A Simple Question

On Monday night I was laying in bed with Jake and I asked him "How are you feeling about all this baby making business". Silence. Then, "What do you mean?" ... "Just, how do you feel about having another baby" because you know, that was ambiguous and all of a sudden I wondered what he was going to say. He replied something along the lines of "I'm mostly into having another child. Some days more than others. But I'm mostly there." I was surprised by this answer because I was more referring to the process of getting pregnant, not really if he was excited about the outcome of having a baby. I can't say it was a huge surprise to hear him say it - I mean, this was the guy that was nervous about having one and now we are venturing into that land where we will no longer outnumber the children. And since I want him to feel safe to share his feelings (until I'm pregnant, at which point corporal punishment will be handed down if any doubts are shared) I told him I felt the same on some days. I rolled onto my back and let my mind wander a bit, wondering why I want another kiddo. Briefly the sore nipples, sleepless nights and spit up shirts crossed my mind. But then my brain was flooded with the memories of Theo smiling at me for the first time, snuggling against me with complete trust while breastfeeding and watching him learn about the world. I have no doubts. I want this.

Blow by blow

Back from vacation. Here's the highlights:

Day one (Saturday): This is the day my period should have started, but nothing all day. Two planes rides and we were in Florida and then on the cruise ship heading for the Carribean. Theo was great for the entire 12 hours of traveling from beginning to end, our luggage arrived intact, all is well with the world.

Day two: No period. Confirmed with Jake that we were waiting until Tuesday to test. Was hoping he'd budge, but no luck. Weather was glorious, Theo was sleeping/napping well, pool was awesome.

Day three: No period. Starting to get excited, but saying nothing outloud so as not to jinx anything (because really, it's possible that if I was pregnant that it would magically negate itself if I talked about it)...Jake did a diving trip, Theo got braver at the pool....and managed to slip twice and hit his head. Felt like a super duper mom as he wailed for all to hear. Could barely get to sleep this night because I was so excited about testing.

Day four: TEST DAY! I woke up and went into the bathroom. Peed on the stick, capped it and turned it upside down. Slowly washed my face, brushed my teeth, put on lotion.....grabbed the test and brought it back out to the dark room and put it on the bedside table. "So?" asked Jake. "I didn't look at it, I want you to." He got up, grabbed the test and brought it to the balcony door. He cracked the drapes apart and studied the test in the sliver of light. And shook his head. DAMNIT. I jumped up and grabbed the test from him and shoved it into the light, willing the faintest line to appear. Nothing. I took a deep breath and remembered it took several days with Theo to get a positive. Enjoyed a day of snorkling with my mom and fed squid to stingrays. No period in sight.

Day five: I knew I had gotten my period the moment I woke up, but didn't truly believe it until I went to the bathroom. I took a deep breath and went back into the bedroom and told Jake. Ever positive, he said "Well, another month of trying!" I got up and sulked to the balcony, stared out into the ocean, feeling sorry for myself. And feeling bad for feeling sorry for myself. And feeling mad that I wasn't pregnant and feeling like I was somehow ripped off. How dare my period be so late, getting my hopes up. Jake came out and asked me if I was okay, and I told him I was sad. He said something optimistic and I snarked back something like "can't I just be disappointed for 10 minutes? I'll be positive later, but right now, just let me feel this." And then, I felt bad for making him feel bad for trying to cheer me up. Fuck, only 3 months in and I'm already being a crazy person! Get it together! Several deeps breaths later, I came back into the room, whispered an "I love you" into Jake's ear and proceded to enjoy the rest of my vacation.

Day six, seven: Blah blah who cares...(not really, it was fab....really).


And now I'm back, and to the ovulation calendar I go. But now the conundrum - how long is my cycle now? Do I calculate from when the first date of my period really was or do I calculate from when my start date should have been? I plugged numbers in all kinds of ways and basically came to the conclusion that it's mandatory sex for like 12 days beginning Feb. 1.

And in the meantime, I am going to get in high gear with the weight losing. I managed to only gain 1 pound, which is a serious vacation record for me. Something about my son who will only tolerate 30 minutes of restaurant time made it impossible to get seconds of anything....so, I'm going to make the goal of working out EVERY day until my next would-be period. And even though it's 8:30pm and I'm totally exhausted, I'm going to start today, just to make a point. The ONE thing that goes through my mind around the time I wonder if I'm pregnant is "Damnit, I wish I had dropped a few more pounds beforehand" ... So I'm going to get to it. So the working out will consist of either 30 minutes of cardio or 30 minutes of weights/abs. I figure this can't be THAT hard - usually I work out over my lunch hour with a coworker and if that doesn't happen for some reason, I can easily jump on my exercise bike at home while watching one of my mindless TV shows. So off I go, to watch the DVR'ed season premiere of Lost and do the exercise bike until my butt goes numb.

