no dice

first try is a wash. ah, well, i'm wondering if it was well-timed to begin with. earlier i mentioned that we would continue trying next month, but now i'm not so sure. there are so many decisions i need to make for myself right now, that bringing a wee one into the picture at this moment could only complicate. i have a hard time imagining starting a brand new career a month pregnant, only to announce it to my new boss two or three months in. i know that there are laws meant to protect pregnant employees, but i still feel like it would cause resentment and hurt my chances of moving up as quickly as i'd like to. i'm not sure... i just need to do some soul-searching and talking to mil...

am i pregnant?

there's a bulletin board over at babycenter with this title, and its the running theme in my subconscious. mil now says: you're pregnant! you're pregnant! and gesticulates toward my midsection on a regular basis. i try to remind him that just because we tried, doesn't mean we've succeeded. he only responds with: well, my guys know how to get the job done. ha! we shall see...

it's gotten really difficult to get anything done these days. i'm just eagerly awaiting saturday when i finally get to test (assuming i'm not interrupted by my .), and it's hard to think of anything else... not a good thing when you have your first job interview on thursday.

i tried to keep company with the banter on the babycenter boards, but within minutes i get dizzy from all of the sparkly, pink names and flower petals showing how far along they are in their pregnancies (or how far along they are in their cycles). i just wanted to hear someone say that sore boobs, a little nausea after eating, and a slightly icky taste in the mouth are proof positive that you are 100% pregnant. no dice, just a lot of (((((HUGS))))) and temperature readings which i have not done. i mean i'm stressed enough about this stuff -- i don't need daily temperature readings to add to my psychosis. i know these boards are not for me, but i'm not sure where else to look for proof that i'm not the only one with her head in her uterus.

19 days and counting

so we're 19 days into my cycle. we haven't officially stopped trying for the month, though there are many times we've looked at one another and said, "what the hell are we thinking?!?!" not only are we still trying for this cycle, we're still determined to try again should this cycle fail. nuts.. i say... we're completely nuts. do other people try to make babies when they're barely paying their bills and looking down the barrel of unemployment? i can't imagine that they do. anyway, i'm trying not to fall into my usual trap of thinking every little weird feeling is some sign that i'm pregnant because i've done that before and i wasn't pregnant and had very little reason to believe that i would be. now i have reason to believe that i would be, and i'm going to act as if i am just in case, but try not to believe that i am until i see two little blue lines... should they decide to appear. there. i've said it, now i just have to believe it.

caution has been thrown to the wind

or should i say the diaphragm has been thrown to the wind? the ttc has begun, and i'm a little scared. and a lot excited. who knows what will happen. last night was the first official "try," and i must say that there is something wild about doing the deed for a purpose other than pleasure. while still quite pleasureable, it's amazing to think that you could be creating a life at the same time. anyway, i thought i would keep my imaginary blog audience updated.

why july

i just realized this morning that the only reason we picked july to be our month to start trying was because our friends had said that they'd start trying then, too. thing is that they "accidentally" got pregnant a whole year earlier, so our reason seems a little lame at this point. in reality, august is more appropriate for us because we want the baby to come just before summer starts, so mil will have a whole summer to be a stay at home dad before starting med school. if we start in july, we might actually have the baby in march which is two months before summer break starts... doesn't make much sense. that said, we're still going to start in july because (a) i want to get started already, (b) yay sex!, and (c) since there's only like a 25% chance of getting pregnant in each cycle (assume we're both all well and good on the inside), we'll have a 75% change of getting prenant by september which means baby comes in may which is still cool by me. anyway, i just realized that we had a retarded reason for ttc-ing in july and thought i'd share it with the blog.

is it normal?

is it normal to keep going to babycenter.com and keep checking your ovulation dates months before you're going to start trying?
is it normal to look at baby stores online before you've even tossed the old diaphragm?
is it normal for your husband to start patting your stomach knowingly well before there's anything interesting going on in there?
is it normal to be jealous of your older sister-in-law who's almost 8 months pregnant? (i mean there's no way you're going to beat her to the punch at this point)
is it normal to visit babycenter.com routinely just to see if there's anything else you should be doing in the month before you start trying?

i think i know the answer to these thorny questions: nope.

one month and counting...

i can't get pregnancy off of my mind... every woman i see with a slightly protruding belly is pregnant in my mind. i wonder what they are thinking, what they're feeling, how far along they might be. are they older than me? younger? did they get pregnant after years of trying or accidentally?

waiting sucks. in approximately one month mil and i will get down to business. who knows what will happen, but we're trying to make sure we're well prepared. i've already started to decrease my caffiene intake (which also sucks) and made an appointment with the dentist. mil is getting used to the idea that he's gonna have to limit his alcohol intake for a few weeks, and i'm loading up on my folic acid. in the meantime, all i have is babycenter.com and my many parent blogs to keep me company. i'm noticing signs that mil is starting to get excited, too, but he keeps it pretty well hidden. i'm trying to figure out how this potential pregnancy will figure into my next job, but i also don't want to get ahead of myself. just because we have plans to try doesn't mean that we will succeed, and even if we do, there's no telling when.

