domesticana

Bummer, it started.

Well, that's all she wrote folks. Good old Aunt Flo is here, and I can't think of any rhyme or reason that she chose to totally fuck with my head and keep me waiting for over a week. I'll be looking into that one. I'm totally disappointed but not devastated. Part of me feels like it was good to let my guard down and just really surrender to hopefulness. I'm sad that all the little things I was dreaming about won't become a reality, but I'll get over it. I always do.

On a bright and heartwarming note though, I am just so filled with happiness for Brooke. She and I commiserated on several occasions about our trying to conceive woes, and I can honestly say that I feel only joy and love in my heart for her right now. It's like a bright, bright light on an otherwise sad day for me, and I'm grateful to hold her and her family in my heart right now.

Now I'm Just Crazy

No news might still be good news, right? I tested again this morning--at 36 days (and 8 days late), but got another negative test. I can't help but be reminded of my pregnancy with Ella. We knew the date of conception was August 31st (there was only one time it could have been), but when I tested after my missed period and then a week later both were negative. I had only just had one cycle after an early miscarriage, and I assumed I was having another crazy-long one. So, I waited and waited, and finally went to my doctor to find out what was wrong with me. She confirmed I was 9 weeks along. That's some serious patience/denial/will power, what have you.

Could my body just take a little longer than most to start metabolizing hCG (or however that might work)? Might I be going through the same thing all over again? I've been googling like mad, and I'm not really finding a lot to go on...

I'm so torn between feeling intensely excited and dreamy and hopeful, and then feeling nervous that I'm getting ahead of myself and what if it's ectopic or just some kind of hormonal funk. I crashed into bed the night before last at 9pm, after taking a nap mid-day, and I can only assume it was from sheer mental exhaustion. (I'm usually a night owl.) I have never in my life wanted anything so badly, never waited for anything so patiently (and incessantly), never felt so strongly that I was just meant to do something so profoundly. On this brink of hope, I am just freaking out.

My good friend Rachel has coined me "unflappable"—insisting that I don't come unglued and seem to soldier on despite what could be considered difficult circumstances. Well, I am flapped. It's official. I've done come unglued.

I think I may take your advice, Summer, and go get a blood test already.

All of this "not knowing" and waiting has reminded me what a vulnerable time pregnancy is—first the trying, then the precarious first trimester, and on to the impending surrender during birth and beyond. My protective trying-to-conceive shell has cracked open, and now I'm confronted with whatever will be. This is my journey. I must surrender and be patient. And that, my friends, is a tall order.

See a Penny

Still nothing. Just a stark solo line on Thursday morning's test and very clean underwear. I am obsessively agonizing at this point. I feel like I'm going to the bathroom every 30 minutes just to see if it might all be over.

And yet, I can't help but feel hopeful. This morning on my run, I kept seeing coins on the ground. When I was almost home, I saw a penny and kept on walking. A few paces ahead, I stopped dead in my tracks and went back for it. Who cares if it's not heads up? I'm going to take whatever I can get. I don't want to be kicking a superstitious gift horse in the mouth, right?

In case you're wondering why I had a camera with me on my jog, I got an iPhone for my birthday about a month ago. It's only kind of bulky to run with it (in a belt clip), but I really like being able to snap a picture whenever I want. And know if someone's trying to reach me when Ella's at school, and use the stopwatch, and listen to the iPod, and... It's the best damn piece of technology I've ever owned.

How long do you think I should wait before I take another test? Providing I don't wake up in the middle of the night to the highly probable conclusion...

Maybe this month?

For the past five years, almost every single month as my moon time approaches I can't help go through the same thoughts and images in my mind. If I were pregnant now:

What month would the baby be born?
What would I not be able to do in the coming months because I'm pregnant?
What would the baby's astrological sign be?
How would we plan everything with Matt's work?
Are all these tender symptoms premenstrual or a sign of pregnancy?
How will my belly look during the summer?
Will it be a boy or a girl?
Is that blood?

