General chatter while we wait (and commentary on the "pull out method")

[shaescott]

Lol nevermind, cervix has dropped, it was high this morning. But whatever, like I said, I’m sure it doesn’t know if I’m pregnant yet.

 

[shaescott]

Aaand now my cervix is up again so it’s just doing whatever the heck it wants. However! My fertility monitor just confirmed my progesterone rise, so I have definitely ovulated! It takes 3 days for my progesterone to rise enough for confirmation normally, so I likely ovulated exactly when you’d expect by my OPK. My estrogen is still sky high which may explain the high cervix and the fact that I’m still occasionally getting EWCM mixed with sticky/creamy.

 

[shaescott]

This morning I am on and off quite nauseous. Breakfast was okay until the smoked salmon and it just tasted a little odd to me and my body was like nah (DH also had the same smoked salmon, it wasn’t bad or anything). Then of course I realized I’m not supposed to eat it if pregnant anyway. After that I tried to take my morning pills and after my prenatal DHA pills I was so nauseous I couldn’t take the main prenatal pill. I’ll have to switch back to gummies when I get home. I leaned over my suitcase to grab something and nearly retched. Yikes. Normally my estrogen drops after ovulation by quite a bit, so I do wonder if the high estrogen plus rising progesterone is causing the nausea this early. Though progesterone alone can cause nausea. We’ll see. I can’t help but remember that my mom said she started getting nauseous with me at 3dpo. I know science says it’s not possible but fertility science is young and still developing so I’m not totally convinced lol.

ETA: Just checked Amazon for “ships to Italy” and they don’t seem to have weeks estimators. Oh well.

 

[DobbyForever]

Bummer about the CBWE. But yeah there’s always beta. Glad O is confirmed! What’s on the itinerary for your last day? Or last two days if you fly out late tomorrow.

I think symptom spotting is like horoscopes. Lol. It’s fun but the confirmation bias is real because it’s so generic: ignorable when you’re not but feeds into a science when you are. It is fun to notice patterns though so I definitely suggest logging any symptoms on cycles you TTC or have viable timing. I did log bloat, increased sex drive, and tender breasts at 3dpo for my last bfp. Notes quite a lot with A at 3dpo as well. Too lazy to keep going back, including bloat and nausea. But usually I’m not convinced by symptoms until 5/6dpo. FXed! Also don’t worry about the pregnancy can’t do’s. Everything is still fair game for the next week or so. A little smoked salmon at 3dpo or even a final few toasts of wine to cheers your trip is fine.

 

[shaescott]

Dobs yeah I can’t trust any symptoms lol. I will still obsess over them, even though I shouldn’t I’ve decided to try to reduce the risk of vvvfl squinting (I’m tired of these squinters) by buying a 6 pack of FRER digital tests, and I’ll just take those, because a yes or no is easier lol. Might mean I don’t get a BFP as early if I do get one, but that’s okay. If I get a positive digital, then I’ll do a regular test to see the line progression. I also will try to not test at all until 10dpo because that’s a total waste of a digital test lol.

Re: itinerary, we started our morning up in the Alps of Italy near the Austrian border and ended back in Rome due to our flight tomorrow. We spent 3 nights in the Alps (specifically in Dobbiaco, in South Tyrol), and DH did an amazing job of driving a manual Fiat 500, he’d only gotten to practice driving manual like 3-4 times with a friend before we went. Our flight is at 10:30 AM, so we don’t get to do anything tomorrow unfortunately. We’re definitely sad that it’s over, especially the part in the Alps, but we’re also looking forward to being back on our nice mattress.

 

[shaescott]

Back in Boston

 

[DobbyForever]

Awww how does it feel to be home as newlyweds?!

