And onto the next cycle

I don't even know what number we're on anymore. 22? 24? Who knows?

I'm pretty sure the last one was annovulatory. It was 42 days long, confusing, and just miserable. Of course, the day my period arrives I get a call back from the referral people. It's gone through, they have it, but there are no appointments available right now. They will call me when something opens up...in July or August. Yaaaaaay me.

So now we wait. For this period and the cramps to end (they are worsening again...feeling concerned that the endo is on it's way back after 9 1/2 months), and for an appointment to become available. Sigh.

18? 29? 31? 35? 26?

Those are all the days I have managed to get crosshairs for this cycle. I think I'm just gonna call it quits for this cycle...stop temping, stop playin with my spit. My only fertile signs of the entire cycle were around day 26 so if ANY of those are right, I think day 26 would be it. But the signs weren't nearly as obvious as usual, which really makes me doubt it. And obviously my shift wasn't super clear or all those other days would have never been in the running.

If day 26 is right, though, I am 13dpo. My lp is normally 12 days. Guess we'll see what happens over the next couple of days. ;)

The saliva scope

This thing is kind of complicated. Oftentimes when I wake up, my mouth is kind of dry and cottony. If I put dry, cottony spit on the thing, it just really doesn't work well. If I put too much saliva on it, I also end up with a mess. So I have to find the right balance of when I've been awake for a little bit and my mouth has rehydrated, but I still haven't had anything to eat and drink, and also make sure I get enough on there but not TOO much. And of course I've already dropped the little lens part a few times and now it's cracked. Thankfully the crack is on an edge and I can't even see it when I'm looking through it. Using it for one cycle would defeat the purpose since I bought it in an attempt to save money on OPKs.

More partial ferning today--looks good! My temp was down a bit today, and my chart has now moved my crosshairs to day 31 which I know is still not right. I'm hoping my signs continue to improve and that I have a clear shift in the next few days.

If things stay so completely unpredictable and my period still hasn't come, I think I'll go ahead and take a test around day 50 (I'm on day 38 now). I definitely don't think that could be considered testing "too early". ;)

Woo-hoo!!

I think I'm finally gearing up to ovulate! My chart and temps are claiming I already did, but my CP was seriously soooo infertile on the three days it's jumping between (18, 29, and 35). Things have been so not cooperative that I've only had one day where I thought using my Preseed might help. By the next day, all the fertile signs I thought were starting were gone...I think that was about two weeks ago. BUT I just checked my CP and it's actually moving into a fertile position now AND I've now had two days in a row of partial ferning. It's actually kind of cool--there were some ferns the first day, and now today there is a decent amount, enough to make me debate between calling it partial ferning and full. I'm going with partial, though, because they're smaller and still mixed in with some dots.

This is so freaking exciting--CD 37 and I think I'm finally getting ready to ovulate. Woo-hoo!!!!

SUUUUUUCKS

I think my ovulation date of day 29 is right based on temps and what my CP is doing now. The problem with it is that we bd'd that day, but according to my chart my CP was already firm and closed. I doubt anything was able to get where it needed to with that situation. We didn't bd for three days before that. Ugh. Guess I'll just wait for my period to come and start fresh next cycle. What an absolute bust--my fertility signs were practically non-existent this cycle. Gah.

www.fertilityfriend.com/home/b7dd7

Silly, silly body

Yesterday, my chart gave me crosshairs for waaaaay back on CD 18...seeing as my temps were all over the place and I was on day 33 at the time, I really wasn't buying that. Today, it has moved them to CD29, which maaaay be possible, but based on my CM and CP I really don't think I o'd that day, or any day around there. This is my first cycle with a saliva scope, so I'm admittedly still figuring it out. But after days of little dots and lines and nothingness, I have full ferning today. No partial ferns in random places amongst the dots and lines, but full blown big ferns all over the place. I should have had partial ferning leading up to this if it was indicative of ovulation, but I didn't. So I'm thinking my period might be on the way and this is just showing the estrogen surge that can happen around then. I really have no idea.

And I'm worried my endometriosis is coming back. My cycles are getting strange again--this is my second anovulatory cycle in three cycles...not good (I don't think I o'd, like I said). And (TMI coming) after sex last night I was really crampy. That hasn't happened to me in awhile, but this was pretty bad to the point it was hard to fall asleep and I still had dull cramping when I woke up.

