still waiting...

this is getting really old really fast.

I tested this morning with another cheapie and also with FRER to see if maybe its the tests being shitty. no such luck. neither test had any hint of a line and AF still hasn't shown up, going on cd33 here...

exasperated and frustrated don't even cover what I feel about my body right now.

waiting on AF

(day 32, 16 dpo)

yep, you read that right, 16dpo and i'm still waiting on AF. haven't had any luck getting a BFP yet, all I've gotten are BFNs, the most recent one being yesterday. though sometimes I swear there's a shadow or something, but I've sworn that to myself before and then AF just shows up anyway right on time.

not this cycle. I was expecting AF on Saturday at the latest and she still hasn't shown up and its Monday! I haven't had anything to make me thing she's showing up or that i'm pregnant, but this whole AF being late is giving me too much hope. I've eaten eggs countless times over the weekend as well and they seem to be agreeing with me and that along with obvious implantation cramping that hasn't happened, I don't really think i'm pregnant, i'm feeling like maybe i'm having my first annovulatory cycle in my life.

prior to this cycle, its been a long time since my cycle has ever been this long:
-my may 22, 2012 cycle was 31 days so if AF shows up today, its been 20 months since I've had a cycle this long.
-the first cycle after the first MC was 31 days... but the delay could be due to the MC so I don't think that one really counts...
-april, may and june of 2011 were 33, 32, and 32 days long. I was temping back then and that was a VERY long time ago, within the first year of TTC so over 2.5 years ago
-my first cycle coming off BC was 33 days.
in total, that's only 7 cycles 31 days or longer out of 40-something cycles. so this is really out of the ordinary for me right now  :-/

WTF body???

an Ontario Christmas

This is the first time in many many years either DH or I have spent Christmas back home in Ontario. for me it was 15 years (since the move to alberta when I was 12) and somewhere around 12 or 13 for DH (i'm still a little foggy on the exact year he moved west even though I've known him for 7 years now). Excited doesn't even explain it  : P

 

we left the Friday before xmas in the early afternoon so that we'd get there earlier than the wee hours of the night (which didn't actually happen). I packed up the truck pretty awesomely with tons of room in the backseat to spare next to HayHay's travel kennel. I was hoping she'd spend some time in it on the road, but that didn't really happen. she also didn't spend much time in the spacious back seat either... because we were travelling with the dog, we made a lot more stops than we normally would, not to mention nearly an hour in Saskatoon between filling up with gas, taking HayHay on a quick walk around a block, stopping at the slowest mcD's ever and eating in the truck before getting back on the road. we tried to stop every 3-4 hours for her, which is a little more often than every gas fill-up. it proved to be unnecessary to stop so often because half the time, she just sniffed around forever and didn't acutally do her business, which in -30 weather got a little frustrating. she did great in the truck though. DH got a little annoyed with her moving about the truck looking for spots to sit/sleep, but she did sleep or just sit quietly pretty much the entire 32 hours on the way to Ontario. if I was driving, she was usually sleeping on top of the cooler bag on a blanket behind my seat and if DH was driving, she was usually in my lap. so proud of how she did on such a long road trip since the longest for her was only 5 hours.

 

this trip we decided to drive through the northern states because I wanted to avoid driving through northern Ontario in the winter knowing how twisty and hilly those roads are and how much wildlife there is. I refuse to drive that highway in the dark and in the winter, that's a lot more than the 6-8 hours of complete darkness that happens in the summer. I didn't want to do that to DH, so knowing the roads in the states were more similar to the prairies which i'm comfortable driving at night, we took that way. we got to the border went through without any trouble, took less than 5 minutes, they didn't even ask to see papers for the dog  : )  we finally made it to Sault Michigan just before 10pm on the Saturday night, let HayHay out before putting her back in the kennel and crossed the border back into Canada and onto familiar roads. an hour and a half later and we were finally done driving! 32 hours, 3 provinces, 4 states and just over 2700km

 

we stayed at FIL's place the whole time we were there. lived out of suitcases, which HayHay appreciated since she used mine as a bed the entire 2 weeks  : P  the bed we slept on there was a lot higher than our bed at home and she had a couple tumbles off the bed and a couple hard times jumping onto the bed so i'm not surprised she preferred the much lower suitcase that smelled like home, lol. when it was bedtime she slept in the bed with us, but during day when she wanted a nap, it was in my suitcase. probably because it was a Lucy(FIL's dog)-free zone...