And idk my frer gold digitals gave me prettt early bfps. As soon as I had a vfl, it said yes. I think once I had a sand day bets come back as like <10 and I had a yes lol. The urine test at the doc came back negative FXed! All of my bfps with 8/9dpo even on digitals to be a bad influence lol

 

[shaescott]

Dobs we’re at DH’s parents’ house because we left our cars there, so not back to the apartment yet. We probably will spend the night here because we’re so tired.
And that’s good to hear about the FRER digitals, I’m glad they’re really sensitive. I was worried I wouldn’t get a thing until like 2 days after I’d get a BFP on a regular FRER. We will see.

 

[DobbyForever]

Nah my experience is once you get a line on frer you will on the gold digital. Just not their Bluetooth digital. That’s definitely not sensitive. DK if fmu would have said yes but yeah same day digi on a short hold

 

[shaescott]

Okay cool, I didn’t get the Bluetooth version so all good. Amazon had a 2 versions of the FRER digi, one of which was the gold (which was more expensive and less available), the other version said it was new packaging of the gold, so I think they stopped making the gold packaging and whatever is still being sold is leftover stock of that packaging.

Those tests definitely give me hope for a reasonably early BFP! Fingers crossed. I’ll be 9dpo on July 5th so I think I’ll take my first test that day, but I also have to remember I might not be an early implanter, so a negative at 9dpo isn’t necessarily the end.

 

[DobbyForever]

Oooo interesting I wonder if the new ones suck s* like new frer lmfao. Oh btw the blue strip was my negative cb digital. I can’t recall if it was a regular cb or early detection cb. That’s exciting! I vote test the 4th though because I have had bfps at 8dpo BUT it could also be the last drinking holiday before a bfp soooo it’s like do you wanna know or not know so you can live hard it’d definitely be early though. I kinda think maybe cuz I’m little my tubes are little lol so I implant early

 

[shaescott]

Dobs I read that heavy drinking can prevent implantation so I’m just not going to drink anymore, so it doesn’t matter if I know on July 4th or not, I get to be the designated driver lol. Maybe I’ll relent on 8dpo, idk. I feel like it’s not really worth it, my previous super faint lines have been 11-12dpo. But maybe just for science I’ll do it lol. I also have a box of wondfos so I can always use that on 8dpo.
My sister said she had a dream that I was wrong and wasn’t pregnant, which is rude lmao. Still waiting on my mom, no feelings yet.

 

[DobbyForever]

Lmfao boo on your sister’s negativity. You’ve got a great shot with the timing. I’m sure there’s science, but I’ve always been pro live your best life during TWW. Esp with drinking. Cuz otherwise my family and friends wouldn’t exist But I’m glad it’ll work out for you to be DD

AFM nothing new. So sad camp is over. My auntie with cancer fell and is having amnesia. Doctors are pushing hospice again as she’s not really lucid and in so much pain she’s on a morphine drip. Cancer is in her liver now as well. She only eats because my cousin forces her. She refused hospice. It’s sad because she wanted assisted way out like five years ago. Now it won’t be an option since she’s not really there mentally.

 

[shaescott]

Dobs sorry to hear about your aunt did your cousin refuse hospice or your aunt? If the cousin, that really sucks. Drives me nuts when they want us to keep someone alive who is clearly suffering and not going to get better. She deserves pain meds and rest without being poked and prodded.

Yeah I really hope her dream was purely a result of her brain remembering the conversation and making up a story about it, and not anything prophetic. My mom has no inklings yet, but she says her “psyche” is very preoccupied with my sister’s upcoming surgery on Wednesday and work, so she doesn’t think her lack of inkling means anything negative. Not really having any symptoms today (I’m just jet lagged pretty bad). My contract was supposed to start Monday but they scheduled me for tomorrow night so I’m going to have to stay up super late tonight. I might take a nap for an hour or two and then go back to bed in the morning if I really can’t stay awake because I’m exhausted.

