P90X it is.

I started af on Tuesday. At work, of course, so I couldn't really afford to cry and carry on like I did last month.

I cried a little anyway. Ironically, as I gazed out the window in an effort to compose myself, one of summer's last bumble bees was buzzing around. I heard the distinct smack as it flew into the window pane. Then again. Then again. "That's silly," I thought to myself, "why would you keep flying into the same spot after being (painfully) rejected 3 times?" I half giggled, until I realized that the bee was not the only one hitting the same obstacle over and over again. We've flown into the window several more times than the bee, each time the feeling the sting a little deeper.

ahhhhhhh this sucks and I hate it.

So P90x it is for a little while. We leave for Disney in 113 days, so that gives me plenty of time to tone up and look svelte for the hot February sun. I will look the sexiest I have ever been. I will research the book I want to write. I will drink beer. Maybe I'll finally start piano lessons again or pick up a camera or something. We still have so much to do with the house. As I looked around last night, I saw all of the projects I've been putting off because I wanted to be pregnant. There were things I wanted to do before all of this began. Maybe this is my sign to do them.

I'm going to try not to be low and melancholy about it all. This month is a tough one for me, as I've said about a million times before. Part of me thinks I always knew that this month would not be it. I'm sad, but not broken. I just need a break from this. I need to find a new doctor, one who maybe monitors patients on clomid instead of just writing a script and wishing them luck. I need to settle into my new job and work out a new schedule. I need to let go of some of the grief I am carrying around. None of that can be very conducive to making a baby.

Mr. Joe is not really on board with my break idea, so I will continue to chart (sorta) and we will still have sex. Not that we wouldn't have sex anyway, I guess what I meant was that he'll be timing sex. I won't because I will be too busy enjoying all of the new hobbies I will be taking on. And Tony Horton!! I'll be enjoying my boyfriend Tony Horton again.

I know I can't just turn off the baby brain I have. It will be there until I'm holding a baby (one that belongs to me, not just any old baby) in my arms. I'm pretty sure that once I beef up my fat hammy arms, I'll be able to push it to the back of my mind at least.

So. Be prepared for non-ttc dribble and other nonsense. Or be prepared to ignore me for a few weeks or months.

Just please tell me we'll still be friends and you won't all board the baby train and ride off into the sunset without me.

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.

Pictures - sorta

Remember when I said I would post a pictures with my weight? Well . . . I still haven't taken the pictures yet! Truth be told, you can't see whole huge difference yet. The p90x boards all say that the biggest change came around day 60, and I'm just on day 36 today. You can see a difference in my arms, in that there is now a muscle where there used to be hamminess. It's hard to take a picture of my arms and whatnot in the mirror, and so I will have to enlist Mr. Joe to help. He's been hanging out at his part time job the last couple of nights though so we haven't been able to schedule a photo shoot :-) . . . I know - excuses, excuses. I swear it's coming though. I promised, so all two of you that are interested, fear not. You will see my meaty (not as hammy) arms soon enough. In the meantime, here is a picture of my new haircut:

It's a dark picture, but you kinda get the idea. My hair is shorter. I really think the headset makes the look complete, don't you? And here's picture of my brand spankin' new bracelet that came in the mail yesterday from my bloggy friend Mrs. S:

It's a handmade IF common thread bracelet. The idea started here, and Mrs. S wrote about it here. I love the idea of having a secret sign to let other infertiles know that we are in the same boat. My bracelet came with a really sweet card, which I think made Mr. Joe jealous because he was really interested in where the card came from, and why I was getting a card in the mail. I told him it was because I am cheating on him with my bloggy friends. Anytime I say the word "blog" he rolls his eyes at me. If he only knew of the headache writing this blog and reading your blogs saves him, I'm sure you would all get cards in the mail too. I really appreciate the support and friendships I have found through writing here and I would like to pay it forward as well, so if anyone is interested in a bracelet from me, shoot me an email and I'll send one out to you. I know many of the 4 people that read my blog are not infertile, so if you shoot me an email, I'll send you some cookies or something. Maybe we should make a bracelet for fertiles that lets infertiles know that they promise not to tell them to relax or ask when they will start having babies! What do you think? Talk it out.

Also: Today is CD1! AF made her very own appearance after just 45 days, which is an improvement over 99 days before I had the hysteroscopy. . . I will consider this progress!

Hopefully, I've successfully distracted you from the fact that I am lame and have not (yet) followed through on my promise. Soon!

CD1

You know what happens when AF is missing for 99 days?

You forget to carry the necessary items for dealing with her. While you're at work.

To be honest, when I started spotting yesterday, I thought it was my ute playing tricks on me. I had "spotted" once or twice over the last 99 days or so, but nothing else would be there the next time I took a trip to the bathroom, so I assumed (and what does assuming do kids?) that it would be the same this time as well. Oh my, was I wrong.

