Happy birthday, Husband!

A nice, big, fat positive OPK!

Iono.

Hi from CD 27.

I could be either 9 DPO today... or 4 DPO... or none at all. No way to really tell this cycle. I've had positive OPK's, 2 peak days on my monitor, a slight shift of temps... but none at one day or point on my chart. So, couple that with my non-ovulatory blood work and nothing makes sense.

I took a HPT tonight. It was negative... which, any scenario above would made it so. But something came over me, and I couldn't control myself.

I have been cramping the last 2 days. They feel like PMS cramps. I thought for sure Aunt Flo had arrived today. I even went to the restroom at work... fully prepared to deal with her. But it wasn't her. Not even a little pink. Nada. Just crampy. But I'm taking that as a good sign. Any other time I've had those crampy feelings, I would start that same day. But still no sign of Aunt Flo. *fingers crossed that she stays away*

So yeah. I'll wait for at least another 9-10 days before I try and figure everything out (read as: obsess over every little detail).

On a happy note... HAPPY BIRTHDAY Miss SJ!! She turned 6 today!! :)

All hope is not lost!

Well, even though I did not appear to respond to the first round of Clomid... I did, however, get a + OPK this morning... as well as a PEAK reading on my monitor!!

So... here's to hoping I ovulate on my own tomorrow! Only temps will tell, I suppose... which have not really been as high as they have been in the luteal phase... which, since I didn't ovulate makes sense.

Stay tuned!

CD 21 :(

I got crosshairs this morning on my chart. According to it... I ovulated a couple of days ago.

I also had my blood drawn this morning for my serum progesterone test.

According to it... I didn't.

My level came back at 0.7.

So, broken-hearted, I went to my message boards to cry on the shoulder of fellow TTC'ers.

The general question that came up was, "Why did they test your levels so soon after ovulation?" Seems that most/all other girls have their levels checked around 7DPO or later. Me, just being 1-3 DPO today, my levels wouldn't be high at all... and would look like I hadn't O'd at all. They were all like, "Ask to re-test in a few days." And, "Don't rule out ovulation yet!"

So, my hope was basically shattered until they were all telling me that it's still very possible that I did actually ovulate. Esp. considering I had a temp. shift... and a positive OPK.

So, here's to BABY DUST and crossed fingers (and toes!) that I am pregnant this cycle.

Please let me be pregnant this cycle. I don't think I can handle 100mg of Clomid next cycle.

Day after my doctor's appointment.

So yesterday I had my annual appointment. Nothing terribly exciting... unless you count sitting in the waiting room from 11:45am (my appt. was at noon) until 1:55pm... and then being the last person they call back for the day only to spend less than 15 minutes in the actual exam room (including exam time). Yeah, that was pretty unrighteous.

At any rate... when she (Libby) was doing my pap, she said that I seemed to have quite a bit of fertile CM (cervical mucous). So she said that was a good thing since ovulation usually occurs around that time... and that fertilization needs good quality CM to happen.

But I don't know... I'm not so sure about this whole ovulation thing now. I'm still only testing "high" on the CBEFM... and my OPK's were starting to get darker a couple of days ago... but now are practically as negative as they are before I even dip them in the pee. I'm wondering if I haven't already ovulated...? And maybe just missed it...? The monitor gave me a peak reading last month... but I sorta kinda screwed up what it thought it knew about me by adding Clomid to the mix this month... so we might be back to square one with it having to figure out my cycle all over again. The first month I got a bunch of highs with no peak, too.

I don't know. I know it's still early in the cycle... only CD 17 today. And I know a lot of people ovulate later than that while on Clomid. So I know it's still a good possibility so long as we stick to the every other day thing. But it's just frustrating and confusing trying to figure this all out and make some sense of it.

I had a dream last night that I gave birth to a little red-headed baby we named Alba. It was all so perfect. And she felt perfect in my arms. And smelled perfect. The entire dream just felt right... even though we hadn't told anyone we were pregnant yet and it was going to be a huge shocker to the entire family. But the "rightness" of how it felt has left me feeling a bit empty today when I woke up to find it was only a dream.

*le sigh*

Anyways. Off to a Baby Expo today... hoping to find lots of freebies to cheer me up. :)

The stars have aligned!

Can you even believe what you're seeing? I almost couldn't.