On the positive side, though, we had a message from the referral office yesterday, so I will be calling for my appointment for OB today--yay!

High Blood Pressure

This kind of makes me laugh. Got a fun pamphlet from Tricare in the mail today--"How to Lower your High Blood Pressure". Goes on to tell me who high blood pressure is most common in:

Over 55---nope
Overweight---nope
Physically inactive---nope
High sodium diet---nope
Diabetes---nope
Heavy drinker---nope
Smoker---nope

Why is it so hard to take my word for it that maybe, JUUUUUUST maybe, my blood pressure was high because I was a little nervous and stressed out? Oy.

Okay, I lied

I know I said I didn't care if this cycle lasted forever and I never ovulated. But I kinda do care. A lot. I'm very annoyed that I'm on day 31 and have NOTHING happening. I've had lots of creamy CM the last few days, but nothing else. Kind of tempted to take a pg test just in case. I know it would be negative, I have absolutely no reason to think otherwise, but the lack of EWCM and my cervix being as totally as incooperative as it's being makes me think I should check *just in case*. Again, expecting a negative, but whenever I have an icky cycle I test so I can completely rule that out when I call to complain about a long cycle. And really, day 31 isn't THAT long. It's just that it's day 31 without having ovulated at all. THAT feels like a very long time. And my lp is about 12 days, so that would put me at a 43day cycle if I o'd today...which I won't. Or the next day, or the next day (I've been at this long enough to know when o is imminent and it is soooo not!).

What frustrates me the most, I think, is that I've made changes this cycle. I'm not really stressed about anything, I've switched to organic whole milk, I'm canning my own flipping tomatoes for goodness sakes!! So whhhhhhyyyyy is my body being such a stubborn cow THIS time? I mean sure, the cycles where I probably had too much to drink or ate out more than I should, I get. My bad. But this one? Gah.

Appointment

We got to my appointment 15 minutes early and then waited for about 45 to be seen. Poor kiddo was starting to get pretty antsy before we even got back!

They brought me back to take my weight, and asked if I had someone to watch Ian because he wouldn't be allowed in the room with me during the pap. I wanted to tell them "if I had someone to watch him, don't you think I would have done that??". I was surprised because after asking around, even asking some military moms, it didn't seem like it would be that big of a deal to bring him. Guess I was wrong.

Thankfully a technician was able to take him for my pap, and I grabbed him once I was dressed and brought him back to the room with me while we talked to the doctor. Based on how long we've been trying and my history, she went ahead and put in a referal to OB for me. So I should be getting a phone call from the referal office next week and then we will set up an appointment sometime in the future (hoping that OB has a shorter wait than family practice!). It definitely helped that I was 28 days into my cycle and that my last period was kind of weird (lasted 6ish days, stopped for a day, started again, stopped again...).

Very excited to get back to taking this TTC thing seriously!

Cycle Day 26

Temp is still down, CM and CP are being COMPLETLEY incooperative, the ferning that started is now gone. I'm either heading for a very late ovulation or a completely anovulatory cycle. I'm actually hoping I can convince my doctor to run a progesterone test on Thursday just so I can show her that I really do have late/non existent ovulations, despite what my last doc mentioned about "32 day average".

The plus side is I decided to go ahead and bring Ian to my appointment with me (thanks Nicole!). I'm going to bribe him to be willing to hold still by getting him a new toy that morning. Some sort of coloring set or something...haven't decided yet.

Oh, I was readiing over my records again and came across something interesting. There was a cycle that I had to use Prometrium to get my period to stop (lasted 3 weeks), and about two days into it my temp went up. I didn't know if maybe I had ovulated or if it was the Prometrium that caused it. Since Prometrium is progesterone, it's very possible that it caused the temp rise, but I decided to call and ask my doctor because I was just genuinely curious. Anyway, in my chart, he wrote (I'm paraphrasing) "Temp rise likely not related to ovulation. unlikely that would happen on prometrium, but it could. Mild rise in temp could be related to too much sun, etc." Too much sun? TOO MUCH SUN? Does he know how BBT charting works? First thing in the morning, while I'm still in bed. It's not like I sleep outside in the sunshine. And as for the "mild" remark--it was over half a degree. Not a mild rise at all in BBT charting. Grrr..