinx it in some way. So stupid. Then, I just started avoiding it. At that point, I knew it should be a nursery, but it just wasn't happening. And I didn't want to open the door and be reminded of all the times I'd thought about nursery plans. The only time I go in now is to get wrapping paper and at Christmas to get my decorations.

Today, we are finally moving my home office area out of our master bedroom and into the first spare room. As I'm deciding how to design the room, I start thinking of other furniture to go in there. There are a few pieces in the would-be nursery that are getting no use (and wouldn't get use in a nursery) and would work in my office. The Hubby wants me to spend the weekend cleaning and organizing all the rooms (that sounds bad, but it's a mess I made and that I keep avoiding, so he's saying now would be a good time). I told him I still didn't want to do it and had no intention of cleaning out that room.

But, when I realized I wanted that furniture, I knew I had to clean that room to get it out and moved.

So, I'm doing the one thing I don't want to do. I feel like by doing it, I'm acting like I'm getting it ready to be a nursery. I know it's not. I know I need to not think like that, but it's in my head.

I hate that something so stupid as cleaning out a room in my own home that desperately needs to be cleaned turns into something IF/baby related to me.

Maybe by getting cleaned and looking pretty, I'll be able to move past that.