Pop!

That was the sound of the nurse bursting my bubble yesterday, when she told me that it was unlikely for me to be pregnant if I was still testing negative on day 35 of my cycle.

She indulged me and suggested I come in for a blood test if I wanted to be sure.

“So if the blood test comes back negative, is there any chance I could still be pregnant?” I asked.

Nope, not so much.

If you know me at all, you know what I did next. Yup, I went for the blood test. I was pretty sure the results would be negative after talking to the nurse, so when the call came this morning confirming it, I wasn’t surprised. Still a little disappointed, but not surprised.

It’s not so much that I didn’t get pregnant – after all, it was really only our second month “trying” – but that I’ve somehow skipped a period for some other reason.

It could be due to stress, despite my newly achieved zen(-ish) state about the career-related goings-on that had me in quite the tizzy in recent weeks).

But more likely, it’s because I’ve now reached the “35 and over” period of my life where, apparently, I can skip ovulating for a month just because that’s what happens when you get older. (At least so says the all-knowing nurse. Ok, I’m being unnecessarily snippy – she was actually quite nice.)

So I’m generally OK with this, I guess, except for that it’s never, ever happened to me before and that kind of freaks me out (especially since I really have felt on-and-off nausea for the past week, including today, and don’t know why).

Also, I now have no idea when my next period will be or when I might be (hopefully) ovulating again so we can keep trying to get pregnant. I guess I’ll just work on the assumption that this is just a skipped cycle and my next one will pick up as though I didn’t miss one. I had just ordered some ovulation test strips online before I really thought I was pregnant anyway, so I guess I’ll trot those out starting next weekend and see what happens.

Again, fingers crossed …

I’m Back ….

… and I’m late.

Today is day 34 of my cycle. I was always a regular 28-day-cycle kind of gal until my most recent foray off the pill about 4 months ago. Since then, it’s been 29 or 30 days.

There have been only three other times I can recall when my period has been this late – the two times I went off the pill and had to wait a bit longer than normal for that first cycle, and when I got pregnant with Lexie.

But here’s the thing – despite obsessively taking pregnancy tests about every other day since Saturday (today is Thursday), I’ve yet to see a positive. Nor do I have the same symptoms (or rather, symptom) that I had that made me strongly suspect I was pregnant a few days before taking the p-test with Lexie – super duper sore breasts.

I’ve been peeing a lot (I always do). I’ve been getting really hungry (I always am). I’ve been feeling periods of light nausea on and off since the weekend (is it all in my head?).

To be clear, this would be a much-wanted pregnancy. We’ve only been officially trying for two months, so I would feel incredibly lucky to have it happen so quickly for us again. I know that’s not always the case for second pregnancies. And according to the experts (the Internet), it’s very common to actually be pregnant but not have a positive test at this point or even much later.

Of course, Andy – true to form – refuses to really engage on the subject until he sees solid proof. He honestly doesn’t understand why I need to obsess about it and fight off the urge to pee on a stick every hour.

Ah, men.

It’s just hard to forget when every single time I go to the bathroom (which is often, see above), I’m reminded that my period has yet to arrive.

When I’m out in social situations and need to decline the drink everyone else is having.

When I’m drinking my sizeable mug of morning coffee and stop, mid-sip, and think, “Hey, I should probably lay off the caffeine at just in case.”

When I’m starting to become so convinced I’m pregnant that this afternoon at my desk, I seriously thought I could actually feel my breasts starting to swell (seriously! it was like a lower-level version of that feeling when you’re nursing and the milk flows in, I swear) and actually checked my bra (which has become sadly loose in areas post-Lexie) to see if it was fitting more snugly. (Yes, I was in a bathroom stall when I did this. I haven’t completely lost it.)

I even sneaked a pregnancy test to work in my purse today and took it, convinced there was a flaw in the result from the one I took at 2:30 this morning. (Ok, I have good reason for this. I was going to do it first thing in the morning because they say that’s the best time, but I woke up at 2:30 and really, really had to go, and I figured it was better to just do it then instead of waiting until 6 a.m., because it wouldn’t be as concentrated since I’d just gone at 2:30. And yes, that’s way too much thinking for that time of night which is why I figured I just did it wrong.)

So that’s the current state of things in our household (and in my head). I’ve been meaning to get started writing here again and with this going on, it seemed like as good a time as any.

Until next time – fingers crossed