The Need to Bleed

Disclaimer: No, I can't believe that I am discussing my little visitor - who, at the moment, seems to be stuck in traffic - with all the internets. But, evidently, I am. So, I shall continue to do so.

What the ever-lovin' fuck?

For months, my womanly structures have been ticking along like clockwork. Oh, there was the occassional twenty-surprise!-seven or twenty-wuh?-nine day cycle, but that was what passed for irregularity in these my parts.

For months, I've been bragging about my inner tick-tockiness (not to be confused, of course, with the deafening tick-tock of my biological clock preparing to strike 40) and about how I always know when I ovulate.

For months, my baby-factory has had nothing to do but chug along, popping out a sad and lonely little egg once a month (no job = no insurance = no gentleman callers to great her as she emerges) then sending her on her way two weeks later, washed away in the crimson tide.

For months, I've calculated and recalculated a year's worth of expected ovulation dates, as well as due-dates-if-it-works-that-month and we-should-know-if-it-worked-by-then dates.

Then . . .

Last month, I was told to call and schedule the HSG as soon as I received Mother Nature's gift, so what happened?

On Day 26, I started feeling a bit crampy, and thought the lady in the red dress would be arriving a bit early. Ok, I can live with that.

No dice.

After midnight, Day 28, I had a little spotting. "Aha!" says I. "The curse." "I should be riding the cotton pony by morning."

Nope. More spotting all day long. It was the next day before I felt justified in declaring it leak week, and calling in to to the HSG-scheduling-lady.

I think that was the wierdest, slowest-starting lady-time I have had in all the years that I've been saddling Old Rusty.

Then, I think I've already discussed the saga of the surgeless pee-sticks a couple of weeks ago.

My newest theory is that I quit testing too soon because, evidently, I didn't ovulate until at least day 16 or so.

Again this month, I started feeling crampy as far back as day 26.

(More evidence, I thought, that I'd ovulated early. Ha!)

As you know, I've gotten the go-ahead to inseminate the next time I ovulate.

As soon as my red-headed cousin from down south shows up, we'll be able to estimate (well, one would think!) when to expect that, and I'll order the sperm.

Needless to say, we're rather looking forward to that.

So, of course, I'm now at day 31 or 32 (depending on when we officially say the misery began last month), still cramping off and on and still nothing to show for it.

Again I say, What the fuck?

Could it be the stress of waiting to for the Red Sox to come to town, then waiting to ovulate, then waiting to raise the red flag again, that's delaying those things from happening?

You know, the old "watched uterus never bleeds" theory?

(Would that I could keep it from bleeding by sheer will-power next month!)

Yeah, and that's wierd, too - I'm anxiously waiting for my cup to overflow, but this is the last month that I'll actually want to order l'omelette rouge for quite a while.

I'm starting to freak out a bit, wondering if something is wrong, but Shrike reminds me that I just had everything checked out, and how could something have possibly gone wrong in a couple of weeks.

I'm also freaked about the possibility that my next ovulation is going to be all fucked up with its timing, and I won't know when to expect it and we'll miss the surge, or mis-time the sperm order or something.

Shrike also suggests that, perhaps, her pheremones are messing with me.

Nine years, we've lived together and I think we've surfed the crimson wave together maybe twice in all that time.

(On the other hand, she regularly has her technical difficulties in sync with the women at work. Of course, she's around them more.)

So, my body picks this month to listen to her?

What the fuck?

Or maybe this is just nature's way of reminding me that these things are not predictable and that I am not the one in control here.

And, maybe, to keep me from making assumptions and jumping to conclusions too quickly once pregnancy is a possibility.

If last month's slow arrival of the Red Witch had happened during a cycle in which I'd inseminated, I would have been convinced that I was pregnant and having implantation bleeding.

And you know I'd have been all over this month's late beginning of the nosebleed in Australia.

Now, I don't know that I'll trust moon time wierdness as any kind of a promising sign, given what I've seen the past couple of months.

What I do know, though, is that we've been waiting an awful damn long time for this, and we're ready to get this baby-making show on the road.

Which can't happen until I ovulate - which can't happen until I have the painters in, which is going to happen when-the-fuck?

Needless to say, this is getting a bit frustrating.

On the other hand, I am seeking some solace in the fact that I'm jonesing for chocolate, so maybe Aunt Ruby is not too far away?

(Although, when am I not jonesing for chocolate?)

And, when Shrike gets home from work with the candy bar that she promised me, I'll take solace in the chocolate itself.

Which, I'm sure, will make everything muuuuch better.

A big, bloody thanks to Aunt Flow's World of Menstrual Euphemisms!