Not only did I get my first peak reading since using my monitor, but I also got it the same day I got a seemingly positive OPK. I thought I'd gotten a positive yesterday while at work. I took an OPK first thing yesterday morning and noticed it was darker than it had been. So I decided to take one to work and take it mid-day to see if it was getting darker... which it was. So I took another one when I got home from work around 9:30pm. And it too was darker than the previous ones. So, I think, since this one in the photo isn't 110% positive, that I probably had the peak of the LH surge overnight. BUT. My monitor still caught my peak reading this morning! It's so good to see that little egg on that screen. I was beginning to think it wasn't possible. And, even more surprising... this was only CD 23 (*according to the monitor it's only CD 22, tho). Ovulation came a week earlier than I was expecting.

Which is fine since we'd BD'd day before yesterday when I started getting my high monitor readings (just in case) even though I didn't expect to see a positive OPK until almost CD 30 like last cycle.

This just goes to show how sporadic my cycle/body is, tho. I've ovulated as early as CD 16... and as late as CD 30... with some in between. I'm sure some people think I'm going to extremes with the testing and monitoring and such (I know the husband does at times)... but, with a cycle that makes as little sense as mine, how could I not do all I can to try and pinpoint ovulation? It's not as simple as tracking it once and going, "Ok, I ovulated on CD 15 my first cycle... so I'll just try and aim for that day from here on out." If I'd taken that route, I would have missed ovulation the following 2 cycles by 2 weeks. With O-Day changing every cycle, I have to stay on top of monitoring... or I'll never know what day is what and when to expect my next cycle, etc...

So I'm going to assume I will ovulate tomorrow or even maybe later today.

I have a doctor's appointment not this coming week but next week for infertility counseling with my OB-GYN. I'm really, really, really hoping I have to cancel that appointment because I'll have already found out that I'm pregnant and no longer need infertility counseling... but it might be too early as I'll only be 10 DPO (give or take a day). So, if I am pregnant with this cycle... and haven't gotten a BFP by then, maybe I can get him to give me a blood test on that day while I'm there.

Anyways. I have a yard that needs mowed. Thanks to all the rain (and a bad backache this past week), it's a bit outta shape.

Stay tuned!

*A bit of an explanation as to why the CD's are off from the monitor to FF. The monitor gives you a 6 hour window within which you test. Mine's at 7am. So I can test as early as 4am and as late as 10am. So on my actual CD 1 this past cycle, Aunt Flo showed up later in the day after my 6 hour window was over. So I had to wait until CD 2 to restart the monitor... which puts the monitor a day shorter than my actual CD of 23. :)

Can I get a whoop whoop?

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked.

So after my monitor decided that I was no longer fertile for the month on CD 25, despite not having a peak fertility reading NOR a + OPK, I continued to take OPK's each day because I had a suspicion that (perhaps) the stick used on CD 25 was a dud... and/or that, had the monitor kept requesting sticks beyond the 20 it had already used, I would have gotten a peak reading around CD 27 to CD 30. After all, I ovulated (I think!) on around CD 30 last cycle.

So on the late evening of CD 27 of this cycle, I took an OPK... and, drumroll please, got what looked like a positive lead-in. I say lead-in because, up to that point, I'd not gotten anything near that dark. Thinking I might miss the actual dark + OPK overnight, we did the deed. The next morning/afternoon, I got another darker OPK that was more + than -. So, on my chart, I marked both CD 27 & CD 28 as + OPK's. I'm sure that overnight between those two CD's I got a real, good + reading. I took another OPK in the evening of CD 28, and it was basically back down to no second line.

FF also interrupted my temps and marked CD 28 as my O-Day! This is the clearest cycle I've had so far... and it's exciting! And, our timing was perfect, too... with insemination at O - 1 day!

So today is 3 DPO. Unless I start in the meanwhile, I plan on testing on July 4th. That'll put me at 15 DPO. My luteal phase is almost perfect... being no less than 12 and no more than 14. So, if I haven't started by then, I think that'll be a good day to test because I'll actually be late. I also want to avoid that inevitable let-down of getting a negative HPT if I've tested too early. (Plus, I didn't get a good solid + with my daughter until CD 41. I got my very, very faint BFP on CD 39... but we waited two days to retest to make sure.)

Okay. So. Now we wait. :)

My head is swimming.

