- I've realized I'm repeatedly refreshing my email because I'm waiting to find out whether I'm pregnant.
You've Got UteMail!
(click image for bigger)
(click image for bigger)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Signs Of The Times
I Really Don't Think I'm Pregnant, But...
...my hoo-ha smells funny.
(Probably because I started taking different vitamins -- ran out of plain folate right around the insem, started taking regular prenatals 'cause why the heck not -- but that hasn't stopped me from furtive TP-sniffing and general obsessery.)
Thought you'd like to know.
(Probably because I started taking different vitamins -- ran out of plain folate right around the insem, started taking regular prenatals 'cause why the heck not -- but that hasn't stopped me from furtive TP-sniffing and general obsessery.)
Thought you'd like to know.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Three Cajun French Hens
Lookie: news that has nothing to do with my hoo-ha!
I got a pretty new dress!
It came from my very most favorite dress shop, in New Orleans. I thought about making that modifier restrictive, but I really can't think of a dress shop I love more...unless it's this one, where the dress is now off to be altered so it fits me just right.
Trashy Diva (where the dress came from) specializes in beautifully made dresses in 30s, 40s, 50s, and sometimes other styles. Their silk dresses are absolutely worth the money, and I say that as a notorious tight wad. The cotton ones are also awfully pretty...one of these days I'll try one out for real. Theses are dresses that make you so happy to have curves, and they don't top out at size 6, either. (The other one I was interested in this time didn't come in my size, but only because the factory shorted them, not because they didn't intend it to. Several of the dresses go up to size 18.) When I visited New Orleans and my friend offered to drive me around to save my renting a car, our first stop was their Magazine Street shop, where I reinvested the money I'd planned to give to Hertz in what has become my little black dress:
Need I remind you what a mitzvah it is to send money in the direction of the still-recovering Gulf Coast?
Trashy Diva sell through the website but also in a few stores, including Brooklyn's splendid Flirt, which not only sells oh such nice things but also runs sewing classes and open studio time (with sergers!), makes custom skirts, and generally rocks. They didn't have the exact dress I wanted in my size, but the minute I stepped out of the dressing room in the one I'd tried on for fit, the owner said, "by the way, we have lots of experience with the alteration you need on that dress." So the dress went right to them after it arrived, and I don't have to fret about ruining it by taking the back in myself.
I promise this post is not empty product placement -- though Trashy Diva and Flirt are such magnificent establishments that I would be happy to shill for them both -- but rather foreshadowing of a kind. If I didn't owe you so many posts, I'd spit it out in this one.
Yay for pretty new dresses! Yay for occasion to wear them!
I got a pretty new dress!
It came from my very most favorite dress shop, in New Orleans. I thought about making that modifier restrictive, but I really can't think of a dress shop I love more...unless it's this one, where the dress is now off to be altered so it fits me just right.
Trashy Diva (where the dress came from) specializes in beautifully made dresses in 30s, 40s, 50s, and sometimes other styles. Their silk dresses are absolutely worth the money, and I say that as a notorious tight wad. The cotton ones are also awfully pretty...one of these days I'll try one out for real. Theses are dresses that make you so happy to have curves, and they don't top out at size 6, either. (The other one I was interested in this time didn't come in my size, but only because the factory shorted them, not because they didn't intend it to. Several of the dresses go up to size 18.) When I visited New Orleans and my friend offered to drive me around to save my renting a car, our first stop was their Magazine Street shop, where I reinvested the money I'd planned to give to Hertz in what has become my little black dress:
Yes, my little black dress has dragons on it.
Need I remind you what a mitzvah it is to send money in the direction of the still-recovering Gulf Coast?
Trashy Diva sell through the website but also in a few stores, including Brooklyn's splendid Flirt, which not only sells oh such nice things but also runs sewing classes and open studio time (with sergers!), makes custom skirts, and generally rocks. They didn't have the exact dress I wanted in my size, but the minute I stepped out of the dressing room in the one I'd tried on for fit, the owner said, "by the way, we have lots of experience with the alteration you need on that dress." So the dress went right to them after it arrived, and I don't have to fret about ruining it by taking the back in myself.
I promise this post is not empty product placement -- though Trashy Diva and Flirt are such magnificent establishments that I would be happy to shill for them both -- but rather foreshadowing of a kind. If I didn't owe you so many posts, I'd spit it out in this one.
