(Cross-posted from forum)

13dpo around dinnertime I noticed a heavy crampy feeling in my lower abs. My heart sank. Never a good sign.

Sure enough, 10pm, went to the bathroom and I’ve started red flow.

I’m just SO depressed. What the hell is wrong with us?? 9 perfect cycles, 9 BFNs. I’m 23! I have perfect, 28 day cycles (other than one where O was delayed because of a cold). I have a predictable LP of 13. My TSH level is normal. My weight is healthy – too high for what I would like it, but perfectly healthy all the same. And I can’t seem to make a baby?!

I never thought I would be wanting a baby so freaking bad, and be shot down every time.

DH is making his SA appointment tomorrow. We’re probably going to have to pay for it… but that’s okay. At this point we’d just love some answers. I’m going to wait until 12 months is up before seeing an RE for invasive testing, but that’s not looking all that far away.

My best friend is in the hospital having a baby as I type, and I’m so incredibly happy and excited for her… and at the same time I’m so sad too, because everyone else around me seems to get pregnant without a problem, they’re having babies, complaining about back aches and and nausea, and here I am, to the point of not drinking alchohol, eating all organic – anything to convince my body to function and give me an implanted eggie.

God this sucks so much.

OMG, I feel like absolute crap today. I was at work for a few hours, and there was a while there I was desperately waiting for a moment to excuse myself for a bit, because I felt SO ill. My stomach is very very upset, I had some painful cramps, I have gas, bloating, diarrhia, nausea… you name it, I got it. This sucks so bad. I was taking one midol every few hours overnight, and at work I took a bunch of advil. Yuck. I hope this goes away soon.

I am struggling quite a bit right now. I feel so many things at once: fear, desperation, hope, pain, need, joy. I swing between feeling really bad and really good pretty easily. On one hand I’m absolutely crushed that another month has shown to be completely ineffective, and with every month I worry a little more than it’s not just bad luck. But on the other hand I think about baby Eric and baby Evie and I just think, when this does work, how amazing is it going to be.

Strangely enough, I take comfort in this blog. Not only is it one place where I can really let it out, where I can keep track of all the messy stuff that people probably don’t want to know about, but it gives me an identity. Let me explain that. One of the “markers” of being pregnant, to me, is to finally get to put up a pregnancy ticker and change this over to a pregnancy blog. So when I’m reading baby blogs and pregnancy blogs I get all tight inside and kind of weepy, in that “I wish that were me” kind of way. But then I come back here and I look over my own blog, and I take comfort in it. I love my layout, so it’s kind of comforting to look at it every now and again – that sheep always makes me smile. I guess overall it ties into my need for order in the world. Keeping a blog lets me categorize and archive and list and everything to my heart’s content. So when I have nothing else but despair… at least I can reorganize some links, right?

I looked at my “cycle planner” today, something I rarely do. It forecasts the next six cycles. Our one-year date is November 13. There are nearly 4 more cycles until then. 4 more cycles to win the lottery before going for help. That seems both very close and very far away, when you think about it. On one hand, I’m only 3/4 the way through the first year of TTC. But on the other hand, we’ve had 9 failed cycles, and it’s very frustrating to have to wait through another 4 before getting some answers.

We are still planning to the sperm analysis, though. I forgot to ask Den if he made the appointment yet.

Den’s SA is finally booked, September 8th at 8:30am. Bah, I hate waiting. (As if you didn’t know that.)

As you can see on the right I joined a blog listing of TTC/Pregnant/Moms. I’m enjoying going around and peeking in on different blogs.

But I realize, as I do that, that I’m in a weird kind of in-between. I notice that the TTC blogs are all infertility blogs – women who have been struggling for a year, two years, ten years. We’re not technically classified as infertile yet, as we haven’t hit the 1 year mark. And it made me wonder why I’m the only one writing about TTC before the year is up. It’s not like at one year you suddenly start feeling the pain (though I’m sure that finally getting classified as one is hard to grapple with). I’m willing to bet it’s due to two factors: one, the ones who aren’t yet at that point either hit that point, or get pregnant; and two, most women who are TTC for less than a year don’t invest too much into it. Now I know the latter isn’t really true, because I’m on forums where people are heavily invested. But I guess I’m one of the few blog addicts. ;)

For now I guess we just hope, and read, and hope some more. Let us be one of the ones who don’t make it to a year.