Okay. So. I've been temping every morning since CD 1 on April 11th. I temp between 7am (most mornings) and 8am. There's been a couple mornings that I've temped around 6:30am.

And I've been taking OPK's since CD 6. I take them in the morning... afternoon... and night. (What can I say? I'm a POAS-aholic... and I found an AMAZING deal where I got 75 OPK's and 25 HPT's for $25. You can't beat that with a stick.

All my OPK's have been negative. Some darker than others... but all negative.

I just assumed I didn't ovulate this cycle. My periods have never made sense. So it makes sense that I didn't ovulate... since I didn't get a positive OPK like I did last month.

But when I keyed in my temp this morning, FF said, according to the temp pattern, I ovulated on the 18th. Which, based on last month, would be about right. But, based on my OPK's, wouldn't be.

So I don't know. I guess it's possible that I could have missed my LH surge by not testing while I'm sleeping. I mean, if I last tested around 6pm... and didn't test again until 8am the following morning... would it be possible to miss the surge and therefore not get a positive OPK...?

Assuming that happened, and I did indeed ovulate on the 18th, then I get into the questions of "Would the sperm still be alive in there from the BD we did on the night of the 14th? I know that professionals say sperm can live 3 - 5 days... with 7 days being the most in supreme and ideal environments. But, taking the lower end of that and going with 3 days... we'd have just missed it by 1 day.

*le sigh*

But. Let's just say I did in fact ovulate on the 18th. Which means today is 6 DPO. And, let's also say that husband's swimmers lived for the middle number of 5 days... which would have put them in there when the egg made her appearance.

So. Maybe I have a chance, after all. I'll test on Mother's Day and see. That'll put me at 11 DPO.

*crosses fingers*

Womb status: Who knows?

I've cleaned all day. I've organized... I've sorted... I've swept... I've thrown out 3 bags of crap. As a result, my body is aching for a soothing shower and to crawl into bed.

In TTC news, I was sure I was going to ovulate around the same CD as last month, but it came and went without any temperature shift or + OPK. The OPK got a bit darker around CD 15... but it's not gotten that dark, dark line I need to call it +. Today is CD 22... and I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for a + OPK tomorrow.

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that we were aiming to get pregnant in March or April so that we could increase our chances of having a girl according to the Chinese Birth Chart... which, call my silly, I believe works. Well, I didn't get pregnant in March... but I still had a chance to get pregnant in April. It was cutting it close, but I was due to ovulate (if I mimicked last cycle's pattern) with a few days to spare. But, my body didn't do as it had last cycle... and, sitting on CD 22 on May 2nd, I still haven't ovulated. So, we're in "boy zone" from May through September.

So, knowing this... I've been doing some soul searching the last couple of weeks.

Maybe we're meant to have a boy.

Maybe, in the book of life, we're suppose to have precious daughter, SJ... and a baby Jack... not a baby Jillian.

I only wanted another girl because we "know" girls. We've been there before. We have stuff for a girl. We've raised SJ to almost 6 years old... knowing nothing but girl.

But I got to thinking. SJ's not a typical girl. She doesn't like baby dolls... or Barbies. She could care less if she's wearing a dress or a pair of jeans. She's not a girly-girl. She's more on the Tomboy side... like me. Who's to say if we had another daughter, that she'd be anything like that? She might be all drama and pink fluff. Which would put us out of our comfort zone just as much as a boy would.

Maybe it's not my place to pick and choose what we have... or to try and force it to be one way or the other. Maybe I'm just suppose to go with the flow... and let Mother Nature do what she intends to do.

So, with that... I turn it over to her. If I'm meant to have my Jillian, I trust that I'll have her... but, if not, I trust that I was suppose to have Jack instead... and that's A-OK with me. :)

OPK Adventures

Lately, I've peed on a lot of sticks.

(In all honesty, that's a lie. I don't actually pee on the stick. I pee in a cup... one very special cup used only for this purpose. Then I dip said stick into said cup... well, it's actually a mug. But whatev. I digress.)

So yeah. A lot. At least one OPK a day since basically CD 5 (which was March 18th, 2010). Most days, two tests even... because I worry about missing the LH surge.

But each day that passed, I kept getting negative results. Very negative results. The test line barely registered, in fact (see photo below for CD 13).

Then on CD 14, the test registered darker than it had so far this cycle. I got excited. It was still a negative, but it was starting to get darker. Maybe I was one of the women that had the lead in to a positive OPK.

