Tag Archives: TTC

better luck next month

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I knew this wasn’t going to be our month.

I started charting my cycles again – I even dropped $1.99 on the oh-so-handy iPeriod app for my phone – and I started taking my temperature every morning. Doing that helped me get pregnant with Catie, so why not try it again?

Side note: I lost my basal body temp thermometer sometime during our last two moves. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it, so I finally bought a new one at Target. Dave saw the package and misread “basal” as “anal” – he wasn’t wearing his glasses, obviously – and he said, “WOW. That’s ONE way to wake up in the morning!” I laughed, but uh… no. (Can you imagine? If I had to do that in order to get pregnant, I’d probably decide that one kid is PLENTY. Jeez.)

Anyway, since I’m charting, I had a pretty good idea of exactly when I ovulated. And I knew our timing was off. I shrugged it off and thought, oh well, no big deal, at least now I sort of have an idea of how to predict it so maybe we’ll get it right next time.

But then, on Sunday, I woke up with a bad headache and really horrible nausea. I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I didn’t feel well and immediately got a bunch of “OMG do you think you’re pregnant???” And I thought, well, if I am, surely it’s way too early for symptoms, but… maybe?

By Sunday night, I noticed that the nausea was at its worst when my stomach was empty. As soon as I ate something, I was ok. Which is pretty much exactly what I felt like when I was first pregnant with Catie. I also noticed that my boobs were sore, which is not a typical PMS symptom for me.

Monday was more of the same: more nausea (which was at its worst when I was hungry) and more sore boobs. And I was really weepy about the strangest things. Normally when I’m PMSing, I get irritable, not sad. Huh.

I bought a pregnancy test and took it as soon as I got home. It was negative. But, I thought, it’s still early and I didn’t use my first morning pee like you’re supposed to, so… I guess it’s still remotely possible? I decided I’d wait a few days before I tested again.

This morning, when I took my temperature, I noticed that it had dropped. I knew that wasn’t a good sign.

I started my period a little while ago. Which, you know… it sucks, but I knew, I knew this was coming, right? I knew two weeks ago that the timing was off. So I don’t quite know why I’m so sad about it. But I am. There you have it.

And? I’m still having nausea issues, which at this point, feels like just rubbing salt in the damn wound. Like, ok stomach, I get the point, you win. I’m so sorry for whatever I ate FOUR DAYS AGO that you’re still upset about. You can ease up now.

On the bright side: this means that I don’t have to lie to anyone at BlogHer next week. Dave’s very superstitious about saying anything during the first trimester, and I respect that, but I didn’t know how that would work when I’m surrounded by a bunch of my friends who all know that we’re trying. It’s easy to hide this kind of stuff online; you only talk about what you choose to talk about. In person, things get more complicated. I imagined it going like this:

Bartender: Drink?
Me: No thanks, just water.
*record scratch, stunned silence*
All 2,000 BlogHer attendees: OMG you are totally pregnant!
Me: *blushing and hiding my face because I am a terrible liar*

So, you know, I don’t have to lie about anything. And I’m free to have as many fruity girly cocktails as my drink tickets allow. I guess that’s good.

Silver linings, people. I’ll take ’em where I can get ’em.

on having a second

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I haven’t talked about it much, but I had my IUD taken out last August, which means that Dave and I have theoretically been trying for baby #2 for the last 10 months. And I say theoretically because, well, at first my heart wasn’t really in it. I was so indifferent about having a second kid for so long, and there were months when we didn’t try at the right time because I just didn’t really want to get pregnant at that particular moment. Maybe we were particularly stressed about money that month, maybe I was going through a rough phase with Catie and doubting my ability to survive another child, whatever.

My attitude for the longest time has been, “We’ll have another kid if we’re supposed to have another kid. And if we don’t, then I guess we’re lucky that the one we have is pretty freaking awesome.”

Then something changed. I don’t know exactly what. It could be that I’m barreling down on 35 (“advanced maternal age,” oh no!), or because I realized that Catie will be at least 4 years old by the time we have another baby, or because I suddenly know so. many. people. who are having babies. (Seriously, those are just 3 examples. There’s also at least 2 girls I know from high school who are pregnant right now, and a few other people I know who have had babies in the past 6 months.)

Suddenly, I was hearing about all of these friends of mine being pregnant, and I felt… jealous?

