Not this time either.

I knew that I would regret letting myself go crazy with the baby stuff.
I woke up yesterday morning, needing an answer after dreaming of rocking babies to sleep all night. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that was confirmed by the test. Negative. Again.

At first, I felt ok. I steeled myself, looked at my face in the mirror, and tried to convince myself that I knew it all along. But as the hot water washed over me and I started to cry, I knew I hadn't fooled anyone. Least of all myself. This time felt like it for us. THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE TIME!!!! We had another high school football game to attend that afternoon, so after sharing the news with Mr. Joe, I got it together and off we went. The team lost horribly and just added to my mood.

For the rest of the day, I was pretty much a weepy, lame, mess. At one point I decided that I wanted ice cream from Friendly's down the road, so I left Mr. Joe home with one of his friends (the coach of the losing team) and drove off. Have I ever told you that I'm a car cryer? Well, I am. The minute I get in the car alone, if there is even something remotely upsetting to me, I will cry as I drive around like a total tool. Naturally, this day was no exception. I ended up taking 20 minutes to get my act together so I could order my ice cream, but I must not have done very well because the girl behind the counter (who I had previously fought with over what making a sundae with "extra" of something consists of) asked me if I wanted extra sprinkles or extra cherries. Then as she handed me my order she looked me square in the eye and told me she hoped my night would be better. I hadn't tricked anybody that I was normal.

It was at this point that I wished that I could invite all my bloggy friends to a pity party for me -with party hats and everything! Sadly, I didn't know any of your numbers so you all missed out. Bet you're sorry. Thankfully, I had one infertile to talk me down before I completely lost my mind. Mr. Joe's cousin is truly a godsend. I am so thankful for her. After our conversation, I decided that I needed to dust myself off and get back on the proverbial horse. I am working on letting go of the idea that any of this will be easy for us.

Today is CD1. We have two cycles of Clomid left. We're not giving up. If after these two cycles we're still babyless, then we will find a new RE and go from there. We're going to do everything we can think of to give us the best chance in these next two cycles. I just want to be sure that I've given it my all before we go down any new roads.

Thanks, friends for your encouragement over the last couple of weeks. I really appreciate your kind words and emails. It makes it a million times easier to do this knowing that we are not the only ones to face this. I wish I could invite you all over for dinner, but I can't cook. Unless you count rice and macaroni. If you're okay with that, then come on over.

Sorry this is so long. If you saw how long this post was and scrolled down to the bottom, here is a summary: I'm not pregnant, I cried a lot yesterday when I found out, I was huge baby about it for a day, now we're moving on to the next cycle. The end.

Soooooo is the 2ww ever a 3ww?

Its CD32 and so far . . . nothing has happened.

I have not seen a BFP. I have not seen anything remotely resembling AF.
Any guesses at what's going on? There's really only two options here, but what happens when you can't confirm either of those options?

I'm trying to wait patiently for one or the other to happen. I am not a patient person though. Every now and then, I feel a "knocking" in there, like my uterus is telling me it's getting ready to give me something - but no indications as to what that something will be. My hope is that it's a baby, but if we're being truthful with one another Internet, I just want to KNOW for Pete's sake!

CD? ?DPO . . . An Open Letter to Friends and Acquaintances

Dear Everyone I Know:

Please stop getting knocked up until I have successfully been knocked up first. I want to be happy and excited for you, but I am a cold hearted bitch and cannot fight my jealous feelings when I see your announcements. The resulting inner conflict leaves me barfy and sad at my general bitter state. I could try to stay off of facebook, but then I would become bored at work and coloring only entertains me for so long. To be frank, everything is about me, me, me, so stop being so selfish already and focus more on me. Love, Mrs. Joe

I don't know where I am in this cycle. Literally and figuratively.

Naturally, I did just what I said I wasn't going to do on Friday and I took a test when I got home from work. Of course, it was negative and of course, I threw a tantrum. I tried my best to get it together for the football game, and for the most part I succeeded. Given the results, I'm going to guess that I did not ovulate on CD15 and instead did a few days later and this is actually 9 or 10 DPO, which could still be too early for a BFP. I'm still holding out for it.

I hate feeling like a total bitch every time I see an announcement on fb or at work or some other place. The latest announcement is from a good friend from high school, and she wasn't flashy or obnoxious about it either. In fact, I had to stalk her page a little to confirm it. I wanted to be happy for her. For a moment, I was. Then, envy started creeping in and no matter how I tried to squash it, the feeling sorta took over. How is it possible that I can recognize the jealousy taking over, but I can't stop it??? Most of that open letter is a joke, but the internal war I fight with myself really does make me sick. This is not the person I want to be.

Still here!