So, Sunday morning while getting ready for work, I decided to test for my surge. I peed, dipped and continued to flat iron my hair as the test "developed." Without much thought (almost forgetting about it, in fact), I glanced down a couple minutes later to see a positive OPK! I grabbed it, ran into the bedroom (where Husband was still sleeping) and shouted for victory!

See?

(Sorry about the yellow on the positive OPK test tip... but, you know, it is what it is.)

SO.

Yeah. We took care of bizness. Now I just wait. I'm going to try and force myself to not take a HPT until at least April 10th... which will be approximately 12 DPO (since I figure I ovulated yesterday). I'd even like to wait until about April 13th, if I can, in case I didn't actually ovulate until today or even tomorrow... or later. But, if any of you have been or are TTC, you know just how impossible it is to wait to test. So, we'll see.

Anyways... here's spreading baby dust... .·:*¨¨*:·.

Hhm.

I just had this thought... idea... epiphany... whatever you wanna call it.

Okay. So. All this time I've assumed I ovulate around day 11 - day 21 of my cycle... and just had a longer luteal phase.

But.

When I took my first and second LH test, they both came back looking particularly positive. Not the first one so much... but definitely the second one. See?

That was, as you can see, day #34.

So, let's assume my follicular phase is actually 34 days long... and, my luteal phase is the normal 12 - 16 day average.

If that's true... I'm actually NOT late. That would mean that my cycle is a 46 - 50 day long cycle. Which would mean I'm not actually due to start until around March 12 - March 16.

Which, if you're still following me... I'm not due to ovulate again until... *does math*... April 14 - April 18.

And, if I get pregnant during that time, the baby would be due the first week of January.

Seems like such a long way off...

Okay. Enough rambling and calculating. I'm going to bed. Here's to hoping my theory is wrong and that I wake up to my monthly (or month-and-a-halfly) visitor!

LH Testing has begun!

Yup, I'm still alive. :) Work keeps me busy, busy, busy.

So I bought some LH (ovulation) tests... and some HPT's. I started LH testing the other day... so that I can get a good grip on how it all works. I'm still waiting on the beginning of my next cycle... so, once that begins, I'll hold off on the LH tests until after it stops... but here are my first three tests (and one HPT - see reason below) I've taken thus far.

Okay. So that's my tests. Being totally new to LH tests, as I didn't use them with SJ, I kinda freaked out when I saw two lines on the first one. I thought that you only got 2 when you were ovulating. So, being on day #33... and pretty much knowing I wasn't ovulating, yeeeeeah... freaked out. I immediately hopped on the computer and looked up LH tests... and got on a few message boards to ask about them. A few girls told me how they worked... but (here's the story of the HPT) suggested I take a HPT because OPK's can be used as pregnancy tests. But, as you can see, I am not pregnant... and I am not ovulating as the test line is not as dark or darker than the control line.

So yeah. That's my update for now. :)

I have a theory.

I think I might have an idea on why I've still not started my next cycle. (Yes... still nothing... and we're on day #45 now.)

When we are under stress, regardless of the source (danger, personal relationships, work, environment) our adrenal glands are designed to secrete the hormone cortisol. Cortisol has a direct impact on the sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, and DHEA. Eating disorders, dieting, drug use, and reliance on stimulants like caffeine and alcohol are also interpreted by the body as kinds of stress. Poor nutrition seems to physically change the proteins in the brain so they can no longer send the proper signals for normal ovulation.

I found that here.

And that all makes sense. Right around the time I was due for my period, my doctor suggested I start a diet to shed some extra pounds I'd put on over the past year. It was really stressing me out because I dropped down to 1200 calories a day... which was a huge drop from what I was use to intaking during a day.

Also around that same time, I started my summer classes... which also stressed me out. I had two classes... one that ran 5 days a week for two weeks (and had 3 major tests during those two short weeks!).

AND. As if those two things weren't enough already... I lowered my medicine dosage, too.

I'm thinking that was enough stress to cause a cycle skip.

But, of course, there's no real way to know for sure. I'm just making an educated guess. I figure, if my theory is accurate, that I'll get my next period anywhere from day #56-#60. I'm really hoping it doesn't go up to day #70... because that'd just be insane. (And make me insane in the process.)

So I just wait... impatiently, I assure you. I hate not understanding my body.