Then Comes the Baby in the Baby Carriage

From my walk yesterday - I tested again this morning - for sure a positive OPK!

Why?

What is going on . . . I wish I knew. My temps don't show any sign of ovulation and I'm already on day 20, super late! All my OPK's have been negative as well. It seems that this is the first time I won't ovulate, so weird. I haven't had EWCM or any other sign.

I think my body may be in shock with all of the recent (I thought gradual) changes I've made.  I'm sure the exercising is throwing it for a loop. With that in mind I don't think anything is happening this cycle. My previous attitude would have said that sucks!

Today I just feel fine with it. I figure my body is getting itself where it  needs to be I can handle  it . . . I think.

Staying positive has really helped. I was feeling slumpy yesterday after work. Instead of coming home and doing our regular routine and going for a run we decided to go to the zoo (we're members) and get our workout done there.

Best idea ever! The weather was perfect, and the animals made for some great scenery. Got three miles in and had tons of fun doing it. This morning woke up early after temping and took our dogs out to the beach for a nice long walk. They're nice and tired!

I have to say that I can't complain about anything. Sure it's a bummer that my cycle is not working for me this time but I still feel so good, which proves to me that what I've chosen to do was the right thing.  I'm glad because the last thing I wanted to feel was regret for not taking clomid.

I want to thank all of you for your comments and am so happy that my positiveness is spreading! Get out there and move people! My parents actually started going out to exercise together too and I'm so happy I was able to inspire them. This change is not only affecting me but the people around me too!

I was watching TV this morning and heard this quote, "You must give up the life you planned in order to live the life that is waiting for you." That hit me profoundly because I think I may have finally started to do that, and with this decision good things will come.

Welcome ICLW'S! This is my third month participating in ICLW, and each time I gain more and more friends to share this IF journey with. What I truly enjoy about ICLW is the feeling that we're not alone. I love meeting other bloggers out there going through the same thing. It's an incredible support system.

Reading about others and having others read my story really puts things into perspective. So comment away and drop a link to your blog so I can start following you on your journey!

A quick summary about me really US, and if you want the long story check out the tab above. I'm 27 and my hubby is 26, we've been married for almost four years and have been TTC# 1 for 17 months now.

After hitting the one year mark we did all of the testing. Everything came back normal, no reason why we shouldn't be getting pregnant. As you can imagine that was quite frustrating. My doctor wanted to try three cycles with clomid. My concern was that she was not going to monitor me.

I decided to not take clomid because I didn't want the side affects to become a cause for being infertile even if they are temporary. If she had decided to monitor me I would have felt differently.

In comes Dr. J, a licensed acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner. I had been seeing him for other ailments and had positive outcomes with each treatment. We had previously discussed my fertility issues and when discussed further I decided to seek treatment with him.

So I'm currently two months in to having acupuncture twice a month, taking herbs and vitamins daily, changed my diet and finally this month started incorporating daily exercise. My hubby is on the same regimen.

In the past few weeks we've noticed some positive changes. We both feel great! I told Dr. J I would give him six months of my 100%. I feel very positive about this and can't say I have ever felt better about myself and the decision I made. My focus is on living today and from there we will see what tomorrow brings.

I hope you stay and follow me on my journey. Before blogging I was quite lost in all of my emotions. This has been the perfect outlet for me to let out my frustrations, feelings and random thoughts. Without your support and comments this wouldn't be as beneficial, so I thank you for taking the time to read :-)

26 is the number of miles I've power walked/jogged in the last 16 days. This is definitely my record for most consistent exercising and eating the right way and I am damn proud.



I feel so good! As part of my Monday routine of strength training I weigh myself on my Wii Fit. Today I was two pounds down! That made me feel even better! Yesterday during my four mile power walk I decided to start jogging. I felt so empowered, I was listening to Beyonce felt I could take on the world and I also felt a little like Forrest Gump, I just felt like running!

I've realized that this refocus of being healthy has kept my mind busy and focused on something else rather than dwelling on my emotions of not having a baby. I'm so happy that the one thing that will make me healthier is keeping me sane as well.

