Back From Vacation & Ovulation

We are home from a wonderful beach vacation. It was so nice to unwind and relax as a family. My girl is a total beach bum. She could have easily spent all day, every day at the beach. I'm sure she gets that from me. The beach is my favorite place on earth.

She especially loved building sandcastles!

I took 100mg Clomid while we were on vacation and started taking OPK's. I had positive OPK's for 3 days this week, and based on pains, I'm pretty sure I ovulated overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, even though fertility friend gave me ovulation crosshairs for Monday, I know I didn't ovulate until at least Tuesday. Our BD timing should be great, so we just wait and see. The night before I went to another NKOTBSB concert - I seem to ovulate right after each of their concerts I've seen. I had to joke with my husband about the boybanders making my eggs pop.

I wouldn't be a very good TTC blogger if I didn't include a photo of my OPK's, now would I ;)

My RE wanted to do an ultrasound to check my follies at 12DPO, but I was out of town on vacation and wouldn't be back until 14DPO, so no trigger shot this month. We just did Clomid and are trying on our own. Ready for testing to begin....

New Cycle

Today marks CD1 of a new cycle. Based on my typical loooong LP, I think I probably did ovulate around June 22. I thought I had strong symptoms then, but kept second guessing myself since I wasn't really charting and tracking last cycle and my post ovulation temps weren't that high and seemed to fall in that middle ground area. I'm glad that cycle is over. It was a confusing roller coaster.

I called my RE's office today to get set up for this cycle. We were going to do 100mg Clomid, an ultrasound on CD12 to check my follicles, then HCG trigger shot when they were ready for ovulation. Problem is, I'm going on vacation and won't be home for a CD12 ultrasound. I won't be home until late in the day on CD14, last Clomid cycle I O'd on CD14, so it would be too late to time a trigger shot. My RE thinks we should just do Clomid and try on our own without a trigger shot this month. So that's what we'll do. The trigger shot was really my idea anyway, not something that she thinks would necessarily help, but it can't hurt, so I wanted to do it. I just wanted to keep my follicles from getting too big. If I don't get pregnant this cycle, we'll probably do a trigger shot next cycle.

It could be a little tricky being on vacation at this stage of the game. It will be difficult to take my temperature consistently because my daughter is sleeping in our room, so I won't want to set an early alarm for temping purposes. We would all be awake from that moment on, and who wants to get up at 7AM every morning on vacation!?! So, I'll probably just temp whenever I wake up each day and hope to be able to follow a pattern. I'll try to start taking OPK's toward the end of the trip too. We'll be back at our house on CD12, which is a Saturday and my RE's office doesn't do ultrasounds that day, but my husband and I are going out of town overnight just the two of us CD13-14. It will be a busy and hectic several days (I'm confused just reading what I wrote), but hopefully everything will work out well in the end.

One Year

Saturday, July 9, 2011 marked one year my son was delivered into this world, still. I finished his memory book the night before. It's nice to have it completed. I think it will be nice to share with my daughter when she gets older too. We have one photo of him after he was delivered, so I think we will wait a while before we share the book with her. I'm afraid it would be pretty disturbing for a child to see that photo.

We had a nice day of remembrance. His crape myrtle tree from the year before didn't seem to make it, so we got a new one to plant this year. As we went out to plant the new one we saw new shoots coming up around the old one. It would be amazing to me if it came back! We decided to cut back the dead branches on the old one, but instead of planting the new one in the same spot, we decided to plant it beside so we could give the new shoots on the old tree a chance to grow.

It's no surprise to me a butterfly came to play with us as we planted the new tree. Look closely on the dandelion.

After we planted the tree and got it watered we went out for ice cream and a walk at our favorite park. It was a nice day. I pushed away the intense sadness all day. I'm not sure if that was a healthy choice, but I just didn't want to be sobbing all day. I cried quite a bit the day before. I appreciate the kind words we received from a handful of people (including your sweet comments on my previous blog post). Thank you so much - your words really do mean a lot.





July 8...The Day My World Came Crashing Down

It was a year ago, almost exactly to the hour, that we went in for an ultrasound to find out my son had died in utero. Part of that seems so distant and part of it seem like it was just last month. July 9th is the day we delivered him and the day that we will keep aside as a day to honor him. Today is much more painful than I anticipated.

I have been working on a memory book for him. Something that I can look at whenever I am especially missing him. I thought it would be cathartic to put together, and sometimes it has been, but most times I find it difficult to motivate myself to be in that sadness. It's just easier to block out the pain. When it surfaces, it is still so intense.

