Obsession

Why no, there is not anything in the universe more fascinating than my uterus and her associates. Thanks for asking.

Since it's well into the evening of CD (cycle day) 29, with nary a drop of blood in sight, I've decided that the reason I didn't see an LH surge a couple of weeks ago was not, as I'd suspected, because surged before I started testing on CD 12, then ovulated early.

Rather, I've realized that I probably just missed it because I didn't follow the instructions on the ovulation predictor kit (OPK).

I couldn't believe that it really wanted me to pee on the sticks at 2 pm, rather than first thing in the morning, so I just ignored that part.

Yeah, I'm kind of a dumbass know-it-all that way.

(Shut up, Shrike.)

I did some more reading today, and learned that most women experience the actual hormonal surge in the morning, but since it takes a few hours for the LH to get into the urine, it's most effective to test in the early afternoon, preferably after "holding it" for at least four hours.

That makes all kinds of sense, actually.

I suppose the folks writing the instructions knew what they were talking about, after all. Huh.

Good thing I've told my boss about our plans, as it seems that I'll be peeing on sticks at work.

I'm kind of freaking about about making sure that I "catch" the surge, since it really matters this time.

Further research tells me that I when deciding when to start testing, I should base it on my shortest cycle in the past six months.

That was 26 days, which translates to peeing on the sticks starting on CD 9. So, I figure I'll start on CD 8, just to be safe.

Or maybe CD 7.

Or, possibly, as soon as I stop bleeding.

I'm also thinking of testing twice a day (the same research suggests 2 pm and 8 pm, if you go that route) to make sure.

I'd rather avoid the ambiguity of "is that line darker than the other one?" so I've about decided to buy the digital sticks, which give you either a circle (no surge) or a smiley-face (surge).

At least two kits, so I have enough sticks to test twice daily for several days.

After all this waiting, if we've got the little swimmers paid for and sitting on ice waiting for that egg to drop, I'd God damned well better not miss the announcement that she's on her way!

(Did I mention that we're springing for the additional $40 to ship them in a tank that stays frozen for 14 days instead of 7? Because I'm freaking out about the timing. Oh, had you noticed that already?)

I would feel so much more confident about this if I'd seen a surge last month, and knew what to expect.

Then again, there's a whole lot of this process that I'd feel a lot more confident about if I knew what to expect!

After spending basically my whole life knowing that I want to have a child "some day" and the majority of the past nine or so years wondering if we'd ever make the decision to actually try, then the past six months talking and planning and waiting to be able to start, it's pretty damn freaky to know that we're really about to do this.

On the one hand, we've lived with the decision for so long already that it's kind of become part of our reality, even before it's a reality, if that makes sense.

We talk about "when I'm pregnant" and "when the baby is here," not "if I get pregnant."

I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

I am trying to go into this with the assumption that, given my age and the frozen sperm and the one-try-per-month and everything else involved, it's highly probable that we'll be at it for a while before we have any success.

I'm also trying to go into it with the knowledge that, especially at my age, a positive pregnancy test is no guarantee of a baby.

But it sure is hard not to think that "all those bad things happen to other people," and "we'll be just fine," and "maybe we'll get lucky the first time."

On the other hand,

Oh-my-God-I-might-have-a-baby-what-the-hell-am-I-thinking?!?!

I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that we will actually be inseminating in about two weeks, and a month from now, I'll be sitting around hoping for my period not to start, rather than looking for it, like I am right now.

In a month, we could be finding out that I'm pregnant.

Or, we could be experiencing the first of who knows how many disappointments.

And there's no way to know which it will be.

Does anyone have a nifty trick for fast-forwarding life, so we can just skip past all this uncertainty and get on with the good part?