It seems downright silly to allow myself to be so dreamy over and over again, but it's almost like my rational brain has no say in the matter. And then I go through this internal monologue about whether or not to discuss my suspicions with anyone. Maybe just Matt? Maybe just my far-off friends? Okay, no one this month. I'm not really superstitious—I just can't help myself.

So after all that excitement over my 28 day cycles, I'm now sitting on day freakin' 33. I've been debating about whether to test all week, but honestly I can't help feeling like the minute I pee on the stick my cycle will start. And I'm way to cheap to waste the $10. All week long I've waited. Every morning, I'd lie in bed and feel my hot tummy wondering if maybe, just maybe this might be the month.

I successfully determined that my LH surge (which is what the ovulation prediction kit tests) occurred on day 14, but we didn't manage to do anything until day 16. That's not awful timing, but it's not great either. Honestly though, with all the stress in our lives right now, particularly for Matt, I just cannot imagine a worse time, a more improbable time. And yet... You see where this is headed.

But hey, I figured that if I do have a faint line or something (meaning, even if I were miscarrying right now), at least I'd know sperm met egg in there. That's pretty valuable information, right? I'm so neurotic.

So after 5 days of internal debate and sheer stingy willpower, I finally caved this afternoon and bought myself a pregnancy test two-pack, on sale. Comically, I only allowed myself to buy them because I needed to get some cash from my bank, which happens to be located in the Safeway, which happens to carry pregnancy tests. And, hey, if I was going to go in there, I might as well just use the Debit/Money Back option with a purchase...

As an aside, why is it so uncomfortable to buy pregnancy tests. The checker gave me this silly grin, albeit with genuine excitement in his beady little eyes, and I could feel all the other people in line staring at my single purchase on the conveyor belt.

Ack, I wish I weren't such a blusher.

Of course, I went home and debated about whether to hold out for a few days more. What's the rush? That lasted all of three hours. So, finally I peed on the stick and all was for naught. One harsh pink line. Only one.

And now, you know what my brain is saying? Maybe it was just the diluted urine. Maybe I should try again tomorrow first thing. With Ella I didn't get a positive pregnancy test even two weeks after my missed period. Maybe I just don't make a lot of that hormone right away? Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Thank goodness I'm not a depressive person. This sort of crap is enough to send any mama over the edge. Wasn't I just saying that I have my head around not trying too hard right now? I do. I totally do. Except when I'm premenstrual and 5 days late!

Unblocked?

Our baby-making trials continue... Shortly after I wrote my last infertility-related post, we were all sitting around chatting after dinner at my good friends Rachel and Justin's house. In addition to being a concerned friend, Justin is also an osteopath and a family practice MD, and he started quizzing me about my test results from our fertility doctor. I told him about my unexplained tubal blockage—no previous infections, STDs or endometriosis—and he perked up.

Him: Have you ever had a head injury?

Me: Yeah, a couple concussions. What does that have to do with anything?

Him: Have you ever had any one look at your pelvis alignment?

Me: Well, not really. What does that have to do with fallopian tubes and head injuries?

This led him to get out his handy-dandy skeleton and show me how your skull is connected to your spine is connected to your sacrum is connected to your pelvis. He went on to explain that it's possible that if my pelvis was twisted, the ligaments that connect my hips to my sacrum, on which my fallopian tubes rest, could be all mangled and kinking my tubes. Following me? After grilling me about my head injuries (turns out that both times I was knocked out, I was hit in the same spot on the right side of my head) and that time I fractured my tail bone riding my boyfriend's bike, he went to work on me for over an hour.

Turns out, I was totally out of whack. Like really messed up. Fortunately for me, and much to Justin's satisfaction, I am young and healthy and relatively fit, and all my parts popped back into place quite successfully. He has since checked me a few times and concluded that his work seems to be holding. Oh, and that he can't feel any adhesions in my pelvic-fallopian-ovary region anymore. Yippee!