 



lazing by the woodstove

we didn't really do a whole lot while in Ontario, just tried to do what visiting we could and some time relaxing doing nothing. we slept in every day (heaven! even HayHay did, though her's could be due to the time change...) but I had a hard time getting used to other ppl's habits... like going to a friend's place every night around 4 and coming back between 7 and 8 and then not eating supper until 8 or 9 at which point i'd be starving. you'd think my body would have been fine with it because of the time change, but no. Christmas day I finally got to visit my family which was so awesome. my cousins got into town on Christmas eve so I went to visit them for a bit before xmas dinner and then went back to play some cards after I ate. I miss my family back there so bad! my dad came down Christmas day and I really wish I could've spent more time with him. i'm really hoping I can get pregnant real soon so I can get him out here for a longer visit when a baby is born. we spent boxing day night at the cabin my dad was renting for him, my step-mom, my sister and her DH (who also made the trip to Ontario for xmas) so I did get to spend more time with them, but not any time just them without my sis/BIL being there  : (  I made a trip to Elliot and did a quick tour just to see what's changed and I also got a visit with my BF of 20+ years and finally got to meet her FH! I so can't wait to see her again for her wedding! new years day we made a day trip to Sudbury to visit with one of my cousins a bit more, so glad we did that. our last day there we did some snowshoeing even though it was a balmy -30 outside  ; )  it actually wasn't so bad once you get past the initial watering eyes, lol. I got to take some pics of the winterscape of Ontario. wish I got more pics of things I have pics of from the summer. maybe next time we come back for Christmas.

our trip back wasn't as pleasant as the trip there  : (  it didn't start out too bad, weather we could deal with, just a bit of snow falling. it wasn't til we were about 6 hours in and it started to get worse. it was still manageable, we probably would have only taken up the time we wasted on doggy pee breaks on the way out there so it would have taken the same 32 hours. then we hit the bad weather just after getting past lake superior and that's where it all just really sucked. it got windy, really windy. it wasn't really snowing much anymore, but it was so windy that it just picked up anything off the ground and blew it all over. of course by this time we were into the prairies so that wind carries a far ways. I was so glad DH was driving because it got so bad at times he had to slow right down so he didn't go off the road because he couldn't see even a foot in front of the truck, if even that at times. I tried to sleep so that when he got tired I could do some driving, but I just couldn't do it in that weather. I kept my eyes closed, but i'd flinch every time I felt the truck sway a bit cuz of the wind and grab hold of HayHay cuz I kept thinking we were going to hit the ditch. I think I dozed off for about 5 minutes that entire time. turns out that we were actually driving on closed roads... oops! not like there was a barricade or a gate or a cop turning traffic away from the highways. there was just an overhead sign that said "road closed when lights flashing", not very official so DH just kept going. I didn't get very far driving either. the blowing snow across the highway was so distracting. my eyes would kind of follow it across the road so it kind of put me in a trance. I had to stop after about an hour and we all took a 2 hour nap about 30 miles east of Rugby, ND. when I woke up, I took the dog out and then just kept going. at least by that point it was daylight so it was A LOT easier to see because you weren't depending on headlights to see the road. it was still windy as hell, but you could see. the roads were complete ice from the wind so it was a bit slow going still. the roads finally started to clear up and not have ice on them a few hours from the border, finally I could drive the speed limit again. we switched again when we got to the border, something I regret doing. I wish I would've kept driving because by that night, it got as bad as the night before. it was windy that entire day, sunny, but windy. it wasn't blowing snow over the roads as much during the day thank goodness. but by nightfall, about an hour west of Saskatoon, it was starting to get harder to see again. I took over by that point again to give DH a break. it was great when I was following someone and could see their tail lights since I couldn't use my high beams to see very far ahead due to the blowing snow. but that person turned off after a train separated us so I was on my own again to see the road. slow going once again. I drove for a few hours and normally we wouldn't be very far from home in the same amount of time, but when you're driving about 1/2 to 2/3s the speed limit, it really slows you down. we switched once again just shy of the border because I was having a hard time not being able to see anything. the last 300km felt like the longest few hours EVER! it wasn't until we were about 100km from Camrose that we finally started feeling like we were getting somewhere because there wasn't really any towns for a good stretch. Camrose has never been such a welcome sight knowing we were only 20 minutes in nice weather from home. FINALLY made it home and in one piece! hallelujah!

