Better than Christmas

We have had some wonderfully gonad squeezing moments over the last year when we've found out we are not pregnant.

We've had this particular joy around my birthday, ET's birthday, before going on holiday, and the humdinger of course, back on Christmas day.

Christmas day was a particularly spectacular kick in the guts.

After that point I stopped believing the significance of dates in this great plan of ours.

There would be no breaking the news while visiting family, or at Christmas, or on Paddy's day, or on someone's birthday.

After Christmas I lost all inclination to be genuinely hopeful, and resigned myself to the idea that we would be relying on experts to do the job for us.

Cold and calculating perhaps, but easier to handle at a time when energy was getting low.

So I thought.

This month, cycle 13, saw optimisim sneak back in for the first time in months.

We had the turnaround in semen analysis results which told us we could do it naturally, we had our first session with the specialist which took the pressure off our shoulders slightly, and we got our ugly bumping timing and quality absolutely spot on.

It was game on.

Cycle day 27, 28, and 29 came and went, when 26 or 27 is the norm.

Long time unspoken excitement began to bubble to the surface.

Names were written on scraps of paper to visualise them alongside my surname before being hastily torn up and binned.

Minds allowed themselves to wander to the other side of 'trying to conceive', the side where people are visiting you and shaking your hand and slapping you on the back. The side where the almost overwhelming bubbling excitement I feel from time to time really belongs.

This was it. Finally. Surely.

Cycle day 30 came and went. Still no positive test result. Doubts creep in.

As if on queue, on a sunny Friday of a long weekend, it comes to a dead end.

One spot. Followed by the inevitable.

Christmas had left us staggering dazed around the ring, but cycle 13 has callously kicked our buckling legs from under us.

If my brief teenage phase of reading the classics serves me well, I believe there is a reference in Dante's 'Divine Comedy' to a sign over the gates of hell reading 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'.

I want that sign painted over the gates of 'trying to conceive' world, as it's the only advice that I can see really helping anyone get through it.

The house is emptier than it was twenty four hours ago, who knew such little hope took up so much space.

A watched pot

It never rings apparently.

Or a watched telephone never boils, or something.

Still, nothing.

No period.
No positive.
No nothing.

We sit, and we wait.
We sit, and wait, and scratch, and itch, and sit, and look, and wait, and fiddle, and sit, and surf, and read, and look, and sit.

We wait.

If a kid does end up having been conceived this month, I'm going to kick it's arse next January.

If it doesn't, we'll sit, and wait, and scratch, and itch, and sit, and look, and wait, and fiddle, and sit, and surf, and read, and look, and sit.

Missing

We would like you to be on the look out for a missing period.

Answers to the names "Aunt Flo", "Red", and "Yokes".

The missing period was expected back home sometime early this week, but as of yet has not turned up.

The last reported sighting was early April 2008.

The uncertainty as to the whereabouts of the missing period is causing great distress to it's owner.

Described as moody and bitchy, with an affinity for chocolate and doritos, the period is similar in appearance to a gaping head wound.

Should you encounter this missing period, do not approach it. It is considered highly dangerous and volatile.
Do not attempt to converse with it, do not attempt to apprehend it, and most certainly do not attempt to send it home, or you'll have me to deal with.

Should you see this missing period please go directly to the appropriate authorities, even though my mind hasn't quite worked out who they should be in this little verbalised meltdown.

As a result, feel free to use your own imagination, as mine, it appears, has broken it's leash.

A positive negative

If there is such a thing, that's what we got this morning.

A negative, but the cycle is still going.

Into injury time if you like. The more added on time we get, the better.

It may very well have been to early to detect a rise in hCG, 9 days, so the longer the cycle runs the more of an outside chance there is that we will get one.

Or not. Who knows?
Not me.

So I have the tweed jacket on layaway, not canceled just yet.

Also, what is it about trying to get someone up the duff that can render you both incapable of counting to 26, 27 or 28 correctly?

I've taken to using an excel sheet now.

So, on we go, if there is a tomorrow in this cycle, we'll once again be pissing.

Just hopefully not against the wind.

Unlucky for some

We are now very, very close to the end of this cycle.

So close I can smell the blood.

Number 13.

This is the last 'end of cycle' before we go back to the specialist in three weeks.

We have really done everything right this time, angles, gravity, trajectory, all faultless, and with Spencer back in the game we were very, very hopeful.

One thing came to our attention though, Ellie makes quite a relatively late appearance.

Her tardiness means that there seems to be around 9-11 days before the start of the next cycle as opposed to the ideal 12-16.

This (luteal phase) is considered, like myself, to be too bloody short.

If this is the case, we are not too worried, it's identifying another issue which can be solved with supplements and/or hormones to boost the levels of progesterone, vital to make the product of any conception 'stick'.

Dr Xbox4NappyRash has put ET on Vitamin B6 supplements until we can get the proper advice.

ET has had tests for progesterone performed and the results we'll discuss with the RS.

This brings up an eerie thought though.
If Spencer has at least some of the time been performing, but the luteal phase has been too short, it's possible that we may, at some stage, have conceived but it failed to stick.

There goes my fucking lunch.

While I'm desperately trying to think of this purely in terms of hormone levels, we can't help but think of the 'what ifs'.

Regardless, because it's the last chance before going back to the specialist, tomorrow morning we will take a pregnancy test. (When I say we, I mean ET obviously, it's not like I'm going to wazz on the feckin thing.)

This is probably the latest we can hold out before the start of the next cycle.
We haven't taken a pregnancy test since our first two naive months of trying, and don't plan to again, but it could be a vital piece of the jigsaw for the specialist.

The insane thing is that, given all the variables, the result, whatever it is, could mean many things:
Negative, could be too early to detect a high level of hCG due to the short post ovulation phase.
Negative, could be simply negative, denting my latest theory.
Positive, could be a conception doomed not to last due to the short luteal phase.
Positive, could be positive, and stick, and I could buy a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.

Do we really even want to know tomorrow?
No, but it's for the best.

If I keep saying that to myself, I may even eventually believe it, but probably not.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the fetal position.