Yay for pretty new dresses! Yay for occasion to wear them!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Loopholes
Lucky I left one in that post the other day -- you'll note I said I'd post something "for every day" not "on every day." Probably I should have been a lawyer.
So now I owe youthree four things.
Here's one thing you missed (unless you heard me kvetch about it on the IVP): I am having the World's Longest Cycle. Or at least, it wins in the local competition that is my little charting notebook. When I started keeping track last spring*, it came as a shock to me that my cycles weren't 28 days -- I mean, that's "normal," right? I'm normal (hindsight sez: haaaaaaaaaaaaa!), ergo my cycle = 28 days.
Does this dugong make my arms look fat?
Turns out my cycles are more like 34 days. Except when they're 30 or 37. Still, it's all regular enough, and I suppose I haven't been complaining about getting 2.5 fewer sets of cramps per calendar year all this time, now have I?
My shortest cycle since I've been keeping track has been 30 days, so I started peeing on OPKs at day 13 (shortest cycle minus 16 except I forgot on day 12). You know how I love all that leg-crossing, so I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled I was to keep that up for TWENTY DAYS.
I am now officially a believer in that whole "stress can delay ovulation" business, which had previously seemed right on the edge of hippie-dippy. I spent the middle of the month VERY stressed about a number of things (certainly including "when the hey-diddle-diddle am I going to freakin' ovulate?"); the worst of it was right about the time I should have ovulated in a typical cycle. Things started to line up -- OPKs got a shade darker, ovary started to twinge -- and then NOTHING. All systems powered down, except whatever system is in charge of my pulling my hair out.
Convinced this cycle was a bust, we packed up and headed to the beach for a weekend of friends and serious eating. Couple of days of relaxing, and BAM. Positive OPK on CD 32.
So now I owe you
Here's one thing you missed (unless you heard me kvetch about it on the IVP): I am having the World's Longest Cycle. Or at least, it wins in the local competition that is my little charting notebook. When I started keeping track last spring*, it came as a shock to me that my cycles weren't 28 days -- I mean, that's "normal," right? I'm normal (hindsight sez: haaaaaaaaaaaaa!), ergo my cycle = 28 days.
*Note to my lovely man-borking lady readers: one of the (many, many!) perks of lesbianism is that, until now, I have never once bothered paying attention to when my period is due. Hell, it's not like I could have been pregnant. When I noticed myself crying at pet food commercials and comparing my physique unfavorably to that of a manatee, I figured it was time to hit up the ladies-only aisle at the drug store.
Does this dugong make my arms look fat?Turns out my cycles are more like 34 days. Except when they're 30 or 37. Still, it's all regular enough, and I suppose I haven't been complaining about getting 2.5 fewer sets of cramps per calendar year all this time, now have I?
My shortest cycle since I've been keeping track has been 30 days, so I started peeing on OPKs at day 13 (shortest cycle minus 16 except I forgot on day 12). You know how I love all that leg-crossing, so I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled I was to keep that up for TWENTY DAYS.
I am now officially a believer in that whole "stress can delay ovulation" business, which had previously seemed right on the edge of hippie-dippy. I spent the middle of the month VERY stressed about a number of things (certainly including "when the hey-diddle-diddle am I going to freakin' ovulate?"); the worst of it was right about the time I should have ovulated in a typical cycle. Things started to line up -- OPKs got a shade darker, ovary started to twinge -- and then NOTHING. All systems powered down, except whatever system is in charge of my pulling my hair out.
Convinced this cycle was a bust, we packed up and headed to the beach for a weekend of friends and serious eating. Couple of days of relaxing, and BAM. Positive OPK on CD 32.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
On The First Day of Waiting
...I'll tell you a little bit about yesterday.
In the morning, we were still at the beach. I'd planned to be in the TWW while we were there, but my body had other ideas. We'll talk about just how damn many sticks I've peed on this month another time. At any rate, there seems to be something to this whole "stress can delay ovulation" theory.
The good news about all that was: no limits on hot tubbing or drinking red wine. And indeed, no limits were observed. It was beautiful and peaceful and -- here's the key, I think -- relaxing. ...The next thing I know, I've got EWCM out the yingyang, and a true, indisputable positive on my OPK. Since we were planning to leave the next day anyway, we took the early-squirrelly ferry and headed to the ol' Baby Factory.