Was looking at my calendar when I realized that DCon, our yearly labor-day weekend vacation, is only a month away. I’m on my period currently. Which means… oh yes. If my period comes next month, it’ll be just in time for vacation! Won’t that be fun. But, at least if it does come it’ll come beforehand and I’ll know whether or not I can get drunk with everyone at the parties, right? Yeah that’s me, always trying to find a positive viewpoint. (And you thought I didn’t have it in me.) You can probably guess which I’d prefer.

I am not feeling very well today, and I think I’m creeping towards an anxiety attack. :( No reason that I can tell, either… I just have been feeling “off.” I opened the shade in the bedroom to let some natural light in, but the sun is setting and it’s only helping a little bit. I’ve been up and about, I ate, I talked with Den, I’ve played with the dogs… but every time I sit still for a few minutes that anxiety keeps creeping back up. Damnit. :(

I’m going to post this here.

Some men really tick me off. And I don’t mean in the “you forgot to do the dishes” kind of way that husbands can annoy you – I mean in the completely rude, completely uncalled for kind of way.

Just yesterday I read an article written about “what not to say to a TTCer” – I can’t remember which blog it was at, though, but if I find it I’ll post a link. One of the items was not to say anything rude/lewd. Now one would think that this would be rather a given, but I have actually had at least one male friend “jokingly” say, “Well if you need me to step in and do the job…” Excuse me? My head almost exploded. Why is it that some men have absolutely no freaking clue that some jokes aren’t funny? At all. I feel very lucky that I married an older guy who seems to “get” it – he doesn’t make lewd jokes about other womens’ breasts at all, much less to their face (yes, I’ve gotten that too – and not just about my breasts). Actually Den tends to get very embarassed by other guys doing stupid, insensitive, macho type things. (And I love him for it.) But what on earth are those men thinking??

I don’t know why I torture myself, but I do.

I love the colors on this pnp, and it even has the higher level changing table! I also like the other pattern available, “Renaissance,” though I think I like “Moonstruck” more – and there’s a highchair available in it too! (Because, you know, things must match.) The stroller set is a Quattro Tour, though, which is more heavyweight than I want (I am looking for a LiteRider) – but I think it’s not as important that the stroller match. Let’s hope they’re still around by the time we get to buy one.

Another person on another forum (thankfully not someone I know very well at all) posted that they’re pregnant. I’ve definitely reached the stage where, instead of thinking, “BABIES! YAY!!” I wince and immediately think, “Why them, and not me?” This journey just gets harder and harder.

From The Mother of All Pregnancy Books:

Someone posted this to give us hope, but it’s making me sadder instead. Why are we one of the statistical anomolies? (I almost wrote “why am I”, but there’s two of us in this, two bodies contributing that may have unknown problems.) Granted, okay, average is the balance between the small and the large numbers – with all the people my age who are getting pregnant in 3 months or less, there’s got to be some who take longer than 5 months in order for the numbers to balance. Maybe I’m one of those. But those probabilities make me think that if we aren’t conceiving still, that something’s more than likely wrong. And that worries me. I dont like not knowing. Den told me yesterday that I’ll feel better after his SA is done – at least then we’ll know. He even said he might feel better if they DO find something wrong, because then we can start fixing it instead of just sitting around wondering.

But I have to be careful with him, he takes this very personally – what man doesn’t? He’s sure at this point that he has no sperm, his men are broken, there’s something horribly wrong with him, etc etc. So I really try to be positive and sensitive. I told him all about how there are lots of minor problems that can be easily fixed (like a simple surgery to fix a veriocele) or gotten around (like IUI to address low sperm count). I try to emphasise that it’s very rare that men have a huge, unfixable problem.

Sometimes I wonder how he feels about me posting the details about his equipment all over the internet. Then I think, he knows this blog is here, he just chooses not to read it; and what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. He knows how I am. He has yet to throw a fit. I also haven’t specifically mentioned that I’ve posted the date of his SA and will be posting all the results. We’ll deal with that when we come to it, right? ;)

One other thing – I feel a smidge of guilt, but I am hoping, praying (well if I was religious I’d pray) that IF something is wrong with us, that it be something simple, or it be with HIM. I know the odds are not in my favor on that one. But I am really, really going to have to seriously evaluate everything if we get to the point of needing a lap or any kind of surgery. Because I am terrified. The thought of someone cutting me open, in any way, shape or form, makes me feel a little queasy and a lot panicked. I feel the same about a c-section, but at least at that point I’d be wanting the baby out and have more concern for him/her than me. But for anything else I don’t have that luxury. So please, please, let this fix itself. Let me get pregnant on my own.