on the cusp of initiation

so i realize that i never really responded to my own post of a couple weeks ago. katie's comment was enough to push me over the edge -- i'm planning to toss the cbe monitor, the opks, and the bbt thermometer in the recycle bin and take a break from official baby-making for a few months. old af should be on her way any minute now. her arrival will mark the end of 12-months of ttc, and despite the ineptitude of this month's attempt, i think that that makes me officially infertile. i feel like there should be a chocolate martini party to mark this occasion. for all the crap i've been through for the past year and for all the crap that is still to come -- there should be a little interlude of merry-making to mark this rather grim proclamation. no? heaven knows, nature does quite the hazing -- we should at least be able to throw on the togas and fill-up the beer bong once in a while to relieve the stress. (for full-disclosure, i must admit that i haven't been to a toga party since my 14th birthday and i have not once used a beer bong... i think that makes me long overdue.)

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time to change that banner

though it feels more like halloween out there now than it did last week, i think it's time to bring out a more romantic, wintery banner, don't you think. maybe it will perk up my spirits just a bit.

i'll admit it... last week sucked. #1, i think mil and i completely missed my ovulation this month... thanks to #2 which was that mil had a pretty horrendous exam that kept him at the library overnight and he still thought he failed (which means summer school). and #3 well, you know #3 from my last post. when i went to houston, my mom looked so thin and tired. she barely moved all weekend -- even when my adorable niece came over to visit. fortunately, things have turned around a bit this week. on monday, my mom had a fluid infusion which gave her some energy, and the doctors thought of another medication that might get her stomach pumping again, so as of yet, she hasn't had to get a feeding tube. though we're not out of the woods, we're still in a much better place than we were last week. other good news was that mil passed his exam, so he still has a shot of avoiding summer school! yay!

ok... now that i've posted... here comes the new banner.

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ugh

so. i don't really know where to begin. i feel empty right now. deflated... depressed... i talked to my parents this morning, and it sounds like my mom is going to have to get a feeding tube. her stomach hasn't started working again on its own, and she isn't getting enough nutrients right now to sustain her. her doctor is worried. the feeding tube should make her feel better though... it's just that it's more surgery (albeit small surgery) and a constant reminder that she has cancer. she'll still be able to eat what she can, but the feeding tube will supplement her diet. i imagine its something she can do at home... i don't know if it will affect her ability to travel... for some reason it seems like it would. fortunately, i just booked a ticket to houston for tomorrow, and i had already bought a ticket for two weeks from now, so i should be able to spend time with her.

on top of all this mil is in an exam right now... he's been in this exam since 10am this morning, and he doesn't even know about my mom. the one person i can really lean on. it's been a tough day... and i have barely gotten up off the couch.

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stuck

so, you know how i said that i would call the r.e.'s office "tomorrow" to get a consultation? well, i didn't. i still haven't. i looked him up online, and the reviews were not glowing. they weren't horrible... he was considered competent but with limited bedside manner and a disorganized office which is apparrntly constantly running behind. well, that's pretty much any doctor's office in nyc (i think i waited 2 hours to see my ob-gyn once for an annual exam). hearing these somewhat negative reviews did leave me a little cold. unfortunately, none of the recommended doctors were on my insurance plan.

i ended up spending the day with my mom tuesday. she wasn't feeling too well, and my dad had to go off for meetings, so i made sure she ate regularly and took her out for a short walk. with all that time on my hands, i ended up mentioning that we are considering seeing a doctor for infertility. she was surprised... she knew that we had been trying for a while with little success, but i don't think she ever considered that we might be infertile. i asked her if she had had any trouble conceiving, and she said she didn't... she wondered if, perhaps, we might be having problems because of stress... mine, given my her illness, and mil's, given the stress of applying to and starting medical school. obviously, that's possible. i've wondered it myself quite a few times. i should interject -- my mom has a bit of a "granola" streak... though in appearance she blends in well with the well-heeled suburban moms, she has always preached the ills of artificial flavors and colors... too much sugar... and unnecessary medication. i sometimes wonder if she would even have chosen to take chemo if it hadn't been for her brother who died trying to defeat pancreatic cancer with non-traditional treatments. so, that said, you can get some sense of how she might feel about treating infertility with hormones and surgery. i knew this going into it... but i wanted my mom on my side... emotionally, and possibly financially. i told her that at this point we would just go in for diagnostic procedures... to find out what is wrong with one or both of us. i was smart enough to mention that we might consider acupuncture treatment, but that we wouldn't even know which one of us needed the treatment if we didn't do some diagnostic procedures first (in all honesty, i don't know if this was being smart... or just the apple not falling too far from the tree). she agreed... and then brought up the story of some relatives who tried "all sorts of treatments for months" and "it was such an emotional rollercoaster that it was hurting their marriage" so they stopped and then a few months later conceived a son on their own. i knew this story and figured it would come up since it was the only experience my mother has really had with this sort of thing, but it still threw me for a loop... i thought about the stress... and the fact that mil has been home for a total of about 10 waking hours this week. and i became stuck.

