This is a little on the TMI side (but what isn’t in this journey?), but ever since the IUI I’ve been making a mess of my panties. What is with all this CM??

My teeth have been super sensitive lately. I ate some raisins yesterday, not thinking much about it – but suddenly pain, so much pain in my teeth. Damn sugary foods, I tell you. (I haven’t been able to eat caramel for several years now.) Maybe that’s a hint that I need to get my butt to a dentist.

Then this morning I woke up feeling fine, but I’m just sitting here in bed and my stomach is feeling worse and worse. I need to eat a little something in an attempt to settle it. Don’t know what’s up with that. It’s only 4dpo, so it’s too early for any kind of symptoms.

Note to self: Pottery Barn Kids has some GREAT crib bedding sets priced affordably (rather than the $500+ sets I was finding elsewhere – yikes man). I especially love “CHAMOIS LAMBIE”, which I found on ebay. :D But it’s a bit “themey”, and some of the other patterns are very graphic with strips and patterns and no real “theme”. I’ll probably end up going in that direction.

Tonight as I was playing (attempting to play?) my game on my laptop in bed I flipped through my favorite TV channels to put something on in the background. I stumbled across a show about a pair of pandas in the U.S. whom they were trying to mate. So I watched it.

It was pretty amazing. Pandas, being as endangered as they are, ovulate only once a year. (Well, the females do.) And so, just like with humans, with each ovulation they have only about a 12-24 hour window of a successful mating. (And, unlike humans, pandas won’t mate prior to her going into super-fertile “I’M OVULATING!” mode.)

With these two particular pandas, the first year the zoo had them, she went into heat, they tried to figure out the intercourse thing (the pandas, I mean), they even mated briefly. But no pregnancy occurred.

The second year she went into heat they put the two pandas together again and they made a few attempts – but no mating took place. Much disappointment, there would be no panda baby yet again.

The third year, after talking to the Chinese to decide on a course of action, the panda keepers decided to do panda IUI. Yes, panda artificial insemination. Both pandas had to be sedated for the procedure, but the general principal applied – sperm gets taken out, sperm gets put in, much waiting occurs.

And a little baby panda was the result. What an amazing little thing. The panda keepers were nearly crying.

So there you go – we are pandas.

There is someone I work with now and again – I’ll call her E – who has two grown kids. A bunch of us were talking about animals yesterday and some of the vet work that needs to be done on them (My boss found a cat on the side of the road that had been hit by a car – thankfully it only had a concussion! Very lucky cat!) and E talked about how she faints at anything like that. She said when she first got pregnant they put her in a room and showed her a little movie about childbirth – and she walked out and fainted flat on the floor.

And then she went on to say that she had both children medication-free. I asked her a little about what brought that about, and she said, “It’s funny, the mind over the body. I wanted what was best for my babies. That poor doctor, though – if I could have scratched his eyes out, I would have. But by the time I was begging for medication it was too late.”

I thought that was pretty amazing. It just goes to show you the strength we all have inside us that we can call up when we want to – that even someone no one would expect to get through childbirth in one piece can decide to do it without medication.

It’s been going on for about an hour now, started when I was watching TV. I just kept shaking my head because it felt like my left eye wasn’t focussing right. Getting dinner ready I still felt it, felt weird when I was reading the recipe. Now it’s progressing to pressure/pain behind my left eye. :( Damnit. I was hoping it was just going to fade away when I stopped staring at the TV screen.

I think I am really on edge lately. Today I was just flying off the handle at everything – fought with hubby while making dinner, after listing off a bunch of irritations to him and sorting that out (he apologised for doing the irritating things). Sigh. I think it all comes back to the fact that I’m getting more and more tense about testing on monday. When you want something so bad… it just ties you up in knots waiting, wondering, worrying.

Will this month be the one? Will I be lucky? This month feels even more desperate because I really want a September baby. A little bit of vanity (I was born in September).

I’ve been trying to keep myself busy this week – I decided to start redoing the kitchen, starting with painting, so of course I’m all obsessed with paint colors and countertop samples. That’s making me cranky too (DH and I are disagreeing with pretty much everything), but in my mind it’s at least a distraction.

Yeah, and by the time evening rolls around I’m about ready to start bawling at every little thing. Why? No idea. Just feel low. I’m just not having a good day I guess. :(

I test tomorrow morning. I’m in knots thinking about it and I’m trying to prepare myself for the inevitable negative.

Nothing… just a white test strip and one lonely pink line. Still not pregnant. :( What did I expect, though.