It started when I arrived home to an empty house last night. Mr. Joe was working his second job at Marshall's (pronounced Mar- SHALL's as in "SHALL we dance?" Makes it sound fancy), and I was by myself and super hungry. I made a box of Rice-a-Roni and ate it. The whole thing. Immediately feeling horrified with myself for being so gluttonous, I ate some BBQ chips.

I know that makes no sense, I was RAVENOUS and crazy. It made sense in my fat kid head.

After my pig-out, I decided to watch Joannie Rochette's short program skate from the other night. Do you know who I'm talking about? She's the Canadian figure skater whose mother died suddenly on Sunday. I began to sob before she even started to skate. I had to stop this madness! To get out of this funk, I decided against the episode of 16 and Pregnant I had saved and watched Mantracker instead. Mantracker is a sort or game show where this guy, "The Mantracker", hunts down a team of two people each week. The team has to make it a couple of miles through the Canadian wilderness to a finish line in two days. It's a little lame, but Mr. Joe and I like it. In this particular episode, a brother and sister team had to make it through some stupid mountain range or something. I was UGLY CRYING at that point.

Let me catch you up on somethings at this point: My oldest brother passed away on 10/31/2009. He had cancer, and was 46 years old. I haven't really said much about it here because it is still way too raw to discuss. One day I will share more about him, but for now I just need you to know this one thing. . .

We never planned to go backpacking through the woods while some crazy Canadian man (on a horse!) chased after us. NOT ONCE did we ever discuss it. For some reason though, I was BESIDE MYSELF with sadness over the fact that we could never be on Mantracker together. In the middle of my ugly cry, I got a text message from Mr. Joe asking if I was hungry and if I wanted him to stop for food on the way home. I confessed that I didn't need any more food that night since I consumed a whole box of garlic and chicken flavored rice all by my lonesome, and asked if maybe he could bring me home some Diet Coke. I managed to calm myself down enough to look somewhat collected when he came home, but when he was without my diet coke, I started all over again.

You would think after all of that, I would have figured out that I was actually going to bleed. Poor Mr. Joe! He had no idea what the hell happened to me.

The question I have now is - what should I do? The fact that I have finally started my period on my own makes me wonder what the next step should be. Do you think I should chart and see if I O on my own this time? Or should I chart and take clomid (against Dr. H's orders)? Should I still go to my RE appointment on Wednesday? Personally, I think that I should at least have one cycle charted before I go to an RE. Don't they expect that of you anyway? What would you do?
AND ALSO: Is there anyone lurking out there that could maybe follow me so I can have an even 10 followers?

I may or may not have had Fritos for breakfast.

Happy Monday (said with super sarcasm)!!
I've reached a new low. Last night (or actually this morning when I should have been awake), I had a marvelous dream. It was the kind of dream where you go about your morning routine and you think you're awake, but you're actually oversleeping and your husband is going to be reeeally surprised when you wake him up late. I dreamt (dreamed?) that I woke up and got in the shower and then this heavenly light enveloped me and I started my period! I was so excited! I would start Clomid and not have to take the progesterone! I rushed out of the shower and stepped outside to go to the drug store . . .and I was naked. Then I realized it was a dream and I woke up to find myself running 30 minutes late. Oops!
What kind of sick freak dreams of getting her period and is all happy about it? Answer: this sick freak.
In Fatty news: I maybe ate some Fritos today for breakfast. I couldn't help it. I couldn't eat another piece of toast with PB on it!! Mr. Joe and I have an exciting evening of grocery shopping planned for tonight, so I will be buying oatmeal. I've officially plateaued and have not lost or gained since last week. I suppose its good that I haven't gained any weight, and people are noticing that I'm losing, but now I have to start some form of activity to make it to my final goal of . . .I don't know. Blair asked up this week what we're measuring our final goal as, and I realized that I never actually set a goal weight or size. I've been a size 8 for forever, and don't really feel the need to go down a size. My scale says my goal weight should be 144, but I'm not really sure where it came up with that number. I met Mr. Joe at 135-ish I think, but that was when I was playing rugby and had hours of physical activity a day. I think I will shoot for 140.
To answer Blair's question about if something tastes better then skinny feels, I say ABSOLUTELY. Cake, cookie dough, and beer taste good enough that I would carry an extra 5 lbs of cookie/cake/beer weight around. Life isn't just about being thin. Sometimes, you need a little a cake and beer to liven it up.
That or some breakfast Fritos.
I think I will look into rock climbing as a way to trick myself into exercising this week. I want to try Zumba too. Anything that resembles running on a treadmill or lifting weights just doesn't appeal to me and I can't stick with it. That's my goal for this week - to find something active to do so I can get off of this plateau!
Hope everyone (hey 3 followers!) has a great week!