 

[Kiwiberry]

Hello Kiwi. FX that your TWW is successful.

shae - Glad to hear you're having such a good time in Italy, minus the few minor annoyances. Every time I read what you've written about your experiences, it just makes me think of Jersey Shore season 4 when they went to Italy. lol. Sorry that your cycle and DH aren't plying ball when it comes to getting pg on your trip. But I remember back when you guys were talking about rings and waiting for him to propose. Now, here you are, married. I'm sure the babies will come soon.

Dobby - It may be time to cut your losses with RS. Like you said, having serious talks already isn't great and it seems like he's not quite ready for a proper commitment atm. Just my opinion. You're too mature and busy to be dealing with all that.
How's your leg been recently?

AFM, more crappy news. My back license plate got stolen on Monday night/Tuesday morning. In my province, you need a plate on the front and back of your car. The front one was still there, but the back was gone. Had to drag Matthew and Zoey to a local cop shop to file a report cuz you can't do it online or over the phone for stolen license plates. Then had to wait at our "DMV" to get a set of plates just to make my car road-worthy. And just as I'm paying for the plates, Matthew pees his pants (even though I took him to the bathroom before we lined up). All this before 1pm. Then, on Wednesday, I get contacted by the cops staying they found the plate. It was on a vehicle that was also stolen, so the person (dunno if it was a guy or girl) was arrested and charged. That's all the info that I have. I may email the arresting officer to see if they'll give me any more details.
But anyway, Alex has 5 more days of school and Matthew has 4 more days of daycare and then summer break begins for us.

That's rough. My week has been crazy, heck not even week just the month......... So sorry you had to deal with that but glad it's all sorted now.

@shaescott Fingers crossed so tight for you! I can't remember, did you and your hubby TTC on your honeymoon or was there an "accident" hehe? I know you mentioned he didn't want kids rn, so it's just me being nosey . By the way, be careful of those digital tests. They do say they're sensitive but from my experience they can be a bit dodgy sometimes on their results when trying to take them early.

@DobbyForever Oh wow I didn't even know you'd be testing right now!! I am so excited for you, those are such good lines for 9 dpo.

AFM: So a lot has happened lately. Finally managed to kick my ex out of the house to go live with his mom. I was fed up of the abuse after 5 years, I only held on so long because he had this way of guilt tripping me that I was ruining my kids lives if I left. I finally made the big change and ended it all in November of last year, it just took till June to get rid of him. I met the love of my life in December, it was totally unexpected and def not planned. I wasn't going to jump into any new relationship for a long time, till I met him.

So he's an AV tech (level 4) and recently left his company to transfer to another company that his Dad's friend is getting him into. The old one was salary and of course that company took advantage of that. So in the middle of him transferring to a new company his car breaks down because the guy who had "repaired" it, gave him bad parts and he paid over $1700 to have his car completely repaired and fixed up. Only for the axel to basically almost fall out and the break caliber broke in the middle of the freaking road. Of course the guy doesn't want to pay for the repairs, and we'll probably end up having to take him to court. I was so heated after that happened and scared. My kids were in the car, anything could have happened. I can't believe there are ppl out there who would send a vehicle out on the road like that especially to a random family. God only knows what could have happened if my fiance wasn't a good driver.

Anyway, now his car is in the shop for 2 weeks, the old repair shop is dodging the responsibility. This means that he can't go back to work with that new company till his car is fixed. So now, he's getting a temporary job at some local store and biking there everyday so we can save up the damn $2,000 we need to fix the car. Should only take a couple weeks but still. I am upset not only at what happened but now my OH has to work a low end barely worth it job just so he can go back to his real job........

Some good news? I got a BFP on 13 DPO!!!!!!!! The 1st test is a blank from a few days ago, the 2nd is the + I got, and the 3rd is a very faint positive I took 2 hours later after a long walk in the heal and barely any urine to test with. I am excited to test again in the morning but nervous as well. I'm worried this will turn into nothing again.

AF is due Monday, as expected the upload washed it out good. So it looks faint but is obvious in person lol.