 

after our harrowing drive home in weather that didn't seem to have an end in sight, we've decided we're never driving to Ontario in the winter ever again! we'll fly next time and leave HayHay with someone else. if it wasn't for the weather on that trip home, we'd probably drive again, but that kind just ruined it for us. the way there the roads were great and I think we only dealt with a small amount of flurries. about a week after getting home, I went to the city to visit SIL and the kids and there were so many tracks from vehicles that had been in the ditch and a handful still in the ditch. I could only assume it was remnants from that weekend we drove home since we had decent weather our first week back. It made me incredibly thankful for the st. Christopher medal I wear around my neck when we do long distance travel. with how bad the weather we were driving in for those hours, I can't believe we weren't one of the vehicles in the ditch.




while out snowshoeing



my fav pic from snowshoeing

TTC update

(day 23, about 7 dpo)

It's been so hard to blog the last few weeks. We were away for 2 and now that we're back, I don't have internet at work so I'm having to do mobile blogging which sucks. Anyway, I'll make a post about our holidays another day, for now I'll stick to the ttc stuff.

O day is a little foggy because I didn't have the best cm to go off of and it also didn't happen when it typically would. Like I mentioned, I didn't do opks so all I have to go off of is cm and some slight crampiness. It doesn't help that O day likely happened while we were in a vehicle for 36 hours straight so 2 days feels like one long day. I made a note of when I felt O cramping on the running note I have on my phone to keep track of cycle stuff (suspended my ff account for the time being while we're off and on ttc), but after getting home and going back to work, I'm not confident about what happened when, so I might be off by a day or so.

During when I thought I was fertile, I was losing hope that we would get any BDing in, but DH surprised me and we did get one BD in this cycle. So now I'm about a week post-O and I think I felt some cramping around 4/5dpo and had a pretty good backache going on and felt AFish a good portion of the day. It probably doesn't mean anything like every other cycle that doesn't work. I'll probably test the middle of next week. While I'm hopeful, I'm also not hopeful. We'll see....

New Year

(day 12)

I definitely didn't get my Christmas wish of a bfp and AF decided to make her appearance literally minutes before hitting the road to Ontario. I was more satisfied with the fact that she at least showed up before the road trip vs having to wear a pad or tampon in anticipation and have her not show up til reaching our destination. I wasn't even that bothered by not getting a bfp.

But driving around for nostalgia sake, I did get a little sad realizing that I should have a big 'ol round belly right now instead of being able to have drinks every night and whatever else and how everyone should be swooning over me in excitement of our new addition. None of that happened. Instead I had my memere assuming I must be pregnant when I suddenly felt sick one night and saying how we must be getting close to starting our family. Under my breath I said that we were working on it and have already lost 2, so it's not for lack of trying that we don't have kids yet. Of course she made the ignorant assumption that we must be trying too hard  *insert eyeroll*

So this is our last cycle before a 2-3 month break and so far I haven't had any decent cm to indicate impending O and I decided against opks because I'm not at home. So here I am, CD12, and no ewcm that I get about 5 days before O. Last cycle everything was late by 2 days and I'm already at 3... frustrating doesn't even explain it. If this drags on much longer, I'm gonna have to pull the plug on this cycle as well because I'm hitting territory where if I went overdue (assuming this cycle worked) I'd be giving birth within a week of boarding a plane for my best friends wedding...

Speaking of which, I don't have to worry about a bridesmaid dress not fitting a pre or post pregnant belly because one of her other bridesmaids plans on being about 3 months pregnant with her second child (who is only 7 months old right now) by the wedding so she's going to be going with a dress that will be more flowy for us and our potential bodies.

But that also brings up another emotional issue for me because she thinks she can plan that way when here I am still working at #1 : (  it kind of grates on my nerves even though it's not their fault. It's the ignorance that really bothers me, but I guess not everyone has to have a difficult time ttc... it's things like this that make ttc so hard for some of us. I just hope I can manage to get pregnant by her wedding so I don't get stung by someone else's pregnancy  :-/

So here's to another difficult and heartbreaking year getting behind us and hopefully a much happier and more successful 2014 on the baby front!

all i want for christmas...

