Overwhelmed with frustration, this has not been a good week. Maybe chiro tomorrow will help?

I thought I would be blogging regularly about trying to conceive, but I haven't been blogging much of anything at all anywhere - even my business blog has fallen by the wayside. Not enough motivation/energy (surprise!). Also, NOT thinking about it has been keeping me going. Well, not dwelling on it anyway.

Saturday was Halloween and it was great - saw my neice & nephew, spent an hour putting on a bad vampire make-up job, gave out lots of candy ("a whole bag?!" they all cried), watched some TV with hubby, then hit the hay early. Oh, and my temperature spiked at 98.5! Woohoo!

Sunday morning I was so tired. And my temperature was 97.8. Un-woohoo.

Yesterday I woke up miserable and more exhausted. Temperature was 98.0. The fertility journal page announced that this was Week 1 of Month 12 for trying to conceive (TTC). I went around the house scarfing anything and everything, and wishing I could just let go of the niggling sense of hope and responsibility so I could get really fucking drunk. I slept a lot too. Went online and checked out some fertility websites/forums, not much really stood out. So in my journal I wrote to myself:

"Thanksgiving is coming
Christmas follows too quickly
and then I'm 37 and closer
to menopause and/or imperfect
eggs = Down's Syndrome"

This is a sad, frustrating milestone for me, and I feel like it's time to go in and get more testing done. But when I suggested this about two months ago, Eric was very negative. I thought at first it was because I said I wanted him to have his sperm count done - a threat to his manliness or something. He insisted it was just because it was unnecessary at this early stage, and he was frustrated I was taking it too seriously. Once again, it seemed Eric was rolling his eyes at me when I try to convey that I think something is wrong with me. He doesn't seem to know how hurtful that is. But I've gotten better and just shoving that down and forgetting about it - that's just Eric. Let him have his way, a few more months of trying before testing won't hurt, right?

At least that's what I told myself after the arguing was done and the tears had been wiped away. He told me he thought it was too early to be concerned because to him, we had "only just started being serious about trying". What did he think all the temperature monitoring and timed sex was about? He said that if we were serious, we would be following the method of every-other-day. I was dumbfounded. I had made him read highlighted sections of a fertility/conceiving tip book, and here he was quoting it back to me like it was gospel and the only way. I did not have him read about the temperature taking and how much more accurate it is, because it's just so freaking complicated and since he's not doing the charting, does he really need to know or care how that process goes? I tried to explain to him that "quality is more important than quantity", that having more sex isn't what's helpful, but timing the sex is. He didn't really believe me, and that's when I gave up.

He just has no idea what this is like for me. We're having more sex these last few months, so conceiving is on his mind more often. But conceiving is on my mind EVERY MORNING when I wake up. For hours at a time when the temperatures change. Constantly in the last 4-5 days of my cycle. Every trip to the bathroom when I check the TP swipe.

My body has been my enemy for such a long time, I do myself not to let it get me down, because it has a huge impact on my mood - for years now I have spent most of my therapy time talking about my physical conditions because of how miserable they make me. But having proof every morning of what's wrong? Seeing my cycles shift from month to month. Temperatures drop and rise at unexpected times. Temperatures slowly stepping up or down, which is an indication of non-ovulating problems. How it feels to ignore that evidence on the day there is a real drop or spike in temperature, because surely THIS is the true result, right? I can be ovulating on day 22 of my cycle, right?????

I have a form of Endomitriosis that is not supposed to affect my fertility - no real scarring because the endo. cells have intertwined with my entire uterus. So painful periods that surgery can't help, but supposedly won't change my fertility.

I remembered something yesterday. When I was 11 and started my novel, the main character - me - was infertile (and resistant to hangovers!), it was just a plot convenience. But then in high school, once I lost my virginity, Richard and I weren't exactly careful with sex, not using condoms very often, depending on the "pull out method". No pregnancies. My 2nd boyfriend was actually worse - I don't think we used a condom EVER. No pregnancies.

So many people getting pregnant, having abortions, having babies, dealing with teen motherhood and sucky teen fathers. And here's me having unprotected sex day after day with NO repercussions.

Have I actually been infertile all along? I never did go in to get the results of the Day-3 blood work - I assumed if it was unusual, they would try to contact me. When I took a home fertility test, the results were iffy. Unlike Yes/No for pregnancy, just turning pink isn't good enough - if it's too light or too dark, that's a problem. WTF? How am I supposed to tell what is too light and too dark??? So of course I ignored it.

When we started this process, I was slightly concerned that we'd waited so long. Slightly more concerned when I found out that every year after 35 increases my chances of having a baby with Down's Syndrome. But not REAL concern. I'd never been fond of the idea of being pregnant anyway, so if it didn't happen, there was always adoption. I have since changed my mind about the pregnancy itself. Reading magazines and books and websites and my journal's sidenotes has gotten me excited to actually experience pregnancy.

I remember being so calm. Excited, but calm. I was not going to freak out like "those women" who stress constantly about not being pregnant. And I was doing a pretty damn good job until 2 months ago.

All those weird symptoms, I was so nauseated for the week running up to my period, I knew it had to be positive. I started my force-of-will voodoo thinking to make the baby a girl (shut-up, a girl has to keep some ridiculous hopes to stay sane!). I picked out a girl baby name years ago, so suddenly my uterus and its passenger had a name. I knew this was stupid at the time. But everything in my body was screaming I was pregnant. And then I had my period.

And now it's happening again. The nausea isn't as strong, but there has been a lot of cramping. The temperature did some small step-laddering, but then there was a recognizable fall. Stepladder up, to a recognizable spike. More nausea & cramps. Temperature crash on Sunday could only mean I'm not pregnant. Monday was confirmation. But then today it's another huge spike? WTF? My cycles have finally become normal enough to be 28 days or very close. But my temperatures are all over the place? What gives?

This morning I was frustrated that I hadn't heard from Apple about my computer. Went online and saw that my computer had been fixed and ready to pick up LAST FRIDAY. Zero phone calls. Zero emails. No contact at all. Which is exactly what happened 2 years ago when it broke. And I'm pretty sure it was a hard drive problem then too. The store employees were wishy washy with their apologies. I didn't want apologies. I didn't want concession or money or glory. I want accountability. I want a mark to go on the store's record. So the next time they fucked with a customer, another mark would go in and there would be a pattern and Apple would have reason to actually DO something about the ineptitude.

Calling Apple today gave me a big run around of nonsense. Apple seems to have no way to collect feedback on their people, practices, or services. Just their products. Their website. Their forums. Their online store's glitches.

Thanks for making this day that much more pissy Apple. Truly, you deserve a break today. I'll bring in some cupcakes when I arrive hysterical at the store. That will teach them. Yelling at mindless drones because my wandering womb* is fucking with me. How very satisfying.

ps: *it has come to my attention that sometimes when I think I'm making clever word-play, no one has any fucking clue what I'm talking about. The term "hysterical" comes from the condition of "hysteria", described by the Greeks as female instabilty caused by her womb wandering around her body keeping her from getting pregnant and just overall properly feminine. The inclusion of such phrases seemed kind of a no-brainer to me given the circumstances. But when I sit down depressed and remark "I discoverd this morning that I'm un-pregnant. Yay." in a fake happy voice, this does not mean that I have changed my mind about getting pregnant. This means that I started my period today, I have 5 days of sheer pain and drug-addledness to look forward to, and oh yes, there's another month's hopes for parenthood down the drain of my fucking toilet.