So, for the past couple of months, I’ve been focusing more attention on trying to get pregnant. I’m even considering charting my cycle, since that worked last time. (Funny: I just went looking through my blog archives to see if I could find a post where I talked about charting my cycle, and all I could find was whiny “this isn’t working & I don’t think I’m even ovulating and I’ll never get pregnant, boo hoo!” stuff. Spoiler: I got pregnant the next month.)

And that sort of relates to my recent exercise obsession. See, for those of you who don’t already know this, the last time I was pregnant? Was bad. I got really, really sick during my 3rd trimester, and no one could figure out what was wrong with me. But I lost all of my pregnancy weight while I was still pregnant – which, for the record, is not the ideal weight-loss solution. I mostly lost muscle, not fat. By the time Catie was born, I was so weak that I could barely hold her. It took a long, long time for me to feel “normal” again, energy-wise.

So, this crazy need to work out every day and build my endurance as quickly as possible? A large part of it is because I want to make sure that if/when I get pregnant, I’m starting at a healthier baseline than last time. So if I get sick again, it hopefully won’t have quite such detrimental effects on my health.

We’ll see how it goes. And in the meantime, if any of y’all want to throw out a little “get Cindy knocked up” prayer or thought, I sure wouldn’t mind.

weighty issues

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I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. I went to my OB/GYN and had my IUD taken out. So, yes, this means that technically we’re going to start trying for baby #2 – or at least, we’re no longer preventing the occurrence of baby #2. And I know that’s exciting, and yay! Squee! Baybeees!! But there’s something else about this doctor’s appointment that really bothered me, so we’ll leave the baby talk for another time (like, I don’t know, maybe after I get a positive pregnancy test, which could be a year from now, given my previous track record).

The thing that upset me? My weight.

I knew I’d have to step on the scale at the doctor’s office. You always do, right? I hate the scale. I avoid the scale at home. I’m almost never happy with whatever the number may be. But I thought I was mentally prepared. I had done a little calculation in my head on the way there – sure, most of my clothes are feeling a little tighter lately, but I can still button my size 12 jeans, so it’s not that bad, right? I had an idea of what the number on the scale would probably be.

Wrong.

I’m not brave enough to type the number here, but let’s just say that I have a mental block around a certain number – a weight that I haven’t been since my gastric bypass surgery. It’s a number that for the past 7 years, I have refused to ever see on the scale again. And now I’m dangerously close to that number. Like, I’m less than 10 pounds away from it. I can smell that number from where I am. And I don’t like it one bit.

And I know – I KNOW! – that it’s just a number and it’s all about how you feel and how your clothes fit and blah-blah-blah, but the thing is? I feel like crap most of the time. I feel comfortable in very few of the clothes that I own. So it’s not good, and I need to do something about it. I started a diet back in January, but I think it was too radical – I cut out ALL refined sugar and white flour, which is insanely hard to stick with when you have a 2 year-old in the house. But I did it faithfully for a month and lost a whopping zero pounds. That’s when I got frustrated and quit.

Since January, I’ve gained about 10 pounds, and I think I know why: I snack too much at night. I have always “grazed” in the evenings, but lately it’s gotten out of control. I would estimate that probably half of my day’s calories are consumed between 8 p.m. and midnight. Pretty much the worst possible time to eat, right? So that’s the biggest change I’m going to work on for now. I’m definitely going to be adding in healthier food choices and snacks during the day (plus drinking more water & less Diet Coke), but I also know that it’s pretty likely that I won’t be able to stay away from the occasional cookie. So for now, the main thing I’m going to do is stop eating at night.

I started last night. After I put Catie to bed, I had a cup of chamomile tea – because hot liquids trick your tummy into feeling full, plus it helped me start to feel sleepy. And you know? I didn’t die. In fact, it was fine.

I also need to work on getting in shape. I couldn’t do the 30-Day Shred because it hurt my knees too much, and I love the Wii Fit, but it’s more for fun & doesn’t feel like it’s giving me a really solid workout. So I’m thinking about trying Cool Running’s Couch-to-5K program. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to jog/run a 5K; I have wonky knees, and I doubt they’ll hold up for something like that. But I can try. The program only takes up 3 days a week, which seems do-able. Throw in one or two yoga/pilates workouts too, and I should be doing fine in no time.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.