i'm still stuck. something is holding me back from calling that doctor. part of me is ready to get this show on the road... if it ain't working the old-fashioned way, then let's get it working some other way. another part of me wants to give the old-fashioned way more of a chance. and i don't know if it's because a) i don't have the emotional energy right now to deal with the ups and downs of treatment, b) i don't want to burden mil with the time commitment of treatments (as minimal as it is for the man) and the potential rollercoaster of emotions that i might be going through in his first year of med school, or c) i'm just too much of my mother's daughter...

if we don't go to the r.e. now, i'm thinking i might just toss all the gadgets and test sticks out the window (not literally, thank you, nypd) and try my best to forget about trying to get pg for a while. i know i'm not getting any younger, but if we wait until next summer, mil's schedule might be a little better for a few months, and maybe things will be calmer in other areas of life, too. of course, mil is part of all this, and given that he's been home so infrequently, we haven't really had a chance to have a conversation about this. he seems to be of the "get-the-show-on-the-road" variety, but then again, he doesn't have any time to go to the r.e... unless somebody's office is open on weekends... haha!

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so long, month 11

like clockwork. cd 27 brings cramps... cd 28 light spotting... and cd 29 = cd 1. yay. fortunately, i'm not surprised. i just no longer believe that we're going to get pregnant without some medical help. what's sad is that i've somehow managed to lose mil's s.a. referral. (there's probably something freudian in all of this.) i called my ob-gyn's office to find out if there are any other labs that my doctor works with that accept our insurance, but they didn't seem to know (and couldn't even find the original referral). instead the woman gave me the names of some r.e. clinics that they work with... hmm... i'm very tempted to just call these clinics and start there with someone who specializes in i.f. but i'm not sure if i should wait the 1 extra month for i.f. to be official. i'm tired of waiting. in my heart, i know something is wrong, and i want to know what it is, so we can do something about it. i feel like every month we wait to do something, is a month we could have had a real shot at making a baby.

anyway... i'm going to discuss with mil and see what he thinks. seems like it might be a waste to start with the ob-gyn, just to be transferred to an r.e. a month or two later (and likely repeat some of the same tests). and it doesn't hurt that the r.e.'s office is literally down the block from my apartment... you ladies have had the best advice so far... any tips on making sure you've found a good r.e.?

lucky

lately, i've been feeling a little sorry for myself... sorry that i don't have the perfect job... sorry that i have to work so hard just to get pregnant (and i know i haven't seen the half of it!)... sorry that my husband studies so much... and most sorry that my mom has cancer.

then sometimes, i read a blog or two or talk to a friend who recently lost her mother, and i realize how lucky i am. no matter what happens next week, next month, or several years from now, right now i have my mom. i can call her when i feel like it. i can spend the day reading a book with her while she naps on the couch. i can convince her to go out for an afternoon walk with me when she'd rather keep napping. i can tell her about my friends who are engaged to losers or talk to her about what a pain it is not to be able to get pregnant when i want to... i can give her a hug and get one in return. how can i not be happy? how can i let myself get down about a future that may or may not be?

temp(t)ing

i've ovulated! woo-hoo! i'm in that happy phase of thinking that i might be pg just because i ovulated. makes sense, right? ok, maybe not. i guess i was just worried for a couple of days there and good news is good news, right? now i'm not sure whether to take myself up on stopping the temping thing till old af comes (or doesn't... please don't). it's just that it's nice to have something to do while you're braving the tww... something that feels like you're still trying. but then again, it's nice not to have anything to remind you that you're in the tww, and every dip or peak can mean something (or, most likely, can mean nothing at all). (can you tell i like parentheticals? and ellipses? i do. this is how i think, too. no sentences, no clear trains of thought... just jumbles of parentheses and ellipses.)