I'd get the dye test again if it didn't cost 800 bucks. But honestly, I'm feeling pretty confident that my tubes are running free and clear now. On top of just feeling different down there (in ways that might be too much information for the internet), my cycles have also spontaneously regulated for the first time in my life. I was sure that I had been getting my period a week early for the past few cycles until I finally sat down and looked back through my iCal records. Holy smokes, they've been coming on every fourth Sunday for the past three months! That's 28 days. I was stunned when my google search for "average length of menstrual cycle" produced that exact number. I've been more of a 35/32/38 day girl my entire life. It feels so good to be average, let me tell you.

And on the other side of the equation, I recently realized that we totally messed up Matt's sperm count test. The directions: not something you want to overlook when you're paying $130 for a test and trying to ejaculate into a very small container on demand. But overlook them we did.

So at the moment , I'm feeling like our situation isn't so dire. In fact, I'm sitting here typing away with two boxes of ovulation predictor tests on my desk. It's such a struggle for me to go into that head space again—the clinical/planning/temperature taking aspect of "trying" to get pregnant. I don't want to get all stressed out about it. On the other hand, I do want to know when the time is prime...

Realistically, I know that our work life is totally insane right now and Matt will most likely be away on business for much of the spring, but I'm feeling really hopeful for the future, how ever far away that may be.

Is she your only?

I like to think that I don't wear my heart on my sleeve about not being able to get pregnant again. I don't break down with total strangers, anyway. I try to put on a happy face, but it's been harder than usual lately. It seems like everywhere I go, every time I meet someone new, every encounter during my day is somehow tinged with this sadness. It feels so pathetic.

I haven't been blogging much lately, for a lot of reasons, but mainly because our infertility has been consuming my thoughts and it's so difficult to sit down and write about it. Today, I read Summer's recent post, and it made me wonder why I feel blocked to journal about all of this—is it just my way of not dealing with it. Maybe it will help me deal. Maybe that's part of my work. So, I think I should start writing about it. Get some of it out of my head and organize it somehow.

I'll start at the beginning of our recent journey...

Earlier this year, we finally broke down and went to see a fertility specialist so we could do IUI. Our intentions were so optimistic and ignorant in retrospect: we'll just go get the tests done, confirm there's nothing "wrong" with us and then try insemination. When we explained to the doctor that we were sure our inability to get pregnant was solely the result of not managing to do it at the appropriate time each month, she asked, "So, how long have you been trying?" "Um, almost four years." She sighed ever so slightly and then said, "Well, if you've been having sex at all during that time, we categorize infertility after one year of failed attempts at pregnancy." That seems a bit extreme, but regardless, it probably should have been a warning sign: prepare yourself for the test results! But, we were so sure it couldn't be anything other than poor timing, we just glossed right over that statement.

During that initial consultation, she did an ultrasound and found that my ovaries are working at top-notch: lots of follicles, and I later had a blood test which confirmed that all my levels are within the normal range. We had to wait 90 days for Matt's semen analysis (wink, wink), and in the meantime, I had a Hysterosalpingogram (the dye-test), and the radiologist who performed the test said everything looked good. I was a little slow to drain out of my left tube but "nothing to worry about," he said. Matt did his business in a cup a few months later, and we waited for those results without any apprehension.

He was in Seattle on business when the doctor called him with the miserable news. His little swimmers are few and far between. She told him he could work on it, but she'd never seen anyone come back significantly with vitamins and such when the results were as low as his. She recommended in-vitro.

A few days later, the doctor called me to tell me that she was only just now looking over the results of my HSG, and didn't know why it took three months for the report to land on her desk. Paperwork mix-up, apparently. Anyway, turns out one of my tubes is completely blocked and the other one doesn't have the greatest little fingers (a.k.a. fimbria) grabbing my eggs. I'm still not sure why the radiologist felt the need to give me misleading information, but we did get a second opinion. Soooo, now we're definitely candidates for IVF in her book, and she doesn't recommend wasting any time, money or energy on alternatives.

It was a double-whammy blow. We went from blissfully thinking we could probably get away with a one-time $700 expense for IUI, to contemplating $13,000 for one shot at maybe, just maybe. I know this scenario is nothing new. If we hadn't been so smug, it wouldn't have even been surprising.