Things are suddenly so well it's scary. My work life is great, although mostly a stressful environment I've been handling and feeling so good about it. My home life is just as good. My family continues with their drama but I'm doing a good job of separating their problems from my life and just listening. It's like suddenly the cosmos are aligned :-)

I had an acupuncture session this past Friday and Dr. J was quite pleased with my progress and said I deserved two gold stars! As childish as that is it excites me to know that I deserve two gold stars. My opk test line is getting progressively darker and I think I may ovulate today or tomorrow - right on time.

I have no complaints and nothing but positive vibes to through out there.

Lately I've picked up listening to music a bit more. I used to listen and fall asleep to music as a teenager but as I've gotten older it's appeal has faded. In the recent weeks I've been revisiting my old habits and just listening to music as much as possible. All kinds of music. I find it really relaxing. Something about the beats just sounds wonderful!

My Starbucks addiction remains in control and on Fridays only as planned. I really look forward to Fridays, but lately I really look forward to Mondays too! It's a fresh start to the week with open ended possibilities!

Did our monthly volunteer work on Saturday, Hubby and I were tasked with taking 50 bags of red onions and dividing them into smaller bags with 10 onions each. After four hours I had a workout and stunk like onions, I swear I was going to be dreaming onions! Anyway I met a really nice couple and a 17 year old boy. The couple was so nice to talk to and friendly, a great reminder that there are great people out there. The 17 year old turned out to be a smarty and on his way to his senior year in HS and he knew he either wanted to be an engineer or go premed. What!!! I sure didn't know at that age for sure what I wanted to do with my life. It was nice talking to someone ten years younger then me. They have their whole life ahead of them with so much opportunity (not that I don't but ten years is ten years). I'm sure you all remember being 17. In fact at 17 I remember thinking how great my life was. I was Editor-in-Chief of our yearbook, had been with my now hubby for a year, got my drivers license, got accepted to college and was ready to fly away into my future. God I wanted to grow up so fast.

I wish I could go back and visit myself at 17 and tell myself to slow down and enjoy being 17! I was always thinking about the future. I'm glad it ONLY took ten years to figure out I needed to start living today!

Here I am . . . 27 and no where close to the person I thought I would be at 27. I'm glad I'm not! I thought I would own a house by now have most of my kids and just overall have my s*&% together! I don't but in not being that person I've learned a lot about myself along the way.

I kept telling everyone today that 27 will be a good year! I hope it will be THE year! I'm sure most of you know how I feel. Most of the times on my birthday I can't help but feel a little down.  It's always a day down memory lane thinking of birthdays and years past. How time flies! I just can't believe how fast 27 years went by. Even though a lot have happened in my 27 years it feels like it all happened in a blink of an eye. That's scary. What are the next 27 years going to look like?

And right there you have my thinking pattern . . . past and future, never focused on the today. So this birthday I focus on today and the person I am today!

I feel pretty good. Over the past year I've made some positive changes. Just in the past several weeks I've made some drastic changes. I'm committed to the Traditional Chinese Medicine plan. I've been on track with the vitamins and herbs, getting acupuncture twice a month and eating better. What was missing the exercise. Today I am happy to report that I am nine days strong into exercising everyday. Nothing too vigorous. I power walk everyday and Mondays are my strength training day! So far so good, but they say it takes three weeks to make a habit so I'm almost halfway there!

I have to admit that I do feel so much better, lighter on my feet, sleeping better. I love it! It's all very empowering.

Work is starting to balance itself out and becoming manageable. On the home front things are flowing too.

So 26 goodbye! You taught me that life is a total of moments in time. I had some awful moments at 26, realization that life doesn't always give you what you want, and the fact that not everything can be controlled. I'm scared of letting go and putting faith into believing that someday, and maybe not soon, I will have my miracle.  I know this will happen for me someday. In the meantime I have to try and give this all I have without losing myself in the process.

So let the positive vibes flow ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~this will be MY year!

The end of last week was my low point for the month. After having such a positive month my hormones got the best of me. I had an acupuncture session after work on Friday and I was expecting to have a quick turnaround in attitude.