has anyone else tried ditching the thermometer for the tww? is it just an exercise in futility to think that you can ignore the tww? it was easy when i was in germany and didn't have the thermometer handy, but i had a lot of other distractions... like, i was in germany!

oh, and i have a question for the more experienced ttc-ers out there... i finally called the s.a. lab to ask if they take our insurance (i'm slow... i know), and they don't, so even though our insurance covers it in-network, we'd have to pay the full $250 since these folks are out of network (and we haven't touched our deductible yet). if necessary, we can afford to part with the $250 (i know that's nothing compared to the services that will likely come later). anyway, the woman said that other larger labs probably take our insurance, but usually they are not as good as the smaller labs... i don't know what this means exactly. would it be a waste of mil's precious time to go to a big lab to have them potentially do a poor analysis that would later have to be done by a better, smaller place anyway? is there a big difference in analysis quality between labs?

the other annoying thing about this lab is that they only to s.a. on thursday mornings. so we'd basically be waiting for mil to have a free thursday morning before they could do the test anyway... thoughts?

meandering

one of the blogs i read pretty regularly recently announced that they have become pregnant with their second child. when i first saw the announcement, my heart sank. i know how selfish that sounds. i was also truly happy for them. just from reading their blog, i know that they are warm, smart, caring parents... just the type any child would be lucky to have. but... i also knew that i would be reading pregnancy posts for the next several months. posts that, while insightful and entertaining, would only remind me how empty my womb currently is. i hate that reminder... whatever form it comes in. and yet i can't hide from pregnancy. i want to find a way to make peace with this journey i've found myself on. i believe that life is in the living, and we can't live for the future... my mom's cancer is a constant reminder of that. i think this means i have to put some time and effort into myself, right now, who and where i am at this moment. mostly that means i need to figure out what to do with my career... i need to be doing something i love, not something that just pays some of the bills.

little things*

nagging things. like my mom not feeling well yesterday... after a month and half off of chemo. could be she just ate something funny (she did have half of her digestive tract rearranged less than a year ago)... or it could be something more foreboding.

or like my job. it's not too bad, but it's also not too good. i don't feel like i have the energy or inclination to work hard at something new, but i'm also bored beyond tears with what i'm doing now. i know i'm on the wrong track, but i don't know what the right track is. so far the townhouse development i'm supposed to be helping with has maintained the breathless pace of molasses.

oh, and then there's the apartment search... remember how we were going to move to brooklyn? yeah... so far, we've looked at a lot of places. but buying? buying doesn't seem to be happening. so every weekend i either go out to look at open houses or i feel guilty that i haven't... either way the result seems to be the same.

yeah... and everyone seems to be pregnant today. something about beautiful weather and the upper west side seems to attract the uber-fertile and their bugaboos. i also made the mistake of meeting a friend at le pain quotidien... that place is like the fertile woman's sorority house. i think i saw 3 pregnant ladies and 2 newborns in the brief hour we were there.

*i had actually planned to post this on my other blog, but i just couldn't get myself to hit "publish post" without including the part about being peeved about all of the preggos in this city. and i'm just not ready to have all my friends ask me about the baby-making business.

es geht mir nicht so gut

yup. another period. at least there wasn't much of a rollercoaster this time... mostly because i was on vacation with my family and therefore didn't have the time to think about (or anyone to talk to about with) the dreaded tww. also because my niece had a bit of a fever at the beginning of our trip, so i lent my bbt to them... which i have yet to get back. it's bad enough that they flaunt their fertility in front of me, now they're hijacking my baby-makin' thermometer... kidding, kidding. it has actually brought me one good thing. i think from now on, i might just dump the thermometer after i've confirmed ovulation. nothing good seems to come from keeping track.

