Loser

I'm one of those people who wins. The reason for this is not, in fact, that I am amazing. Instead, it's that I always stick to what I'm good at. It's easy to be a winner when you're only doing the things you have a natural talent for.

And so not concieving a baby on the first cycle we tried felt like failure. My sister, mother, sister-in-law, and many others in our families' just got pregnant seemingly immediately. It was naive of me to think we'd be the same. Obviously I know the statistics - a perfectly healthy couple with perfect timing has a 20% chance . . . and yet I'm disappointed. I lost.

I'm well into cycle two at this point, and nearing possible ovulation territory. Maybe this will be our month, and maybe it won't. I'm hoping that whatever happens, I can look at it positively.

An Moment to W(h)ine

Today, I felt pregnant.

Lower abdominal cramps, nausea, fatigued. I even threw up my morning coffee. If you knew me, you'd know this is a rarity - I love my morning coffee. We are best friends.

The thing is, though, I tested negative this morning. Because OF COURSE I'm testing daily. Of course. I've always heard, "if you're pregnant enough for symptoms, you're pregnant enough to turn a test."

So when I felt all these symptoms for most of the morning, I felt crazy. An afternoon test was surely called for!

Which was negative.

So I have nothing left to assume than that I'm having phantom pregnancy symptoms. What the heck, brain? Why punk me like this?

So here I sit with my glass of wine while I whine to you.

Seems fitting.

Impatience

I've been called a lot of things. Patient is not typically one of them. Once I decide I want to do something, I throw myself in full force. I am all about COMMITMENT to whatever cause is upcoming. For instance, the FIRST day we went to look at houses to buy, I fell in love with one and we put an offer in right away. I don't regret it one bit. My passionate commitment to things has almost always turned out well.

Of course trying to conceive was no different. Though we just decided to actively TTC in January, I'm already deeply invested. You name it, I've read it/prepped for it/tried it, and this is only our first official cycle. OPKs, BBT, green tea, CM, CP .... all of it. I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and downloaded Fertility Friend and studied up everywhere I could.

So now I am in this odd space. I'm waiting. Just waiting. I don't wait well. Ever. I tracked, I ovulated, I had good timing with A, and it was a fun month! And now I wait. It's typically considered to be pretty pointless to take a pregnancy test before 10 days past ovulation. I started on day 8. And again today . . . twice. Shockingly all of these were negative. They may stay that way, they may turn positive. It's too early to say.

I don't know why I can't just wait until I'm late to test, but I don't seem to be able to. I just want to know as soon as humanly possibly if I have a little bean peanut babeh whatever we decide to call it in my tummy. If we're not pregnant this cycle, that's okay. I won't be devastated. I just need to know.

Impatient should have been my middle name.

 

The First Bump

Had you asked me in 2013 if I had any interest in becoming a Mama anytime soon, I'd have laughed at you. Kids were something I had in mind, but as a kind of abstract, distant concept - not a near reality. My husband, A, felt the same.

And then we hit our first "bump" in January, 2014. After having some medical issues, my doctor informed me that the pregnancy test they'd administered was positive. A and I were in total shock. After all, we were trying to PREVENT this! Over the next 24 hours, we moved from surprised, to scared, to stoked! We were going to be parents! Sure, it was unplanned, but we were excited at what was to come. Excited, that is, until the phone call we got the next day saying that the test was defective - I'd never been pregnant at all.

I call this moment the first bump in our road because it is the epiphany we needed to realize that a baby was actually something we were ready for now. Without that medical mistake, I think we'd still be right where we were in 2013, convinced that having kids was far too scary a proposition to consider seriously. Now? We're officially trying to expand our family, and times are exciting!

The journey to having a baby is an unpredictable one. I will be able to take my first pregnancy test in a few days. If positive, our lives are immediately changed, and this blog will follow our pregnancy for friends and family (who, by the way, don't even know we're trying this). If negative, this blog will cover our journey to that sought after "BFP" - Big Freaking Positive.

Either way, I'm excited for all the bumps to come in the road ahead.

Seatbelts are recommended.