I spent the next few weeks stressing about in-vitro, reading everything I could get my hands on about sperm injection, hormones, injectable drugs, birth defects, probabilities factoring in our ages and test results. I was ravenous for information and totally panicked. Matt and I are not medical people. I don't mean that we're not doctors, obviously. We're just not big believers in the Western medical model. We don't trust drugs. We don't trust Band-aid prescriptions. In-vitro is a fucking nightmare to us.

One night in the midst of all this, Matt and I were laying on top of our bed, in the dark, fully clothed, at 11pm discussing our options and facing our fears together. He sounded so downtrodden and scared, and I turned to him and said, "This is not okay. I need you to be YOU—the dreamer, the optimist, the one who trusts that only good things will happen despite all the shit that gets thrown around beforehand. You're not allowed to be worried that we might not have more kids." He knew where I was coming from. He knows he's usually 'that guy'. But, still. He wasn't himself on this one.

The next morning, I finally came to my senses and remembered that there's this whole other school of thought out there regarding medicine and fertility, a well we hadn't even considered, much less attempted to tap. Oriental medicine. Chinese medicine. Whatever you want to call it. It was as if we'd forgotten the countless success stories we've heard over the years. Our doctor told us there was only one option in our sorry-sad situation, and we totally believed her. Don't get me wrong here. I like our doctor a lot, and if we have to go the in-vitro route, I'll definitely be calling her again. I know she's an expert in her field. But her news and the authority with which she delivered it definitely blinded us for a spell. We trusted her opinion and took it as the gospel. It amazes me that after all this time, after everything we've been through with Matt's health in the past seven years, that we would both completely resign ourselves to her authority. It's so deeply ingrained.

I started polling everyone I know about acupuncturists and healers, and we found someone extraordinary not 10 minutes from our house. We started seeing him a couple months ago, and it's inspiring and exciting to be working with someone who truly believes he can help us. He's confident, and that's absolutely contagious. There's so much work we need to do: emotionally and physically. I know that even if we do it all, we may still end up needing to go the Western route, but I believe we'll only be better off for having done it all. The intensity feels right.

So, yes, it's exciting to feel like we're moving forward. I'm hopeful that it will happen soon, despite the fact that we've had to put our sessions with him on hold temporarily due to the 'ole finances. It's all so bleedin' expensive. I know we'll get back on track with it as soon as possible. I trust our commitment to it.

But still... I do get lost in my funk sometimes. It seems like everyone I know in the is having babies or is done and has their families, all tidy and complete. I try not to dismiss what I have right here, Ella and Matt, but I know something's missing, like there are little beings out there waiting to join us. Ella talks about having a baby brother and a baby sister every single day and is constantly badgering me to get busy and make a baby already. She's relentless, and I love her for it. One of my best friends just found out she's pregnant, and it seems like all of my close friends within driving distance have babies. I have three almost-finished, knitted baby gifts that are beyond late sitting in a heap next to my desk. I just feel inundated with baby madness. I honestly don't begrudge anyone else's happiness, truly. I just feel surrounded by baby energy and there's such an emptiness in my heart. I know I will have more children, but the waiting. Oh, the endless waiting.

Nurturing the Nurturer

Someday Ella is going to make an awesome big sister. There's never been a doubt in my mind. Her whole inner world revolves around nurturing everyone she encounters, regardless of their age or whether they're human or an animal or a toy. She just lives for it. Dolls are frequently in her arms, play-nursing from her up-turned shirt or being lugged around on her hip, and if there's a tiny dog, bunny or kitty in the vicinity she's chasing it down or cuddling it to her chest. At times it's exasperating--the times when she just won't let it go, as in, "Leave the dog alone--he's running away for a reason." or "If she says she doesn't want to sit on your lap/be picked up/give you a hug, please just stop asking"--but it's hard to complain about such a sweetness in her character.