I think this is 10DPO. I say I think because a few days after CD15, the day I thought I O'd, I had crazy feelings of something happening where I think my ovaries are. I don't know if it was ovulation pain or just general unhappiness with me that I grew them to the size of tennis balls, but my ovaries were unhappy. Or at the very least, uncomfortable. Mr. Joe and I were hanging around the living room, watching TV, and I started to second guess myself. What if I was wrong about CD15 and TODAY was the day?? WHAT IF I WAS DROPPING ALL THE EGGS IN MY BODY RIGHT NOW? I immediately stood up, sneezed, and then crumpled to the floor because I felt like my left ovary had exploded. Mr. Joe was all concerned with my well-being, but I wouldn't let him do anything about it because I was dead set on not missing this chance! We had to get it on.

****TMI AHEAD****
It was one of the most painful times ever. I just think my whole area had reached maximum capacity and Mr. Joe's "addition" was what threw me over the edge. I already looked a little pregnant by the time we were finished. Maybe that time had instant effects? Who knows?
****End of TMI****

That brings us to today. 10DPO if I O'd on CD15, 7 or 8 DPO if it happened when my organs almost exploded a few days later. I told myself all week I would test today, but then I chickened out and I'm going to try to hold on for as long as I can. I don't want to be disappointed tonight, because I'm going to a local high school football game where our friend is the head coach. This is his first game ever as a coach, and he's super nervous. I would hate to be all Debbie Downer on his special night, so I'm just not going to test.

I might not test ever. I have a serious fear of the fallout after a negative test. I hate being let down, and right now I'm content in pretending that this might be it and maybe right now there's a little life floating around in there.

A really, teeny, tiny one - because nothing else will fit.

Ahhhh I can't stop!!

I cannot stop looking at cute baby things! Look what I found on etsy:

So cute for Disney freak like me. I know I'm putting the cart miles before the horse. Rational Mrs. Joe knows she should not be playing into these fantasies. Crazy Mrs. Joe doesn't care what rational Mrs. Joe thinks.

In other news: Mr. Joe's grandmother just had surgery for a huge (non cancerous) tumor on her thyroid. The recovery has been rough. She should be going home today, but she is in a lot of pain. If you have a spare thought or prayer for her we would appreciate it.

2DPO

Today I'm starting to feel a little less hopeful. For fun, (read: because I am a loser) I decided to do some review of the steps it takes to conceive. I can't help but feel a little discouraged at how everything needs to be in the right place to be successful. How the hell do the Duggars do it?
On top of that I have the most hideous UTI of my life. I forced myself to drink cranberry juice to help with the symptoms and hopefully get rid of it all together. I decided this morning that cranberry juice tastes like vomit to me. This revelation caused actual vomit to come up a little.

Speaking of vomit, guess what the cat did just before I was about to leave for work? The force of barfing threw the cat backwards. Poor kitty. Poor Mrs. Joe.

Somebody call the waaaaaaaaaahmbulance.

Humming the Jeopardy tune

doo doo doo da da doo doo doo . . . So I'm 1DPO over here and so far this wait has been agonizing. It's going to be a long two weeks. I refuse to test early though. I'm going to let my crazy imagination run as far as it can go until my 2 week wait is up. No sense in stopping now.

In an effort to pass the time more quickly, I picked up The Hunger Games to read while I wait.

Unfortunately, it was very good and I read it in a day.

Anyone else read it? Stephenie Meyer (the author of the Twilight series) suggested it on her site once, and even though I think she's an "ehhh" writer, I decided I would give this one a try. I thought it was very good and now I'm searching for the next book. Hopefully I can find it today. I doubt it will take me long to finish reading this series though, so I really need to find something else to occupy my time. Any suggestions?

Also: Yay!! I have 20 even followers!! I love even numbers. I am a dork.

Crossing everything over here . . .

because if it doesn't happen this cycle, this is really going to hurt.

For some reason this time around, clomid has been a pain in my ass. Or more accurately, a pain in my abdomen. I feel like my ovaries are ginormous rocks taking over my lower half. There doesn't seem to be enough room to accompany all of my organs anymore. And the hot flashes - last time I wasn't sure if I was having them or if it was just really hot. This time around, there's no second guessing if it's a flash or not. I start sweating like a hooker in church, which is awkward because they have me training with a nice guy this week and I am constantly taking layers off. Then, after about 20 minutes of burning alive, I start to freeze and put all of my layers back on. After 20 minutes of that, I have to get up because I'm barfy. I go through this cycle of hot, cold, barf, about a million times throughout the day, so I'm sure my trainer thinks I'm crazy.

All of that is a constant reminder of why I'm "suffering" (not really suffering, but it's pretty annoying) and has me at a new level of make believe. About 24 hours of my day are spent daydreaming about how I will tell Mr. Joe he's going to be a father, how we will tell other people, what colors we'll use in the nursery, names, middle names, announcements . . . on and on. The logical side of me knows this is dangerous, but the clomid-ridden hormonal side of me can't stop. It doesn't help that Mr. Joe seems to have BOTB too, even though he has no idea what he's talking about. Yesterday, he asked me if I was "on my cycle yet". I'm still not sure what he was asking about. The other day, he referred to my period as "my thingy" LOL. At this point, I just tell him what nights to show up. Today is CD10, which means Tuesday is O-day, so it will be a very busy weekend :-)

God I hope this works.