Usually during the session I end up falling asleep. This time no such luck, my mind was all over the place and I felt it was very reflective of my current state of mind. I went from looking and observing the staples in the ceiling that hold the bamboo in place to thinking about my family, the drama between my aunt and mom, my husband, my desperation of wanting a baby, work, and my friend's baby. I say my friends baby as in the one she never had and I went to the clinic with when she had the abortion.

I am pro choice but I am also pro life. Is that possible, many people feel you have to be one or the other. I'm not I respect that women should have the right to choose but I sure will do everything in my power to convince a friend for life and keeping a baby. This situation haunts me greatly. She didn't keep the baby and I felt it was for selfish reasons, but ultimately it was her decision. This happened five years ago. Five years ago I was still in college and although I knew I wanted children one day it's not something I thought about often. When this situation occurred I was astonished that my friend would chose to end her pregnancy. I was her friend and I was there to support her. It was the most awful experience of my life. I remember being in the clinic and seeing women who were already showing!!!! I never forget her due date either. It was September 28th. This September the baby would be turning five years old!

Point being . . . I was laying on that table during acupuncture thinking and praying to God to send me that baby that my friend didn't want but I did. I think of that baby often more so now. I just hope that one day it will be sent my way.

As I lay on the table I also knew that I had to move on from my pity party and get my head straight and back in the game. This emotional instability was killing me.

I left the session tired and cold. When I got home I just felt blah. Dr. J said tomorrow will be a new day and you can start over. My session went well, he's happy that DH and I are progressing so well with our diet and taking the herbs and vitamins. The only place I wasn't so committed to was the exercise yet.

This bugs me because I know I need to lose weight and it's almost like I chose to do nothing about it. This really bugs me about myself. I would definitely say this is my weakness. I have tried so many diets, eating plans and I fail miserably or I succeed (the most has been 35 pounds) but I self sabotage myself back to where I started.

So Friday I had all of this on my mind. My period is late but if I go by my EWCM and not my positive OPK I still had a few days to go. I was already getting the cramps, sore boobs, and back pain so I knew something was up.

Due to my dear friend the thermometer I am forced to wake up at 5:30 a.m. even on the weekends to get that temp so I stay as consistent as possible. I usually fall back to sleep immediately but this Saturday I was just laying there checking Facebook on my iphone, sending emails to people, texting my sister good luck on her SAT II. Okay hello . . . I thought to myself that I have never ever walked my three dogs so early in the morning and it would be neat to try it for once.

By now it was 6 a.m. and I woke and convinced the hubby to come walking with me (no way I was going alone, I'm too chicken to go out that early by myself). So he assumed we were doing our regular ten minute walk around the block, little did he know I had my atm card and we were walking the mile and a half to the grocery store to get groceries to make omelets for breakfast (I'm big on breakfast).

Forty five minutes and 2.6 miles later of speed walking we were back home. That was so refreshing and I loved it! I was full of energy and was going Rocky Balboa on my hubby and it wasn't even 8 a.m. Loving the feeling.

For sometime I have wanted to clean out my closets, donate some clothes shoes, organize, clean out my drawers and just get organized. Dr. J says de-cluttering your home helps get rid of bad energy and de-clutters your mind.

So . . . after breakfast I decide it's time to clean out my closets! !! I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS GETTING MYSELF INTO!

I started in my room and started with my closet. It felt great get everything out and getting rid of stuff. I realized not much fits me anymore. More motivation to exercise. I got rid of the clothes though because once I do lose weight I will buy new clothes! Went through the PJ drawers and all of my other drawers. Everything is nice and clean and I love it!

Yes this is a lot like what I experienced!