so now we head into month 11. even though i'm not technically infertile yet, i feel like i'm as good as there. we've definitely timed our dancing pretty well at least half of those months. of course, as my darling mil states, being infertile doesn't mean that we definitely won't get pg naturally... it just means that it's gonna be dang hard (and dang long)... if it happens at all. i still need to find a way to gently nudge him to make an appointment for semen analysis. he's super busy, and i know he doesn't really want to think about this stuff, but i'd like to start figuring out what the heck is wrong... so maybe we can do something about it. i'm really not fond of the jealous wannabemom i've become. i have started glaring at the bulging bellies of the pregnant ladies in my building, and even being with my niece is a little painful. super fun, but, you know, it still hurts... being the aunt and not the mom. i think i might even be avoiding one of my good friends because she's pregnant with her second. i was so much more excited for her the first time around... long before we began our own attempts at parenthood. i want to be that way again. i've always been so happy with my life... and i am. i just don't know how to deal with all of these ugly feelings.

middle ages

thank you for all of the great thoughts/suggestions regarding next steps. i seem to be in that hazy place between fertility and "infertility." (is it just me or does the term "infertility" just totally suck? from the various message boards i've read, many -- perhaps even the majority -- of technically "infertile" women go on to produce biological offspring, so aren't they really fertile...? maybe i'm splitting hairs here, but wouldn't reproductively-challenged -- we could call it r.c. for short -- be more appropriate?) anyway, i'm trudging through month 10 at this point and while, heck, i could get pregnant this month... i'm just having a hard time believing it will ever happen to me... at least without some medical assistance (or way more patience than i really have).

i'm going to see if i can convince mil to get the old s.a. (fun, fun). but if what you say is true, i think he will survive. i even found out that my insurance provider covers it so long as the clinic is part of their group, so my money-pinching can no longer be used as an excuse. and once that appointment is made, i'll check-in with my o.b. about doing my first round of blood tests. i don't know if there's a specific time in my cycle that i'm supposed to go, but i guess i'll call and find out.

i haven't been good about posting lately, but after i get back from germany -- oh, yes, didn't i tell you...? i'm heading off to germany with my family (sans studying mil) for a week. should be fun! anyway, after all that, i'm going to try to get back into the blogging groove.

cbefm

i've learned what this means... clear blue easy fertility monitor. that's what i'm using. it's sort of like a video game with hormones! yay! your goal is to ovulate! but in order to do so, you must have plenty of estrogen and plenty of luteinizing hormone. and in order to win the game you also have to have a lot of sex! let's hope his boys are healthy, mobile, and plentiful! 'cause if they're not, "game over" and you have to start from scratch next month.

so far, i've made it past my "peak"... i think. see, i've had times where my luteinizing hormone stays elevated for daayyss. i don't know what that means, but it makes me wonder if my brilliantly expensive cbefm knows what it's doing. i sure hope so since mil and i have been bd'ing like jackrabbits. i haven't had a real temp spike though, so who knows...

i'm also trying to visualize a fertile uterus (and fertile ovaries, fallopian tubes, and eggies). i figure you can't put too many "eggs" in one basket. next month i might take to lighting candles and chanting to the goddess.

in terms of introducing western medicine into our bedroom, i've still got cold feet. i'm hesitant to ask mil to run off to some clinic to shoot his wad before med school class. he's so busy and so stressed, i don't want to add to it... it's bad enough that i'm begging him for bd every time i see him. i'm also cheap and semen analysis is kind of pricy -- though nothing compared to all the other stuff i will have to do. i've yet to call our health insurance company to find out what if anything they cover for various fertility-related tests. i'm afraid it will shock me into another year of trying the natural way.

anyone been this way before? advice would be wonderful...

rollercoaster

well, don't let anyone tell you that this trying to conceive thing ain't a wild ride... i'm sure even if you get pregnant your first month of trying it's a wild ride. not that i'd know what that was like. it's a very different ride when your in month 9 (or 10 depending on how you count it) of ttc. every month seems like a very hot, crowded trip to the amusement park with an onion and chili hot dog thrown in just to keep things interesting. and i'm sure the veterans of infertility probably look at my own journey (thus far) and laugh at my innocence. so far i just have my own hormones to contend with... no shots or pills to make the stomach-lurching drops that much more exciting.