Most days it still seems so unreal. I still find myself thinking that it didn't happen to me, it's just too much. The reality of it all is unsettling and I push it away again.

Today it is raining...the sky is crying...it was last year too...I love you forever and I miss you.

Faulty Tests!

I know I wasn't actively TTC this month, but when you think you are pregnant and get your hopes up, it's really a big disappointment to find out you really are not pregnant at all. It seems those green handled tests are famous for giving false positives (a few other people have had the same thing happen). I wish I had known that before I bought them. This is my warning to all you TTCers out there...do NOT buy the green handled 10mIU One Step IC tests! The night that I got that nice dark "positive" I took a Clearblue digital that said "not pregnant" and even though I had a questionable Clearblue +/- test...

...all my future green handled tests have gotten much lighter (although there is still a light second pink line). So, I'll wait for AF then start Clomid again. So much for that!

Happy 4th of July! We have had a fun weekend of celebration with friends and family. I'm exhausted, but had a great time! My daughter got to catch lightning bugs for the first time. She saw approximately 5 fireworks before saying "I wanna nap" and falling fast asleep in her stroller, only to wake up an hour later and ask for "more beautiful fireworks" (of course after the big show was over).

It was a little emotional for me because last year at this very time I was in pregnant bliss, only to have my walls come crashing in on the Tuesday after July 4th weekend with a call from my OB that started everything spinning. Our son's tree didn't make it through the winter...

This spring we kept waiting for the buds to arrive, but they never did. It's crazy how upset this made me. It was supposed to be something we planted in his memory that would live on...but it didn't, it died too. Saturday we went to the nursery to replace it. I chose one with pink blooms this time instead of red. Red made me think of blood with my miscarriage, and even though he was a boy, I think I'll like the pink blooms better. Hopefully this one makes it. I'd like to plant it on July 9th (his delivery day).

I'm trying not to dwell on the sadness and concentrate on the joy from our weekend. We really did have a wonderful holiday weekend with the most amazing little girl on the planet!





I MUST Be Pregnant....Right???

The confusion continues...I took a green handled test this morning first thing when I woke up and got a nice line that seems a bit darker than yesterday mornings test...but still nothing much on the pink handled test...

So, I decided tonight to have my husband pee on a green handled test so that I could see if a line showed up for him...

This made me feel more hopeful. There's just the teeniest hint of something on his test, so hopefully mine mean something good! I decided to take another test tonight to see if it would be darker yet...and it is!!

Seeing this, which looks like an obvious positive to me, I decided to try a pink handled and a First Response (THE test that I trust along with Clearblue Digital)...pink handled test showed nothing...First Response looks like this...

Not much to see there...ugh! Maybe if you look just at the right angles you can maybe sorta see something...nothing reliable, and not what I had hoped for. So, either the green handled tests are super sensitive and the most amazing tests on the market or they are the worst and giving false positives. Hopefully tomorrow I will update with multiple types of positive tests! Keep your fingers crossed!







State of Confusion...At Least It's Beautiful Outside

Hear me now...I am never going to go a month without charting again! Remind me of that in the future if you see me headed down the path of no charting with an irregular cycle again.

I never started bleeding, so those had to be faulty tests. Call them false positives, call them evaps, whatever they were, they were not the real deal. Unfortunately I have dozens and dozens more in my closet and I don't trust them now. I ordered some more internet cheapies off of Ebay and they arrived yesterday, so today I used one...

and here it is tweaked to pull out the line...

Even though this line showed up within the time limit (and a second one looked the same), I have never used these tests (One Step Early Pregnancy Test - they are supposed to be 10mIU,very sensitive) before and don't know anyone else who has, so I don't trust it to be real at this point.

I decided to test again with SMU (second morning urine) and still saw something very faint, but it was much lighter...could have been diluted or just false lines...time will tell.

I still don't know for certain if/when I ovulated...even my temps have been confusing (which I only started taking 6 days ago and found out half way through those days that my battery was going on my thermometer). Hopefully I'll be updating with positive tests very soon!

It has been a fabulous week weather-wise here. My daughter and I have been enjoying playing outside, having a picnic, and doing an impromptu photo shoot out by our shed/soon-to-be-playhouse. Her personality is so sweet and fun! I love her so incredibly much!





(photo above inspired by one of my favorite photographers and bloggers, Kelle Hampton - see button to the right)