Once there, I took off my pants and signed a lot of paperwork (including saying I am an unmarried woman -- but that's another post for another day). I had already talked to one of the IUI nurses about the peculiarities of my anatomy, why I thought the left side was the way to go, etc., but the other nurse was on duty. She sat down between my legs, syringe aloft, and I thought to say, "by the way, I know you've probably read my chart, but just in case...."
Her eyebrows rose just slightly. Here is a woman who knows better than to alarm a patient.
"Oh, just a minute, then. I'm going to get someone who will be very interested."
Great, I thought, another med student. Or that poor Zebra Fish guy again.
Instead, she brought the big guns: a doctor. And then the fun began. It was not on the order of the "fun" we all had at my HSG, but it was more like that than I had hoped. A tenaculum was involved. Ultimately, so was an abdominal ultrasound. (Given how pricey that pink (!) goo was -- and this was two vials-worth, as the clinic thought the counts were low -- I was glad enough that the doctor wanted to be sure she was in before pulling the trigger, as it were.) I tried to think relaxing thoughts, as Stephanie Brill has put the fear of God in me about the contraceptive properties of prostaglandins, but my cervix evidently has both ridges and bends, and that damn tenaculum did hurt.
But! The doctor says that if this one doesn't take, I should come early next time and they'll slip me some valium. So there's that.
Neither the doctor nor the nurse were overly excitable, which I think is good for us in re: not getting too worked up about any particular cycle. We're trying to think of this one as "getting started", which didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night a little freaked at what we just did. (Man juice. In my hoo-ha. Yowzers.)
In the morning, we were still at the beach. I'd planned to be in the TWW while we were there, but my body had other ideas. We'll talk about just how damn many sticks I've peed on this month another time. At any rate, there seems to be something to this whole "stress can delay ovulation" theory.
The good news about all that was: no limits on hot tubbing or drinking red wine. And indeed, no limits were observed. It was beautiful and peaceful and -- here's the key, I think -- relaxing. ...The next thing I know, I've got EWCM out the yingyang, and a true, indisputable positive on my OPK. Since we were planning to leave the next day anyway, we took the early-squirrelly ferry and headed to the ol' Baby Factory.
Once there, I took off my pants and signed a lot of paperwork (including saying I am an unmarried woman -- but that's another post for another day). I had already talked to one of the IUI nurses about the peculiarities of my anatomy, why I thought the left side was the way to go, etc., but the other nurse was on duty. She sat down between my legs, syringe aloft, and I thought to say, "by the way, I know you've probably read my chart, but just in case...."
Her eyebrows rose just slightly. Here is a woman who knows better than to alarm a patient.
"Oh, just a minute, then. I'm going to get someone who will be very interested."
Great, I thought, another med student. Or that poor Zebra Fish guy again.
Instead, she brought the big guns: a doctor. And then the fun began. It was not on the order of the "fun" we all had at my HSG, but it was more like that than I had hoped. A tenaculum was involved. Ultimately, so was an abdominal ultrasound. (Given how pricey that pink (!) goo was -- and this was two vials-worth, as the clinic thought the counts were low -- I was glad enough that the doctor wanted to be sure she was in before pulling the trigger, as it were.) I tried to think relaxing thoughts, as Stephanie Brill has put the fear of God in me about the contraceptive properties of prostaglandins, but my cervix evidently has both ridges and bends, and that damn tenaculum did hurt.
But! The doctor says that if this one doesn't take, I should come early next time and they'll slip me some valium. So there's that.
Neither the doctor nor the nurse were overly excitable, which I think is good for us in re: not getting too worked up about any particular cycle. We're trying to think of this one as "getting started", which didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night a little freaked at what we just did. (Man juice. In my hoo-ha. Yowzers.)
They Call It The Waiting Game
Hi again, Gentle Readers. Sorry we've been out of touch. Plenty enough has been going on, and now I have that horrible "I can't write now, because I can't possibly explain everything I've skipped saying," feeling.
So here's the plan:
We are now officially at the start of our first 2 week wait. For every day until Bionic Baby Mama either starts bleeding or peeing on new kinds of sticks, we'll get you caught up on one thing you missed out on in the last month.
xoxo
Sugar and Baby
So here's the plan:
We are now officially at the start of our first 2 week wait. For every day until Bionic Baby Mama either starts bleeding or peeing on new kinds of sticks, we'll get you caught up on one thing you missed out on in the last month.
xoxo
Sugar and Baby
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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