Unlikely

A coworker and I have morphed into having identical cycles, which is a little creepy. As we were stretching before our lunchtime workout yesterday she was complaining about being bloated and then she's all "Oh crap, you're going to be on your period during your cruise!" It was at that time that I realized that I wasn't having my typical pre-period tells...namely the sore boobs and lone pimple on some crazy obvious part of my face. It was then that I thought - wow, maybe I actually am pregnant. I quashed the urge to get excited last night and didn't pull my husband into the "am I or aren't I" conversation that he so loathes. Then, this morning I woke up with my boobs aching and a huge zit fighting it's way out of my forehead. So I'm pretty much coming to terms that it's not gonna be this month. I don't quite have the gusto to ring the optimism bell right now, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

Antsy....to say the least

3 days until would-be period. Twiddling thumbs. Distracting myself with pulling lint off of my shirt. NOT taking pregnancy tests. Speaking of which, why the hell are pregnancy tests so damn expensive? This is 2009, people. I'm sure that this isn't some insane technology that is involved in the making of a pregnancy test. I'm no scientist, but my guess is that there is some chemical in a plus sign shape that reacts to hCG. Why does this cost me $14? It's a stick that I pee on. I mean, I've bought a watch for $10 and that thing works for years. All I'm saying is that pregnancy tests are a huge peace of mind for pregnant wanna-be's everywhere and it would sure be helpful if they were a little cheaper. Now, of course this won't happen because preggo wanna-be's everyone are willing to pay $14 to pee on a stick and they'll buy as many as they want, so test makers sure aren't going to be lowering the price anytime soon. But if the tests were only $7 I'd probably buy twice as many! But this makes my husband very cranky when we "waste" a pregnancy test by testing too early. It took about 6 tests until I got a positive result with Theo (I was 12 days late before I got a positive result! And one of the tests was actually at the docs!) and he was really annoyed that I kept wanting to take tests. I have a test just sitting in our linen closet upstairs...but I'm going to pack it in my suitcase and bring it on vacation with us and not test until Wednesday. Okay, let's face it, there is no way in hell I'm going to be able to hold out until then. But I will try to wait until Monday.

....and really, I'm probably not pregnant since my sperm donor errr husband was sick during most of my ovulation time. And really......late October would be more convenient time to deliver with my fall travel schedule at work. And...like usual, another month to get skinny would be nice. And...um, that's all the reasons I can come up with.

No, not me

Is it possible to be trying to get pregnant without reading into every little freakin 'symptom'? I mean, we've only been trying since November and I am having an extraordinarily hard time just taking on the "whatever will be will be" mentality. I'm still not ready to start buying ovulation kits or anything, but for the last 3 months, this week before my period may/may not start has turned me into this weird pregnancy wanting hypocondriac. I read this stupid "top ten signs of pregnancy" every month and wonder if my random twinges and urges and other perceived unusualities mean I'm pregnant. This past week I have 2 main things that are tripping my pregnancy alarm: #1 - I'm freaking starving. #2 - I'm freaking tired. Now...come on, this isn't really that unusual. I'm the mom of an impossibly energetic 2 year old and I'm pretty much always hungry anyway. Other interesting things are that I'm craving some foods that I wouldn't normally eat and I'm peeing a ton. I thought this was a symptom until I read a little closer on that top 10 list and they said that the frequent peeing doesn't start until about week 6. Uhh. Okay, so scratch that from the "might be pregnant" column and insert it into the "you are a freak" column. Sigh.

Waiting game

Last night, Jake and I were in bed and I asked him for the prediction - am I knocked up? "No" he said simply. I was a little surprised at how sure he seemed. I guess we'll see.

In other news, I went shopping yesterday to try to get a few things to bring on vacation. I am still surprised when so many things fit me. When you are used to shopping in the big girl stores for so long, it feel strange to fit in a Target size large. I realized yesterday as I had a huge pile of things I was going to bring to the checkout lane, I didn't even really decide if I truly liked anything. My mentality has always been "if it fits, buy it"....and I don't think I've made the switch that I have the luxury of deciding if I like it.

However, I'm still in a really awkward place with my size. I am fitting into size 12's, but really only have one pair of jeans that look good on me. I know if I could drop another 10 pounds, I would fit nicely into a HUGE stack of 10's that were given to me by a friend. She gave me no less than 15 pairs, so I need to drop this weight so I have some choices! (This is me looking forward to things other than being pregnant, how am I doing here?)

