Pathetically Optimistic or Merely Pathetic

There’s no bun in the oven this month.  It really shouldn’t surprise me.  I had hinted earlier that things were screwy this month.  And as VHMPrincess pointed out, it is true that last month’s miscarriage may have screwed things up (although from what I saw out there on Dr. Google, it happened so early that there shouldn’t have been any problem with conceiving this month).  

Nonetheless, it was an up and down month with signs pointing quite directly at No Bun and me pathetically reinterpreting everything to mean that “this” sign was bad but “that” sign might be something quite good indeed.

Take, for instance, the false positive OPKs.  I finally did ovulate at day 23 of my cycle. That’s late, even for me.  And then it took forever (ok, 2 days) for my temperature to rise (which, btw, a delayed thermal shift is “normal” and what happened with Conor).  But it wasn’t reassuring news.  I thought I was heading anovulatory this month.

But then, my temperature kept rising.  I went from 97.8 to 98.0 to 98.2 to 98.6 to 99.2!  YIKES!  A “fever” or a really early triphasic chart?  I even searched Dr. Google to see if a high waking temperature for three days could indicate pregnancy or even twins.  (All that extra progesterone from two eggs implanting, don’t you know.)  Ummmm.  No.  A fever in the luteal phase does not indicate pregnancy.  It does indicate a fever.  And I’m sure it was a fever due to the lovely fever blister currently healing on my lip.  But there for a few days, I was hopeful. 

(And did you know that the little embryo does produce HCG within days of fertilization before implantation.  This HcG is not detectable in the mother because HcG does not enter the mother’s bloodstream until implantation.  But my reasoning is that a little embryo could be communicating back to the corpus luteum to make more progesterone and this could increase temperature.  At least that was the ill-conceived reasoning in my overly optimistic world to explain the “high temps”.)  

And then on 12 dpo, I got implantation bleeding! Yay!  I thought.  And then….ummmmm, no.  It wasn’t implantation bleeing.  It was f*&$ing AF.  I just noticed it so early that I was (pathetically) hopeful.  By the end of the afternoon, though, it was clear that this weren’t no spottin’.  But during the morning, I was all hopeful.  I got Dave’s hopes all up.  I emailed my TTC mentors and asked what they thought.  And then I finally just admitted what it was and checked this month off the conception list. 

So I’m going into month three somewhat defeated and not really trusting myself.  I’m a very positive person and I’m always looking for that one ray of hope in the storm clouds.  I’m afraid, though, that I’m really just making shit up. 

Also, I’m even more convinced that last month’s potential miscarriage (as I called it) really was one.  I just cannot see how we misread that test.  We saw a pink line last month even if it was really faint.  Every other test we took after that, I haven’t been able to see anything even when we’re looking really hard.  And I also think that I’m more bummed this month about what happened last month. 

So this charting thing, I like it.  But I can be searching out information when there actually is none. I’m glad I am charting because I would have stopped “engaging in the intervention” too early last month based on our first false positive OPK.  This month, I’m considering only charting until I’m sure of ovulation and then stopping. That way I can’t obsess over ups and downs of the two weeks waiting period. 

But will that really help me from not obsessing?  I don’t know.  I’m quite sure I’ll still be pathetic no matter what happens from ovulation day until AF makes her unwelcome appearance.

6:42:21 PM