6DPO and hoping again

When trying to conceive, everything moves in slow motion. I can only be grateful that it continues to move. One day, and then another, toward possibility.

Today I had the smallest bit of spotting, which I think can only be implantation. Hope, which I'd kept in a back room, is front and center whether I want it there or not. In one week, I'll take a test. One day, and another, and another, toward possibility.

1DPO powerlessness

September 19, 2011

One day post ovulation. This is it. Either conception is happening right now, or my ovum is dying. And absolutely nothing I do now can affect whether a life is created or... nothing.

Each cycle, this is always a strange day. Interesting... yet boring. Exciting in its possibilities... yet frustrating in its powerlessness.

While I'm trying to conceive, time every day is set aside for "managing" fertility – time spent taking my BBT and charting it on a graph, monitoring CM, noting cramps and other symptoms, investigating my LPD and treatment options. It's excessive, and I do it so that I have control.

For the rest of my cycle, having no control over anything is beyond difficult.

I Googled "powerlessness" out of curiosity. What better way to take control of it? I learned that feelings of powerlessness may cause depression, anxiety, outbursts of anger, alienation from others, or physical symptoms. My interpretation of the four steps for dealing with it is: realize that powerlessness does not always equal hopelessness, admit powerlessness, evaluate where you are, and find out where you're going.

The only step I have a hard time with today is the first. Hope should be the wonderful thing about 1 DPO, but it has let me down many times. I have no power, I am forced into waiting yet again, and the only good thing I have – hope – is going to come back and bite me.

1 DPO. 10 days to go. Tick tock.

CD1 dysfunction

Dysfunction

We got along great for a while.
You kept me happy.
You had me
Convinced
that my dream was coming true.
I fell for you or
what you offered.
Today the romance is gone.
Today
you hurt me.
And now I remember it's not
the first time.
How stupid you make me feel.
How much
Power
you have over me.
I knew that you made me
Vulnerable
and I kept you still.
I couldn't not.
We're sitting in the same room
and I can't stand to look at you.
So I keep my distance
and refuse to listen
and imagine a
Freedom
from you that will never exist.

Today, nature made a fool of me. The poem is addressed to my silly sense of hope, which (in failing) has turned me sullen.

I dwell too much on what I think I want. May I never forget how much I have (everything).

This morning, Fletcher stuck his arm up to his elbow inside the empty pregnancy test box. He waved that arm around like a robot invader from the future. His secret weapon was his disarming smile. How could I not be disarmed by him? How could anything be missing from my life?

From Sullen Girl by Fiona Apple. A classic, to me.

Days like this
I don't know what to do with myself
All day and all night
I wander the halls along the walls
And under my breath I say to myself
I need fuel to take flight
And there's too much going on
But it's calm under the waves
In the blue of my oblivion.

10DPO glass half full

August 10, 2011

The test was negative, of course.

I only took the test for continuity here on the blog. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

What's weird is that I still think I'm pregnant.

I'm nervous about tomorrow, but the test is going to show two lines.

It is.

I'm not usually a glass half full gal.

But we did it this time.

I don't care what it shows on this pee stick that I'm still studying under different sources of light and upside down, three hours later.

STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

2:00 p.m. Update: Feeling crampy. 16 hours until I find out 16 hours until I find out 16 hours until I find out 16 hours until I find out