Why aren't they called Old Husband Tales?

I went to coffee with an old friend yesterday and she told me that she's been trying to conceive for 9 months with no luck. Just recently a coworker told her to try Robitussin - take a dose 3 times per day the 5 days leading into ovulation. Sounded kinda bunk, but I actually looked it up and it appears to be legit! I guess even fertility docs suggest it to their patients. Verrrrry interesting. Hopefully I won't need it, but you better believe I'll be picking some up if this isn't the month for me! Is that crazy?

Jake and I are going on a cruise with Theo and my mom in 2 weeks. If I do start my period, it will be on the first day of the cruise. Just one more reason I hope I'm pregnant. Jake told me awhile ago that maybe I haven't gotten pregnant until now b/c I would have been sick on the trip. I'm sure hoping he's right.

Is anyone else out there trying to get pregnant and using any unusual methods to increase the odds?

The OC

I'm totally obsessed with ovulation calculators. I'm most interested in how each one tells me something different. Take this one for example - it says I'm most likely to get pregnant from the 30th - 4th. This one says the 31st - 5th. And this one says the 30th - 9th. How can this differ that much? I mean, I totally get the span of time being different for each person, but why aren't these sites in agreement? Unfortunately it hasn't mattered much the last few days because Jake has been sick and although I've tried to be patient, I'm not doing the most stellar job. He went to bed at 6pm tonight and my only thought as I was giving him a good night kiss was "DAMNIT, I could be ovulating!!" I don't want to start buying those ovulation predictor kits, but I can understand the urge. Wanting to get pregnant is a weird thing because of all the uncertainty.

I was able to go workout a couple of days ago with a friend who is also trying to get pregnant. She is my oldest friend and we talk about how much fun it would be to get pregnant together. She is 4 days late as of today with a couple of negative pregnancy tests under her belt. Since Jake only allowed me to talk about us trying with one person, I chose her because I figured she'd be able to sympathize the most. However, since she's been trying for 8 months and she knows how quickly we got pregnant the first time, she actually told me that she hopes it takes us a little bit so I can know how it feels! Harsh!

I am very glad for the most part that we haven't told anyone else we are trying. It would make this so much harder to have all my friends wondering if I have "news" every time I call them with excitement in my voice. Not that I blame them - I'm tempted to do the same to my friend...and in fact, I literally texted her "what's the update with your uterus" yesterday.

So, I know I just need to chill the eff out. I keep staring at my NoHoHon, which, according to the manufacturer "relax your senses and invite you into a calming world". I think I need a couple...

Getting little to get big

The #1 thing that I tell myself when I don't get pregnant is "this will be one more month to lose weight and get my body in better shape." When I get my period, I think - "Ok Chloe, let's lose 8 pounds this month - 2 lbs per week until the next time I'm supposed to get my period." However, this theory hasn't worked. The week I'm on my period I never seem to be able to go to the gym as much and then....who knows, I just seem to stay the same or maybe lose 1 pound the rest of the month. Here's the thing: I've got the exercise DOWN. I go on my lunch break with a coworker Mon-Thurs. I just haven't been able to keep the food stuff under control since about Thanksgiving. Thankfully, the exercise has kept my weight static (between 160-162).

I'm stoked about the weight I've lost so far but I think I've become a little complacent in a way. I got to 157 the weekend of my 10 year reunion in July....and I haven't lost a pound since then. It still excites me when I see myself in a picture and actually like the way I look, and I run into people all the time who remind me "You look SO good"....of course, they are remembering me when I was 40-60 pounds heavier, so of course they think I look good. And then I have the other little victories, like the fact that my thighs are starting to not come together all the way. This is big news for a big girl, let me tell you people!!!


A note about this picture: I was laying in bed with Jake, and lifted my legs up and noted that my thighs are getting thinner. I stared at them for about 5 minutes and then finally decided to go downstairs and grab my camera. I snapped a couple of pictures and that was that. Not sure what the hell I was going to do with it, but it seemed like the right thing to do. The next day, I cohosted a cookie making party at a friend's house for a bunch of kiddos, and I was taking tons of photos. And, of course, I left my camera there. Maybe I'm a nosy bastard, but if my friend left their digital camera at my house I would totally look through their pictures (okay, I'm definitely a nosy bastard). And of course, my friend is a skinny as a rail size 2. I'm sure she looked at those thighs and thanked her lucky stars they weren't hers. Ah well.

Anyway, Jake and I are both totally done with all the holiday indulgence, so it's back to the exercise and diet grind for me. It would be fab to take off another few pounds before this baby takes up residence in my belly. Speaking of which, off to the gym....