Privacy Please

Yesterday, on a glorious sunny Saturday afteroon, I was enjoying a glass of wine on a patio along the ocean seawall. Three of my young, unmarried, lawyer friends were with me and we were having a great time gossiping about office happenings, movies, travel...

"This is awesome", I thought to myself. A safe environment where breeding is not the meaning of life and people remind me that life is full of all kinds of other validly wonderful things. And then one of them breaks the spell - "so, when are you guys having kids?"

I've fielded this question many, many times before, but for some reason never quite managed to craft a good response. Tonight I'm going out for dinner with some ladies I haven't seen in years, so I thought I should take the time to come up with something good to say when they inevitably ask that irritating question. Here is what I've come up with, the key ingredient being sarcasm. Please share your comebacks of choice in the comments.

So, when are you having kids?

1. I'm so glad you brought this up! My husband and I really want to include you in these decisions.
2. Don't worry, when I decide to have unprotected sex I'll be sure to post it on Facebook.
3. If asked by a member of husband's family: I'm waiting til I meet the right person.
4. I just don't know if I want to bring a child into such a world of inappropriate questions.

And my personal favourite...

1. As soon as they stop dying in my uterus!

Check-up

For my own records before I forget (and for anyone who might actually be interested), these are observations about how I feel three months into the GF diet:

Digestive

• Going #2 twice a day without needing to ingest copious amounts of fibre. As opposed to once every few days before.
• Able to digest multi-vitamins containing iron.
• Gas emissions have been lowered from constant to almost non-existent. I'm like an electric car. It's amazing I still have friends considering how farty I have been the last 25 years.

Reproductive

• Cycles have become shorter and more predictable, and all ovulatory so far. The one before GF was anovulatory.
• No more patches of EWCM that do not correspond to ovulation.

Other

• Clear skin except when consuming dairy (note to self - stop consuming dairy).
• Hands and feet not cold anymore.
• Fewer back spasms/pain.
• Consistent energy throughout the day.
• Require less sleep to feel rested.
• Fewer sugar cravings (though I still enjoy my chocolate on occasion).

Still Problematic

• Dry, itchy skin and scalp.
• Sperm has not met egg.

Losing Sleep

There will not be much sleeping tonight thanks to screaming crowds and honking car horns outside my building. As mentioned in a previous post, the city has gone hockey mad. Tonight the Canucks won 1-0 and are one game away from winning the Cup. I'm sure even those who have never been to Canada know by our reputation how much that means to people.

So I definitely will not be getting a restful slumber like I normally do before the weekend. That's OK. I'm pretty sure that even without the pandemonium outside I would be keeping myself up thinking about all kinds of other statistics, such as:

...Had a positive OPK today which is good...probably a 46 day cycle this time... means the GF diet is working or something is making me function consistently better. A period in 4 out of the last 5 months, beating last year's abysmal total of 3 periods... (3 periods? insert hockey pun here)...

...Ok, that's good. But that definitely means no conception this cycle as Hubbs is away until next weekend. That's ok. That's ok. If this is going to be a consistent cycle length, then he will be in town during the next opportunity. Shit, looking at the calendar, that will be almost exactly one year since the first time we conceived in 2010. I guess that's supposed to make me upset? It really doesn't. I've gotten knocked up twice in that one year so the stats are not all negative...

On a totally different note, I should have the saliva hormone test results within a few weeks and can maybe get some treatment to speed things up even more? Hmm... in any event, will not get full mat leave unless the due date is more than a year from now (btw, how fucking ridiculous is that? I have been with this firm since September 2010, but because they only hired me to "officially" start a permanent position on June 14 (i.e. next week), I will not be eligible for full mat leave benefits until I've worked past June 14, 2012). Bastards. I don't care, I will take a pay cut, hell I'll PAY to have a baby before then...

And so the mind keeps running and running, and I can't get to sleep. So I log back into FertilityFriend and obsess over these:

There is more to life than this

It's natural to get fixated on troubles in your life. If you don't concentrate on your problems, you'll have a tough time solving them. But there comes a point where being driven and focussed turns into tunnel vision, blocking out all the wonderful things that are concurrently taking place around you.

If you catch yourself falling into this trap, or if someone is kind enough to point out your total lack of perspective, you gotta snap out of it. For me, this happened today as I packed up my stuff on the way home from work. I turned past office window and caught a glimpse of sailboats on the Burrard inlet. The sun still beaming bright despite it being 7pm. In the foreground, the Olympic torch was lit in support of the Canucks playing game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

I walked home in my comfy Birkenstock sandals, past crowds of jersey-clad fans watching the game on jumbo screen TV's set up along the downtown streets. The atmosphere is electric. What a fucking epic day. I haven't forgotten my problems completely, but they have taken a back seat for a while and it feels nice.

* The Canucks promptly got slaughtered 8-1. Also, the forecast calls for rain tomorrow. Oh well, you can't have everything!

Gluten free, cycle three - it rhymes!

On the last episode of TCC Gluten Free (that rhymes too!) I had just experienced my first "normal" length cycle of 44 days. It remained to be seen whether this was merely a fluke, or the beginning of a trend of improvement. I am happy to report that cycle two after going off the glutes was also a relatively decent length of 46 days, and it was probably delayed a bit by the stress of travelling for 3 weeks.

I am currently on CD 29 of GF (gluten free) cycle number 3 and my CM indicates that it should again be in the range of 45 days or so (I hope).

The only downside to all of this is that last cycle we had a BFN (I blame the travelling and being sick for a week after ovulation). Also, this cycle hubbs is out of town for what looks to be the prime baby making time, so that's 2 quality cycles down the drain. I am hoping this summer will be more productive.

In other news, I am taking this hormone panel test through my ND which requires that I collect 11 saliva samples throughout the length of my cycle. Here is a website that summarizes the test: http://www.acupuncturehealth.net/s_female.php

Basically, the samples get sent off to the lab where they will determine what hormone deficiency or overproduction is causing the irregular cycles. I am not sure if my ND will be able to do anything with this information because I have always been this way and I feel like my body is just innately messed up, but for $300 I'm willing to give it a try. In the meantime, I am collecting these little tubes of saliva every few days. Very attractive to be spitting into a receptacle for an hour (yes, it takes that long to collect). Has anyone out there done this test? Did it lead to anything useful?

Hello? Anybody out there?

I don't know if anybody still reads this thing, what whatever. If you do, rest assured that even though I haven't posted in ages I have been actively following YOU.

The lack of posts can be explained by a fun mix of reasons:

1. I went on a 3 week epic vacation to NYC and Israel and had no interest in thinking about this stuff;
2. I am a lazy bastard;
3. because I have been following others in the meantime, I have seen many of you have great baby success and felt somewhat discouraged.

Over time I recovered from the initial sting of seeing other people's ultrasounds. I took my time to deal and now I am ready to resurface. I am now able to see that other people's successes are actually a good thing - if others are finally experiencing success after a seemingly impossible journey, then so can I.

I am also realizing based on others' experiences that it usually is just a matter of time. My problem right now is not necessarily that I can't have children, it's that I can't have them RIGHT THIS MINUTE!! Well, honestly, that's a first world problem and I need to get past the stupid impatience. A fitting quote I recently came across:

You know what's not a funny April Fools joke?

Facebook Status: "I'm pregnant with number 3! .... April Fools!"

Fuck you.