i'm also not sure whether we should tell my folks before we start trying. mil is afraid that they'll try to talk us out of it since we're not exactly where we'd like to be financially, what with mil going to med school and all. on the other hand, we do spend a lot of time with them, and they are likely to notice if i no longer partake in wine with dinner. i feel like i am too old to be sneaking around on my parents like that... as an adult, i feel like i should be able to tell them about our plans without feeling like we have to defend our decision... anyway, we'll see if a good opportunity comes up.

getting excited

well, after all the fretting and freaking, i feel like we are finally getting down to the wire. one month to go before the free for all... one more month of "protection." i'm not sure how to feel. i can now talk to mil about getting pregnant without watching his blood pressure rise (dramatically). i can get excited about the prospect of increased frequency of procreation (sounds just thrilling put that way, doesn't it?). but it also means i can start freaking out about what we're going to do when (if) we have a child. i mean kids are expensive! where am i going to work? what kind of childcare can we afford? where will we live? so many questions??? then of course there's a whole hell of a lot of details that just aren't up to us, such as if we're fertile... and how long it will take before sperm meets egg... and whether they'll end up making a live, healthy baby... oh, yeah, and where we're gonna live.

honestly, though, these questions mean little to nothing when i think about the possibility of making a new life with my beloved mil... when i think of nurturing and growing our child inside of me... when i think of how lucky that child will be to have mil as a father (and hopefully me as a mother, but who knows about that one). really, the excitement is almost too much to bear, and i've got a whole month of letting it bottle up inside of me before we even start trying. half of me wants to throw that diaphragm out the window now and say, "good riddance!" then the other half reminds me that short term disability is only 6 weeks and that won't get me to mil's summer vacation. phlbbt!

phew... i think

well, this post is about a week late, but by sunday my life got so busy that posting on this seldom read, slightly-secret blog did not seem like a high priority.

so, the "phew" is i'm not pregnant. i didn't even have to take the test because by saturday night i began to notice the early traces of what was by sunday definitely not implantation bleeding. i went through a lot of emotions as my thoughts traveled from "i think i might be pregnant" to "i'm definitely not pregnant." fortunately, despite a bit of depression, none of these feelings were outright sadness. i was mostly glad because as i waited for my ., i realized just how bad the timing would be... i would be about 5 months pregnant when i went out to look for a job (generally, not a draw for future employers). assuming that i could even get a new job, i would only have about 3-4 months of working at full salary before the child comes... so not a lot of savings. additionally, my sister-in-law is 5 months pregnant with her first child, so how would i tell them without feeling like i'm a follower or trying to take some attention for myself. even worse, i would be the follower, so i likely wouldn't get as much ooh-ing and ahh-ing from my folks as i would ideally like (selfish, i know, but at least i'm self aware enough to admit it). so, all told, i was really not excited about the timing, and it really is a good thing that i am not pregnant... yet.

that leads me to some of the less pleasant parts of not being pregnant. the first is that i thought i was. and i know i'm not the first, but it sucks to be wrong. you think you know your body, and here it goes playing tricks on you. the second is that it made me start wondering if i could make babies. i know it's really premature, and i think i've read too many of the infertility blogs, but it seemed like the timing was right in terms of when my . started, so i don't know why we wouldn't have conceived. it's also not the first "close call" we've had. but, as mil wisely advises, it's not just a matter of timing... there are other things at work. i believe i read somewhere that even when the timing is perfect, there's only a 25% chance of conception. so, i should really just chill. and i will... until the next time this happens, of course.

symptom checklist

10. Tender, swollen breasts - check
9. Fatigue - check
8. Implantation bleeding - no
7. Nausea or vomiting - check
6. Increased sensitivity to odors - maybe
5. Food aversions - eh
4. Frequent urination - nothing new there
3. A missed period - waiting
2. Your basal body temperature stays high - huh?
1. The proof: A positive home pregnancy test - waiting on that too (mil is preaching patience... i figure i should give the old . a fighting chance first)

so, yeah, the bottom line is i might be pregnant, i might not. woo-hoo!

I heard that sharing your internal monologue on a blog is a sign of pregnancy.

internal monologue

i'm glad mil and i have this secret little blog of ours... if only for self-indulgent ramblings like this. about a week and a half ago, i began to notice a rumbling in my tummy that wouldn't go away. for a brief moment i thought about how mil and i have been less than religious about birth control in recent months and wondered to myself if this might be the early stirrings of pregnancy. i quickly pushed the thought out of my mind. this is far from the first time i've felt an oddly-placed twinge and imagined it the first quake of parenthood. as the week went by and the rumbling continued, i couldn't quite put the thought to rest. it kept springing back to life.

this week the slight queasiness is joined by an odd taste in my mouth... sort of like the lingering taste of morning breath combined with the slight metallic feeling of having just brushed your teeth. of course i've read enough blogs to know that odd tastes are part of the list of early symptoms of pregnancy, and i've read about the super-sense of smell that develops, and occasionally i'm sure i have that too. but then again, i've read so many of these websites, and as a psychology major, i know the awesome power of suggestion. i can't trust myself. as soon as i firmly believe that i am, in fact, pregnant, i start second-guessing myself. i am still getting cramps... my boobs don't hurt too badly. (but, then again, they usually hurt more at this point in my cycle.) coffee still tastes good. it's all in my mind... as surely as it has been the last five times i've felt this way.

anyway, i'm confused. i feel like i should know myself better than this. lately, whenever i say something like, "i've been really clumsy lately," mil has taken to responding, "i read somewhere that clumsiness is a sign that your pregnant." i've gotten that bad, people. only a day or two till i should get my ., so i guess i shouldn't have to wait too much longer to find out. then i can look forward to the same thing happening next month... yay!