A few weeks ago, Ella got on a weird kick where she was asking all her friends, flat out, "Do you like me?" Talk about giving a four-year old power. Naturally, most of them answered, "No." just because they could, and Ella's feelings were mightily wounded. Her teacher, who I am growing to love more and more with each passing day, spoke to me about it privately after school one day, and during that conversation it occurred to me how to help her. Instead of asking them if they like her, she just needs to tell them that she likes them. Don't give them the power to hurt you--just give them the love in your heart. Her teacher had the insight to give Ella this advice in the form of a story, which is something I just don't pull out of my parenting arsenal often enough.

Allow me to go off on a tangent for just a moment... In Seattle, we had a zoo membership and went often to visit Ella's favorite animals: the gorillas and the lone jaguar. Many of our friends would complain that they never got to see the jaguar when they went, but, and I know this sounds kooky, it seemed like he had a thing for Ella. Every time we visited his habitat, Junior would come right up to the glass next to Ella and almost always curl up on his rock and stare at her. I'm not making this up--one day I brought the camera and sure enough, he came up to say hello. Anyway, when it became a regular occurrence, I made up a bedtime story about a family of jaguars, like one might do about bears or rabbits or some other animal, and I've been mirroring Ella's life in the story of this family ever since.

So, that night I told Ella a story about the baby sister jaguar, Kaya, who comes home and talks to her big brother about her friends who say they don't like her. When I came to the lesson, Ella rolled into me and held me tight, whispering, "Thank you, Mommy." She had tears in her eyes as she listened to the rest of the story. How have I not know about this story as advice technique all this time? As I said, I've been mirroring our lives with the jaguar family, but I've never used story-time specifically to give her advice.  It was remarkable.

Her teacher reported that she walked right in the next day and told all of her friends that she liked them and they all reciprocated in kind, and all was harmonious and easy again at school.

Yesterday, the teacher made a point to tell me that one of the other girls started crying when they went on their walk in the apple orchard that morning, and Ella came to the rescue. She just oozes empathy when someone is genuinely hurting, and apparently she walked right up and said, "Oh C., it's okay. Here let me give you a hug. Just rest your head here right on my chest." Ella's teacher went on to say that for the rest of the day, Ella made it her mission to be C.'s little mama; holding her hand, rubbing her head, putting her arms around her.

In so many pieces of Ella's personality, in her words and expressions and manners and demeanor, I see myself or Matt, but when it comes to this obsessive need to nurture and shower her affection on everyone, I only see her. Sure, Matt and I are loving and affectionate, but she's taken it up to the tippy-toppest notch.

She is absolutely beside herself with the notion that we might, someday, have another baby, and asks me everyday when that day might come. "When are you going to have a new baby in your tummy?" "How will it get inside you?" "Can I watch you and Daddy make it?" She's relentless. She has stopped referring to herself as her baby-dolls' mommy and is now just their big sister. She asks me at least ten times a day if I'd like to hold her baby sister and wouldn't I like to give her some of my milk and could she just watch her baby sister sleep in my arms for a while. It goes on and on.

Part of me is so intensely moved by her desire for a sibling and other parts feel both sorry for myself and wracked with guilt for not giving her something that she so desperately, desperately wants. I feel like I say this every goddamn month, but I'l be fertile and ovulating next week when we get to Kona. So, maybe a little Libra baby brother or sister is in the stars for us. It's hard to get too worked up about it, but Ella certainly never lets me forget for a moment. A blessing and a curse.

Has it really been that long?

So, where have I been, yeah? I can't believe my last entry was in April. It honestly doesn't seem like that many months could have passed.

As much as I've been thinking about blogging, composing little posts in my head, I was a wee bit busy this Summer. Let's see, there was that horrendous work project from the depths of hell--the one that had me up 'til 1am every night for almost a month and my hands aching from so much copy/paste action. Honestly, I had to do so much keyboard shortcut work that I didn't knit for nearly two months. Then there were all the house-guests, one of whom--my mom--stayed with us for five weeks. Then my grandpa and cousin came to visit twice, another cousin showed up for a long weekend, my mother in-law for a few days, and then a week-long stop-off from my dad. All the visits have been very pleasant, but, honestly, they were damn tiring. Then there has been the whole "starting a new company" workload, which has really upped the guilt factor of blogging. All these things, coupled with just feeling blue about still not being pregnant, have been the main things keeping me away. I've been missing it, but at the end of the day I just didn't have the energy, time or gumption.