He made dinner that night and I was eating super fast - I was famished. He told me to slow down and THAT my friends is the straw that broke the camel's back. He pissed me off so much by telling me to slow down, I went into a fit and told him to let me eat how I wanted I was tired and in pain then wait for it . . . the tears started coming. I couldn't believe it myself as it was happening. I was crying about everything!!!!! Being tired, my body hurting, being pissed at my body for giving all of AF's signals and running to the bathroom to find nothing! I was upset that I had overstuffed all of our Ikea drawers so much that the bottom of the drawers were buckling (even though hubby told me many times to not stuff them anymore). I was crying because I found a post it from when I went to see the OB in 2008 with a list of five cycles (all pretty accurate) and I had written that I had stopped taking BCP on September 21, 2008! That was almost three years ago!! I had forgotten about this time period of trying. It was right before I started grad school. Once I started in January 2009 we had stopped trying.

I was almost this bad. I couldn't even talk while I was crying.

This got to me so much because I had not realized that three years have gone by with baby on my mind. Three years for my body to regulate and it still doesn't have its shit together!!!!!

I also was crying because finding all of my transcripts and admissions letter which felt like I received yesterday had happened almost ten years ago! Ten years! Where the heck has the time gone!!!

So as you can see I was a hot mess! My husband was like "Are you okay?" I couldn't stop crying! I guess I had to just let it all out. I didn't realize so much was bothering me and affecting me. The scary part it that I realized yes, your clutter is very symbolic of your life and not wanting to deal with the mess says something about your reality.

Cleaning out my closets meant so much more. It turned out to be an emotional cleanse. I'm proud to say that after two days of cleaning I'm done with the inside. I still have to hit up the garage (maybe next weekend). I have found yet again a new sense of calm and peace and refocus. I'm ready to move forward with developing an overall healthier lifestyles and leave my excuses of "I've had a hard day" behind.

I am an emotional eater as much as I don't like to admit that. I know I have a lot of issues to work through but I know I'm on my way. This weekend was a big sign for me. I'm obviously holding on to a lot more than I think I am.

So ladies I challenge you to clean out your closets! See what comes of it!

She finally showed today . . . moving on . . .

From my previous posts many of you know that I have found a new sort of calm. I've been doing great but I do have to say that my mixed results of OPK and EWCM have thrown me off a bit. I'm not the type to obsessively pee on a stick. I hate torturing myself that way, I hate seeing the negatives so I usually wait.

I tested on CD 30 (I'm usually 31 days). According to OPK that was 12dpo but according to EWCM it was 9dpo. If my opk was right the test should recognize the hormone but if my ewcm is on target 9 days is still kind of early but I would expect a faint line possibly?

NOTHING!

Why did I do this to myself! I know it's too early to come to a solid BFN but today is CD32 no AF and my temps are slowly creeping down, still above cover-line but not going up.

I haven't told the hubbs yet. I so look forward to the day that I can tell him we're pregnant so I always test in private. I feel bad keeping it from him but I don't his hope to go away until I know for sure. I may have to come clean tonight during our acupuncture visit.

Before I tested I was feeling so hopeful even though I had previously told myself not to expect anything this cycle. I drives me crazy how I do this to myself. I get so hopeful every month almost to the point where I feel I'm in denial that I have a problem all over again. I used to think that when AF showed my hope had started to fade little by little but it's not that. I've realized that every time she shows I get more and more fearful that we will never have a biological child. It scares me, it hurts me, and although my goal is to be a parent I have not reached the point of acceptance that I will never get to meet our children, the ones that are supposed to look like us and have our gestures.

It kills me inside to have such selfish feelings. I just want this so bad and I can't see myself not wanting it anymore. I try to trick myself into thinking that I don't care and that it won't matter in the end but I can't keep lying to myself.

We were at a BBQ this past weekend with two other couples that have kids. I don't think I have ever felt so left out. I notice that I start to shy away from kids, because talking to them and touching and caressing them only reminds me of what I don't have and what I so badly want.

I'm sorry to be such a downer toady, I need to let it out since I haven't shared with my hubby how I'm truly feeling. It probably doesn't help that my 27th birthday is lurking around the corner.

I'm looking forward to my acupuncture appointment today, hopefully all of my bad and downer energy can get extracted.

I don't know if I will test again soon. Since it appears my OPK was wrong and maybe my EWCM was I have three more days to wait to see if she comes.

:-(