this month was no exception. of course the first two weeks are just like the long-line to the newest, fastest, baddest rollercoaster in the park. it's hot, it's long, you never expected to be surrounded by so many pimply-faced teenagers... (ok, maybe not that last part). there's the anticipation... the excitement... the fear that it may not be all it's stacked up to be... or that you'll flake out at the last minute. ultimately, no one goes to the amusement park for the line. they go for the ride. and just like the coaster, the first drop is always the best. except on this coaster, you get to have a lot of sex... and i mean, a lot. at first it's fun... the bumps, the twirls, the highs, the sighs..., but by the third or fourth baby-making session of the week, you're really ready for the ride to end. of course the temperature spike means the fun has only begun. every day your nerves start to fray a little further... (a friend reports she's just gotten pregnant with her second... and she wasn't even trying!) more than a week into it, your going to sleep early just so you can wake up and take your temperature. mysterious symptoms seem to emerge. tingling in your breasts, a nauseous, hungry feeling pursuing you all day, not to mention how you think you're smelling things you've never smelled before. a few days later your temperature takes a nosedive. (i didn't even see that drop coming!) you admit defeat. the ride must be over... and i was just starting to enjoy it. but wait, tomorrow your temperature's higher. and higher still the next day. what's this? my period's late? (oh, my, i never knew the ride went so high! i can see the ocean from here!) click... click... oh, sh*t! it's another drop! i think i lost that nasty hot dog i was eating before... and next thing you know you're back on line again.

i've seen this before...

the inevitable slippery slope of basal body temperatures. only two days ago, my heart skipped a beat when i saw 98.41 on my bbt. that was the highest it had ever been. i knew not to get my hopes up, but up they were nonetheless. i started envisioning when i'd tell my friends... how i'd tell my parents... whenever i did, i would remind myself that a high temp at 10 days past ovulation says nothing about what your temp will be at day 14.

when my temp dipped to 97.92 yesterday, i knew i was on a precipice... it could go back up from there or back down toward period-land temps. i chilled out a little, started realizing that life still probably has a few tricks up its sleeve. sure enough today it was 97.72... a good .7 drop from two days before. i've since ordered my ultra-expensive fertility monitor.... see i've still got a few tricks up my sleeve, too.

waiting

i've discovered something that makes the two week wait seem like a cakewalk... waiting to hear back about my mom's test results. i've been on edge since 11am this morning, and i can feel my heart beating out of my chest. i don't know how i'm supposed to work. my mom is having blood tests and pet scans done to see whether her chemo is still effectively eating away at her tumors. the results will either allow us a brief sigh of relief or will make us worry all the more. it doesn't help that this is happening during the two week wait -- it feels like it must be the slowest 4.5 hours of my life... ok, maybe second to the time spent waiting while my mom was in surgery, but that was 7.5 hours. i really hope they call soon. i don't know how much more of this my heart can take.

why does it have to hurt so bad

ugh... i know what i'm supposed to feel, but it doesn't seem to help. i just found out that my sister-in-law is pregnant again. i know i should be happy for them, but instead i'm just pissed. i shouldn't be pissed at them -- they didn't know that we've been trying for almost 9 months -- and it's not their fault that they're uber-fertile. it just seems so un-freaking-fair! and, yes, i know life's not fair, and i don't know why this just seems so personal, but it is. it feels like mother nature is slapping me in my face... look, your tall, thin, blonde, sorority sister-in-law can get pregnant while she's breast-feeding, and you can't even turn a line blue with all the gadgets and gizmos babycenter has to offer. i feel like i've taken care of myself my whole life -- i rarely smoked, had very few partners (like i can count 'em on one hand), i've been active and eaten well my entire life... and this is what i have to show for it... 9 months without so much as a missed period.

i know i need to get over this... jealousy doesn't make me feel any better about my chronic failure to conceive. i just have to remember that it ain't all about me... and other people's successes don't have any impact on whether i fail or succeed. and i plan to succeed... and darn it, my success will be cuter (or at least smarter) than theirs... (i'm not petty... no.)

ok, thanks for the vent. mil is off at school today, so i don't have my usual shoulder to cry on... and izzy's shoulder just isn't that big.

the blogger wastelands...