Before my blog-world sabatical, I kept meaning to write about the pregnancy stuff, but I just wasn't willing to deal with it on this level. I've been torn in so many directions: believing that another baby will come to me when he/she is meant to come; feeling frustrated every month when I get my period again despite our half-assed efforts; trying not to get my hopes up; struggling with how to approach my husband about it each month; feeling happy with my slowly materializing independence now that Ella can get dressed, go to the potty and do a myriad other things without me; dealing with a very, very early miscarriage; contemplating IUI, Clomid and other, what I consider to be, fairly drastic measures; and just generally feeling wave after wave of self-pity as I've watched practically all of my friends get pregnant again, birth, nurse and love another baby. As Ella would say, it's been a "bummer."

In the past few weeks, I feel like I've come to a healthy place in my head about having another baby. All this desire to get pregnant has been fueled by several fires--my desire to get pregnant and have another baby being the brightest burning. Then there's the fact that Matt is 43 going on 44, and I know he won't want to have another baby when he's approaching 50, which puts my plot to have more than one more into serious jeopardy with each passing day. On top of that, Ella reminds me daily that she wants a brother AND a sister. "Maybe tomorrow," she says.

I've always thought I wanted to have a big family, and to be fair, I knew when I got married that three was going to be a compromise on Matt's part. He's a big believer in one-on-one attention with each child, and he's always said he's not sure if he's got enough to give, the way he intends to give, to more than two. But, he has said he's open to considering it, and that he wants to make me happy and understands that I do feel like I have a 'enough to give.' So, for the past two years, as we've been putting our most pathetic feet forward in our attempt to get pregnant again--amid his heath concerns and the pressures of starting new businesses--I've been feeling the heat.

I've also been feeling a little bitter, which is an emotion I truly loathe. I haven't been myself with all this preoccupation and the monthly reminders that I'm probably not going to get the family I've been banking on. I haven't felt like being funny. I haven't wanted to laugh. I've just allowed myself to be consumed by it.

These feelings make me feel so ugly, and I am so over them. A few weeks ago, Matt was talking to Ella during a mini-tantrum, and he said, "El, you can just decide to change your mind. I know you don't want to be grumpy and crying right now. You can decide to change your mind and be happy again." And you know what? She did. She wiped away her tears, sobbed for a few more breaths, picked herself up and changed her mind.

I'm probably at the 'picking herself up' stage. I've stopped feeling resentful of Matt's work ethic and passions--they're not stopping me from having the family I want because those things are a part of him, and the family I want has him in it. I always dreamed of having a warm house with affectionate faces, lots of laughing and that palpable love of a close family. In my dream there were lots of kids in that picture, but what I've been missing during this fog of disappointment is that I have that dream right now. I need to stop waiting and wishing for this or that and start appreciating what I've got.

For the past year, Matt and I have both been consumed with the demands and stresses of starting a new business, and I feel very deeply that now isn't a welcoming time in our lives. I know that our attempts have been half-assed because we both, although unwilling to admit it, have been struggling with the reality of our position. If a baby choses to come anyway, that would be wonderful. But the act of 'trying' is just so, well, trying. I feel confident that, one way or another, I'll have another baby someday. I've just decided that there's no sense rushing what isn't meant to be.

On top of the new company and baby-making woes, we've also been planning on that move I mentioned a long while back. Our plan at this point is to list our house in December with a lease back option for a couple months (tricky, I know), set off in February or March for Hawaii for work reasons for a few months, and then head to Sebastopol by next Fall. Although the Hawaii scenario may sound blissful to some, it's been rough to be in this move purgatory for the past 10 months, and the thought of packing up all our stuff and then spending a few months in Kona before we actually "move" is a little overwhelming. I'm sure by February or March in Seattle, I'll be singing a different tune about hanging in paradise for a couple months though.