(day 26, 10 dpo)

...is a BFP. is that so much to ask? it would be the best gift in the entire world!

i'm losing hope though. so far all I've gotten are BFNs and not a whole lot going on symptom wise. I was hoping I was getting some implantation cramping Saturday morning but it wasn't as significant as both pregnancies so I feel like i'm trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. there was pressure in my pelvis that has tapered off but is still there, but again, i'm probably reading far more into it than necessary and i'm setting myself up for major disappointment. testing every morning so that I can hopefully pick up on a BFP asap and get in to a doc asap. i'll probably stop testing after Wednesday morning because at that point, I very likely wouldn't get in on either Thursday or Friday if something popped up on a test by Thursday anyway. I really don't want to deal with AF while road tripping, but its looking like I don't have a choice.

we have one more cycle to TTC, but I don't know how that will go since it will be while we're away. I don't want to still be trying a year from now. I don't want to have to try in the first place. weren't the first two hard enough to achieve? am I destined to forever have to take 18 months to conceive any child? i'm really starting to feel the years go by at this point, over 3 years into this and i'm getting even closer to being forced into at least 3.5 years without any hope. its a huge possibility that we won't have a baby by the time 4 years hits since that would have be this or next cycle. its even possible we'll get to 4 years and still not even be pregnant, especially when after this break for my BFs wedding (avoiding conflicting edds) we'll only have 5 months to accomplish that. 5 months plus the 4 since the MC to when we take a break is only 9 months of TTC. that's about the time i'd likely get pregnant. both pregnancies took 8 and 11 actively TTC months to achieve. why would it be any fucking different from here to eternity? I feel cursed when it comes to having babies.

2WW

(day 23, 7 dpo)

please oh please let there be a baby burrowing in nice and snug in my uterus... please, just this once can I have it the easy way this time?

I know better than to have high hopes about any cycle being our lucky cycle. but seriously, can't a girl catch a break and not have to go another 18 months before getting pregnant again? I have some decent backache going on today which I of course attribute to something trying to latch onto me on the inside *eyeroll* and any little pain in the pelvis or stomach i'm of course blowing way out of proportion because i'm hoping i'm getting implantation cramps like I have both times before. I feel like a glutton for punishment, keep trying to be hopeful but on a subconscious level knowing it'll never be that easy for us.

i'm about halfway through the 2ww today and both other times I had already had the implantation cramping so its kind of my expectation that if we're going to get pregnant, i'd have had those obvious cramps by now and I haven't  : (  its always been the thing that has shattered my hopes each cycle (not getting them). I had one cycle where I had very similar cramping on 9dpo so I was incredibly hopeful that cycle only to be disappointed yet again by AFs arrival.

planning on testing early next week.... fingers crossed

my new toy

don't mind the mess on the counter....

its my 3rd baby after my dog and my nice camera  : P  I love this thing and I can't believe how long it took for me to hop on the bandwagon.

at one point I only had a hand mixer, which worked fine until I killed it making ginger sparkle cookies... the dough just gets too thick for most machines to handle. so I bought another with more power and its served me well in the years since killing the first one. when one of my aunts bought herself a kitchenaid mixer she gave me her old stand mixer. I loved that thing and couldn't believe I had been using just a hand mixer all those years! lol. though it was a bit of a pain scraping the bowl and the beaters because there were 2 it was like a hand mixer and a little difficult to scrape what was on them back into the bowl to be properly mixed. but it did make mixing a lot easier, just not any cleaner because of the low sided bowl for it so it made as much of a mess as a hand mixer with the dry ingredients... sure took the elbow grease out of the baking equation though.

when I decided to do a TON of baking this year (read: doubling and tripling recipes) I was hesitant to use the stand mixer because of how much of a mess would be created so I bought a bigger mixing bowl and just used the hand mixer, which I had to stand on a stool to make it easier on my arm. i'm just too damn short to hold that thing up for the thicker dough. it also took a while to get anything mixed because i'd have to scrape the beaters so often to ensure it was properly mixed together.

I posted a pic on FB of the new bigger mixing bowl next to my smaller one with a caption about how I was hoping my hand mixer holds up to the amount of baking I was planning and a friend said I could always ask for a stand mixer for xmas. I told her I already had one but with doubling and tripling recipes I doubted it could hold that much without having to make everything twice and then told me to check into airmiles to get one so I didn't have to pay for it. so I looked into it and what a joke. I didn't even have a third of the points you need to even pay part of it in cash! hahaha. so I started checking out how much it was on various websites and most had them on sale for 30% off + a $50 rebate. not wanting to wait til after completing all my baking to buy it for a little less on boxing day, I decided to buy it that night, lol. why wait the extra 2 weeks to save $50-100?  ; ) 

so I tried it out when I got home with it and it worked like a dream! I tried it out on a recipe I was doubling and it worked through it like nothing and cut my mixing time to just a couple minutes instead of 10-15 or more for a really thick dough. it also mixed up icing super fast. i'm gonna put it to the test this weekend when I make ginger sparkles since I had already made some of the thicker doughs before getting it. i also have 3 other things i want to make before i'm finished my baking, but now that I've decorated all the gingerbread and sugar cookies, it should be pretty quick, especially with my new toy : )