for some reason blogging has been just about the last thing on my mind this summer. getting pregnant has also seemed to take a back seat though it seems to have a more of a backseat driver kind of attitude... nagging me every time i see a pregnant woman walk down the street or get a visit from my niece. we're still trying, and i've not yet reached that ethereal line between fertile and infertile... though i'm getting closer. and i can feel it. i'm trying not to let it get me down. i've called my ob-gyn, and she said that i can start doing the tests, but she still thinks it's likely that i'll get pregnant on my own. for some reason -- even though she had nothing to base that statement on -- it made me feel a little better. i think i'll push the tests off for another month or so... if only because they're expensive, and i'm kind of cheap.

one of the good things that's been occupying my mind is that mil got into medical school (like, the m.d. kind -- yay!). and not only does that mean he's going to be able to write prescriptions in four years, but it also means that i have to figure out where the heck we're going to live. fortunately, the school is in brooklyn, so i don't have to roam too far. but i do have to get my act together and find something before september.

kellie, thanks for the good wishes! i definitely need them. i'm thinking of you ladies as well... it's strange to miss people you only knew online, but we went through a lot of ups and downs together... i'm still trying to find my way to an "up"!

seeing red

yup... my trusty 28-cycle seems to be back... if i were still on my old month-to-month way of thinking, i would be crying failure about now, but i'm not. in fact, i feel blessed that i only had about two days of even being mildly hopeful for this cycle. between the travel, the lack of a/c in our condo, and my wacky temps, it was hard to really "try" this month.

on the other hand, i am beginning to think that my turn toward medication may come sooner than i had initially planned. if we time our dancing well this month, and i still don't see those two blue lines, i think i will call my doctor to see if i can talk to her about clomid. i think there might be something off with my ovulation... but i also know that this has been the most stressful year of my life, so it's possible that my body just wants to wait until the stress is over. if that's the case... it might be a long wait.

anyway, it's been a rough week. my mom's been in and out of the hospital with side effects from her chemo. as difficult as it has been, it makes us very grateful for all the time that she has felt so well so far. we are also trying to figure out how we can make sure that she continues to feel well in the future.

for all my bc friends, i still think of you often. it still takes some resolve not to go check the board to see how everyone's doing... i hope everyone is doing well! maybe i'll stop by for a visit when things slow down around here.

we're back...

whether we like it or not... no, it's good to be home. well, it was good to be home. we were home for about 60 hours before we flew down to houston. we came down for my birthday festivities since this is where all of my family now resides. we're planning a big, tasty mexican dinner for tonight which should be fun. and i get to see my lmsp niece, so that's always a treat!

hawaii was a blast... we managed not to burn too badly, and we saw a lot of ocean life in our short stay... fish, turtles, dolphins, and even an octopus. if you're ever going to kauai, be sure to check out ke'e beach and the kalalau trail. the trail is actually 11 miles each way, and you need a camping permit to go beyond the first two miles, but i would think it's worth it. we only did the first 2 miles, and the views were unmatched... simply gorgeous. also, if you're going to stay a full week (and you need at least that to fully enjoy the island), rent a condo instead of a hotel. it's much less expensive and some condos (like ours) have better views and beaches than the fancy hotels. anyway, enough advice... here are the photos.

in ttc news, i'm not anywhere exciting. i don't even know if i've ovulated this month (though my temp times range from 4:50 am to 10:15am -- this morning -- and traversed 6 time zones). i'm not too disheartened... i don't know why... i just feel like things are going to happen the way that they are meant to happen. i've decided that i'm willing to try meds if necessary, but nothing beyond that. international adoption is a wonderful (if expensive) option if my body fails to make a baby on its own. in the meantime, i'm taking it one day at a time... life is too precious to spend worrying about what will happen next.

itchy

so, in preparation for hawai'i, i went to the local "spa" -- a glorified nail salon -- to get a bikini wax... well, i've learned my lesson. the little woman who spoke about two words of english ("oh, so sorry") filleted my nether regions in a room a little larger than my closet. she didn't bother to put on rubber gloves or sterilize the shears with which she unceremoniously hacked at my little lawn (and a little skin underneath -- ouch!) i'm still recovering... and let me tell you, it's an itchy recovery. i'm not sure what type of "soothing" ointment she put on afterwards, but i'm pretty sure it was not hypoallergenic... hyperallergenic perhaps. eek. fortunately, mil bought me a large bottle of aloe vera gel, so i should be in baby-making shape by the time my ovulation rolls around. in the meantime, i caution all you ladies out there, when you get your bush whacked, make sure it is done by a licensed aesthetician.