So, that's what's been going on with me.

A bunch of sickos

Happy belated holidays everyone. This year we spent Christmas in California and New Years in bed. The three of us drove back from California on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the last leg of the journey was rainy and foggy and downright yucky. I started feeling a little nauseated on Wednesday morning, and by the time we got home I was absolutely miserable.

I suppose I should back up and comment on that whole ovulation-sex thing.

So, as I mentioned in that last ever-so-long-ago entry, I was trying to decide whether or not to tell my husband that I was ovulating. I decided to slyly mention that I might be interested in going to bed early only to be informed that he had just taken a double-dose of his new medication (his new naturopath is really great and so are his prescriptions--they're just a little bit tumultuous to the system at first). So, it looks like I should have spoken up earlier because his body was going through some crazy stuff. I'm not sure what graced me at that moment, but I managed not to be grumpy, just disappointed that this was just not going to be our month, again. Instead  I took the opportunity to talk it over with him and figure out how to get this right next month. Obviously when your husband's sick a fair amount of the time and just isn't going to be able to give it all he's got, you need to forego some of the mystery. We decided that the best way to 'talk' about it was for him to look at my chart. We'll see if this actually works next month, but it's a new approach and, frankly, that's something.

Speaking of my chart, I think I ovulated twice. That's sure what it looks like anyway. As I mentioned, it dropped to 96.9 on day 15. Then it went 97.3, 97.4, 97.6, 97.4 and down to 96.9 again. We actually managed to have sex that day, completely without realizing that I might still be fertile (if I even was...). Then it jumped to 97.1 to 97.7 and then 97.8 and so on up. To recap, I have two dips, one on day 15 and one on day 19. WTF. Is this just nature's way of giving me an extra push? Or, did I even ovulate?

Back to the road-trip nausea... As we drove through flooded vineyards and snowy mountain passes our heads reeling with thoughts of tsunamis and mass destruction, I was holding out a slight wisp of hope that my husband could once again reign as the one-shot-king and the nausea was pregnancy related. By the time I collapsed in bed early Wednesday evening, I was starting to doubt that this could be anything but the flu or some other stomach bug. It's now Day 5 and counting.

I hate the flu. I had never had the flu before Ella was born. I know that sounds crazy, but it's absolutely true. I would try very hard not to sound smug when I told people, but I always harbored a bit of pride about my immune-system-of-steel. Then my baby became a toddler, and I became susceptible to everything. Last year I got the flu twice.

At this point, Ella still hasn't gotten sick despite her two quarantined and miserable parents. The poor thing has been so patient with us, and I'm sure her willingness to stay inside and play by herself is coupled with an intense joy to be home. We have a homebody to the nth degree. She practically did pirouettes when we walked through the front door on Wednesday, and after four days at home with no one but sick parents to play with, the kid is still loving life. We've got grandmas to thank for her new dressup wardrobe...

More on our holidays and explorations in California soon. Right now, my bed and borrowed copy of Middlesex (thanks Roberta!) is awaiting.

Dipped

My temperature has been hovering around 97.5 - 97.7 for the past two weeks, and yesterday it hit 97.7 and dropped to 96.9 today. I think that means it's time to get busy, right?

Now I have the big dilemma: to tell him I'm ovulating or to keep it to myself. In the past whenever I have told Matt that I'm ovulating, the sex gets weird or we just don't have any for some mysterious reason like a tummy ache or something else goes wrong. Naturally, this just happens to be coming at a particularly stressful time (we're trying to get out of town early next week, and he's totally bogged down with work and pressure and a pending contract that could either make or break our 2005), and I can't make up my mind.

So, internet, should I tell Matt he needs to have sex with me to make a baby or should I just try to jump him constantly for the next few days? Either way he's probably going to be reluctant. Is it better to have stressed, reluctant and pressured or stressed, reluctant and suspicious. I guess it doesn't really matter...

Please keep your fingers crossed that I can get my husband to have sex with me. (How sad is that statement.)