Sometimes you feel like a nut...sometimes you don't

Hi, my name is Abe Froman.
You're Abe Froman?
Yep.
The sausage king of chicago?
That's me.

Well anyway....another day quickly fading away and I have a lot o crap to do. Exams and lab reports and MCAT studying....it's nuts I tell ya....NUTS.

gloomy sunday

i'm home. listening to billie holiday. knitting a bit here and there. picking up the paper every now and again. stealing bites of chocolate when i feel so moved... i can't quite pick myself up. i should be doing homework. i know. there is plenty of reading on my syllabus and papers due at the end of the week. but nothing is rousing me from my self-pity. i really just want to see mil. he has a way of making the mundane seem special. sitting around finishing up a paper or reading an article doesn't seem quite as dull when he's around. he'll distract me with kisses or cuddles as the mood strikes, or he'll just put some classical music on and read along with me. unfortunately, these days there isn't much time for those random moments of affection -- the mcat class, the study group, and other pre-med occupations pull him from me most of the weekend. so, i spend a lot of time with the bird. it's just not quite the same...

I used to work at a very large music store in times square. I worked there for about 3 years and it was pretty freaking cool. Basically got to listen to music all day and cell a bunch of crappy music to people who didn't know any better than buying an album at a store in times square. I recall very fondly the shirts that we were required to wear while "on duty". They were black, had the logos, and said STAFF on them in multiple places and yet people still came up to us and asked if we worked here. I was pretty sure that all of those people must have been freakin blind. One time I was sitting on the main floor organizing a section of understock when a very large guy with a scraggly bad 80's metal hair came over and said "hey do you work here" and I said "no, I'm just here on the floor for fun" (I must have been in a pretty bad mood) at which the gentleman replied something to the effect of "You don't talk to someone from brooklyn like that, I'll beat your ass you little SOB. Don't you f**k with me....yadda yadda yadda." Now anybody who knows me knows that I am a pretty skinny guy and there is no way in hell that I would have ever been able to take him, however, this store employed a great many large security guards who happened, very much, to love busting people and it did cross my mind (somewhat like Mike Newhouse's logic that before anything gets out of hand we would be pulled apart (obscure movie reference#1)) to throw at least one punch at this loser. "Loser" is loosely defined since my life at that particular moment had me on the dirty floor of a record store with no other goals in life and little or no possibility of any kind of advancement. So no I did not do anything I walked away with a red face as the gentleman was still talking crap about me and hid out in the stock room because this guy freaked me out. You can be sure that, despite my disdain for anyone else that came into the store who asked a question like this, I didn't make any smart ass remarks.

I once worked a 24 hour shift to prepare for a sale that was coming up. I don't think I have ever seen that many stickers in my life. The fun part was when we ran out of stickers that had a particular sale price on them and we had to grab a sharpie and roles of blank stickers and spend 20 minutes writing out the same damn number 1000 times.

Overall I had a good time there despite the lack of pay which I didn't fully realize until I started a new job where I got paid every week what I got paid every two weeks at this store.....man that was a cool cool feeling. A feeling I have recently come to miss. Money....damn you money...

Such is life. I am wondering what it was that Mr. Whittington said or did to make the vice-president shoot him. I would personally like to thank Mr. Cheney on behalf of comics everywhere for providing such rich humor for the next few weeks. QUoted from the NYT article by Elisabeth Bumiller and Ralph Blumenthal..."Everybody forgets, Dick is from Wyoming, said J. Robinson West, a longtime friend of Mr. Cheney who runs [guess what he runs!!!..yep] an energy consulting firm in Washington. "What do you do in Wyoming? You fish and you shoot."
so is this guy saying that becuase dick is from Wyoming he should be free and clear to just shoot people? Don't they also tie gay men up to fences in Wyoming?
So I get in my car and drive on highway 85, pull out a gun and start shooting at people and when I get pulled over and arrested I can simply claim that I am from Los Angeles and that's what we do there? The implications are pretty endless...anyone can now rape a girl and simply say that he is in the NFL and that's what they do. Yep I like to cross the line every now and again.....

Well anyway...that's it for now.....have a nice weekend ya'll

so...

clearly, this is taking off... :)

happy valentine's day

i thought it might be fun to try something new... two folks who are bad at posting regularly = one blog that's updated semi-regularly, right? sounds like it's worth a try... so here goes.