BFP dreams

(day 20, 4 dpo)

I had a dream last night about this cycle. only it was a dream version of myself and DH. though I suppose that's the case with any dream...

I was a couple days ahead of where I am in this cycle and for whatever reason I took a test and it was crazy dark. like something you'd expect to see when you're more than a week late. I showed it to DH and at first he was skeptical because of our past MCs and was worried about the line being light. I had to tell him he was reading it backwards and it was actually super positive. like the test line was so incredibly dark that it made the control line look like a faint BFP does. so because it was so dark, he got all excited thinking I was a lot further along, something 5 weeks or so. I had to break it to him that I was actually only 7dpo, so to get something this dark was a miracle. then we had to hide the test from my sister cuz she kept pestering me to see what was in my pocket (which was the BFP).


7dpo is just too early to get a test that dark. why would my psyche give me hope like that? i'd never imagine get anything so early in the 2ww, nevermind how dark it was. it kind of angers me that my subconscious can dream these insane scenarios that I know are just impossible. it also puts too much hope in my head that just maybe i'll actually get a BFP and not have to wait 18 months like the other pregnancies...

UTI

(day 19, 3 dpo)

had my very first UTI (urinary tract infection) over the weekend  : (  I had suspicions a couple times but it wasn't until my kidneys started hurting that it confirmed it for me and that I should head in to get checked out.

it started I think over a week ago, but it only lasted a day so I didn't think anything of it. I kept feeling like I had to pee, like constantly cuz the feeling never went away. and when I went to pee, not much came out. but since it was limited to that one day, I didn't do anything about it and nothing had happened afterwards.

until Thursday. I had that same feeling like I needed to pee all the time but again, not much coming out. it went away on Friday so I once again didn't think much of it and continued to figure it was just a random thing and just happened to be a week apart.

and then Saturday happened. the feeling of needing to pee all the time wasn't quite as bad, but then I started feeling a little nauseous. I did a bit of research on it to see what other symptoms there are for a UTI/bladder infection and that's about when my kidneys started getting sore. it wasn't too bad, but it just got worse and quick. within about 2 hours I went from the kidneys not hurting at all to making it difficult just to pull my leg up to sit cross legged or even get in the truck without pain. and even if I wasn't moving it hurt. I felt like I had to walk hunched over to the side just to make it bearable. I gave in and headed to the ER.

next to when I had my cyst on the tailbone, that was probably the quickest ER trip I've had. it probably helped that it seemed pretty darn slow in there, there was only one person waiting in the ER when I got there. the nurse in triage was so nice and helpful. she made sure I gave a urine sample right away instead of waiting to get called back and then more waiting for the doc to finally do a sample. didn't help that I had just went before going in not knowing when or if they'd ask for a sample. she got a jug of water though to help with that and before I even had the urge to pee, she said they had the orders and papers ready for it so it that it would go quickly through the lab. after 45 minutes and a litre of water I finally had to pee (and 3 more times within the next hour  : P ). the nurse had said that it was possible that I might not get called back til the results came back so I was ready to wait another hour in the waiting room. after I think 30 or 40 minutes the doc called me back, brought me in a room, felt around my kidneys a little bit and then wrote up a prescription and then sent me on my way. in and out in less than 90 minutes!

I still had to get my prescription, but since the pharmacy I normally go to closes at 6 on weekends (it was about 6:30 when I left the ER) I had to go somewhere else. so I dropped off the script and then went home to eat something and relaxed for a bit and headed back about 45 minutes later. the lady said about 30, but I didn't want to show up after 30 and it not be ready yet, so I waited a little longer. once I had that in my hands, I headed off to DH's fire dept xmas party since that's where I was supposed to be instead of the ER... after one dose, I didn't have any kidney pain the next day, but today its a little tender, though I still have 5.5 days of meds left. I just have to work on drinking more water and getting a probiotic to prevent a yeast infection from the meds  : P