11 DPO...Still Hopeful!

Good morning! LONG POST FOLLOWS!

I went to bed last night wildly un-hopeful and woke up this morning wildly hopeful. Ugh. I hate swings like that.

I had a *little* spotting last night. It was mixed with my CM, and so the combo of the yellowish CM and the reddish spotting made the most interesting shade. It was only mixed into just a little bit, but it was noticeable. And then...no more. Had another ton of yellow CM this morning...no other shades mixed in. My CP seemed low last night, but then high again this morning. I had some dull cramps on my left side last night, but...nothing this morning.

Implantation spotting?? I'm hopeful! Last night I wasn't...I was sure I'd wake up this morning with the world's earliest AF. I usually spot a day before AF anyways, but I woke up this morning with NO feeling like AF was here - no dryness, no cramping, no bad attitude...hmm.

So of course I blew another CBEFM test stick this morning. SOMEONE TAKE THESE AWAY FROM ME. I have 19 left now and I swear I'LL PEE ON 'EM ALL! Left line is still as dark as it was...right line darker than yesterday but not dark, KWIM?

Let's see...still have sore BBs and I'd swear to God that they're bigger. I'm a small girl - and, in fact, I had breast surgery almost five years ago now to have lumps removed and since then am really, really small - they took out a whole bunch of tissue besides just the lumps, which took away a few cup sizes and made me lopsided by about half a cup. So for me to feel like there's a size change is quite weird.

But my bra was tight yesterday! It's usually tighter on one side than the other because of the lopsidedness anyways, but yesterday even more so.

But ok, I have to ask myself if this is "real" symptoms or if perhaps the progesterone cream is playing into this at all. I have to do some more reading up on that...but I have heard that some side affects can mimic early pregnancy signs, so I don't want to totally delude myself here.

I'm a little freaked by my temperatures and FF. I'm thinking I just ought to have thrown out the dang thermometer when I got my CBEFM. I mean, my early DPO temps are just wrong - I was sick as a dog for six straight days with some kind of flu or something (isn't it fun to pay docs and have them GUESS what it might be?) and so DPO3-5 are just plain guessed temps. The actual temps were 1 degree higher - high 99s - and I subtracted one degree for sickness to enter on my chart. Maybe I should have just disregarded those days entirely, or subtracted two degrees. I may play around with that today. The other thing that worries me about temping is that with outside temps swinging so wildly here in Texas over the past two weeks, I have alternately woken up in a house that was hot as hell and a house that should have be sprouting icicles...I try to set the heat before going to bed to take into account what the overnight temp is going to be (we have old, drafty windows, so leaving one temp set just doesn't do it...that's on the MUST REPLACE SOON list) but I'm wrong 50% of the time. And so I know that waking up in a room where the temp is overly hot or cold affects my BBT. So argh.

I'm trying to compare this to when I was pregnant a year ago, but I'm having a heck of a hard time. Last year, I wasn't charting, I really didn't know diddly squat about fertility signs or checking them, and for all things TTC, we were just winging it. In addition, in between when I must have conceived and when I actually found out I was pregnant, I was out of town for work, then I was back in town but FD was gone for work for ten days, we were only weeks away from closing on our house so I was working my freelancing job hardcore to make a few extra bucks to be able to afford some new furniture we wanted, and my full-time job was crazy as anything. So what I'm saying here is that I wasn't really paying attention to myself. Which is why I let minor spotting delude me into thinking it was a period and didn't even TEST until a week after AF was due that time around.

Hahahahahahaha. If you asked me to wait to test until a week after AF is due this coming week, I think I would shoot you. Boy, how times and perspectives change.

Speaking of changing perspectives, can I tell ya'll that I can't believe that I'm blogging about internal bodily functions, how my bra fits, and all sorts of things like that, that I would never dream of bringing up in conversation with my closest girlfriends? Give me a little anonymity and I guess I'll confess anything, eh?

But since I do plan to go ahead and share this blog out when/if I do have baby news to share, I'm wondering if I should go back and make strategic changes...but then I think, nah! All of my IRL friends who read my other blogs know me well enough that if they're put off by any of this...well...tough. :-)

Alrighty...so anyhow comparing this cycle to last springs pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. Ok...I do NOT remember my BBs feeling bigger last spring. That detail, I think I would have remembered. That time around, I only spotted right around when AF should have been due, not almost a week before. I really feel like my LP length has elongated, even as I've been charting. Don't know why - I haven't taken any meds other than baby aspirin, Mucinex and progesterone cream - but I really think it has.

As for my former tummy twinges, no idea if I had them last year. If I did, I probably would have written it off as nerves at the time, since there was so dang much going on at the time with preparing to become homeowners and moving and working my tail off and such. The CM is the thing that gives me pause for thought. You know, before I miscarried last spring and got so entrenched in studying everything and anything on the web and iVillage about TTC, I thought that all discharge was bad discharge and must be a sign of infection or illness or something. I really believed that! And to add to that, I don't ever remember having much in the way of CM, although I know I must have. But I DEFINITELY don't remember yellow-tinged CM - I think I probably would have been on the horn to the doctor had I seen that, asking to be tested for a yeast infection or something.

So I don't know. I do know that looking back on the cycles I've charted since September, the earliest I had spotting was on CD26. And for every cycle before this one, FF pinpointed my O at either CD 16, 17 or 18, based on temps. But this cycle the monitor and FF pinpointed at CD 12 and now spotting on CD 22. Hence my belief that there's been a shift. But who knows?

I need to shut up now, I think. I'm way overthinking this. I'm either pregnant right now or I'm not. And right now, there's not a damn thing I can do about it either way.

CD23. 11 DPO. AF due in about 5 days - my cycles vary by a day on almost a cyclical basis, so she could come either Wednesday or possibly Thursday.

I am going to ask FD to hide my CBEFM test sticks so I am not tempted over the weekend. I have a huge certification test for my profession on Sunday morning so I HAVE TO study all day tomorrow and don't need to be distracted by wanting to pee every five seconds on any stick wider than a toothpick.

I think that I'll go buy an actually HPT for myself on Sunday AFTER my cert test (wish me luck, please - it's for my PHR - Professional Human Resources) as a reward and then wait to use it on Monday. I figure that my chances of an accurate result should be pretty good at 14 DPO, even though AF is still a couple days away.

And if it's a BFN? Well, my back-up plan is to FORCE myself by whatever means necessary wait until Friday - the day after the latter day AF could be due and 18 DPO - before testing again, if she doesn't show.

Argh, argh, argh. This waiting crap sucks!!!!! :-)

Hugs,

~FM~