 

[DobbyForever]

oh no hopefully it’s a minor surgery and goes smoothly with an easy recovery. Wow about the job pushing up a couple days. Sorry it means a late night

Lol my bad. My cousin is my auntie’s medical proxie. My auntie wanted assisted you know what before it was legalized in Cali. She found a facility in Oregon that would take her. She invited us all over to show us a video and convince us to let her go. My cousin said no. My cousin has refused hospice twice in the last year. My auntie will say it hurts to eat or she’s not hungry, but my cousin guilts her into eating. It’s hard because once she dies, my uncle will retire in Thailand. So she’ll lose both her parents.

kiwi lol you’re sweet but please keep all pregnant vibes always from me at at Shae. As far as I’m concerned, my shop is closed. Those were from my last pregnancy.

congrats on the bfp! I definitely see that line on the middle test but it looks a little off to me.. do you have one from when it was in the 5-10m window? Hopefully you get a nice strong line tom to ease your mind.

 

[Kiwiberry]

oh no hopefully it’s a minor surgery and goes smoothly with an easy recovery. Wow about the job pushing up a couple days. Sorry it means a late night

Lol my bad. My cousin is my auntie’s medical proxie. My auntie wanted assisted you know what before it was legalized in Cali. She found a facility in Oregon that would take her. She invited us all over to show us a video and convince us to let her go. My cousin said no. My cousin has refused hospice twice in the last year. My auntie will say it hurts to eat or she’s not hungry, but my cousin guilts her into eating. It’s hard because once she dies, my uncle will retire in Thailand. So she’ll lose both her parents.

kiwi lol you’re sweet but please keep all pregnant vibes always from me at at Shae. As far as I’m concerned, my shop is closed. Those were from my last pregnancy.

congrats on the bfp! I definitely see that line on the middle test but it looks a little off to me.. do you have one from when it was in the 5-10m window? Hopefully you get a nice strong line tom to ease your mind.

What do you mean?? I'm sorry I don't understand what you meant. Oh and sorry about the tests, thought they were new.

As for the test, it looked exactly the same just wet looking. The dye ran darker on the bottom for some reason, I think it's cuz of how I had to dip it, when it ran through it was diagonal (the urine moving through the test)

 

[DobbyForever]

My cousin makes all of my auntie’s medical decision because she’s not mentally or physically fit to. My auntie wanted assisted end of life options (sorry trying to be sensitive so I was using euphemisms) years ago.

it’s all good. I miss the anxiety of poas lol and I love OA but hard pass on any babies rn/possibly ever at this point

Well it’s just exactly that. It’s not fully formed and it’s color/your post indicates it’s not in the timeframe. I don’t want to be negative, but I’ve had a lot of bad luck with Wondfo the past year with pink evaps and false lines. I have had a few where the the urine passes realllllyyyy slowly or in an abnormal way. My bad luck wasn’t 100% from that but anytime I looked at my test and thought the urine was running oddly then I always had weird lines. Hopefully you’ve got better luck than me and tomorrow gives a beautiful test. Do you know how long your lp is?

 

[shaescott]

Kiwi I would agree that the dark piece of line at the bottom is a little concerning, I’ve never had a test be that dark in one section and so light in the rest even with the dye running unevenly, doesn’t mean it’s not real but I think the test itself is wonky and therefore can’t be trusted, so I think you should take another test with FMU. Maybe dip two tests in the AM in case one comes out wonky? All that said, I really really hope it’s real and that you are pregnant!

That’s great to hear that you kicked out your ex, good for you! Sorry about the car/money troubles

We were not TTC, I ovulated much earlier than usual so my normal safe days were not accurate. My FAM app gives me CD1-10 as safe days because I normally ovulate around CD18-20. The earliest I ever ovulated before this was CD16. This time I ovulated on CD12, and we had sex on CD10.

Dobs my sister is having open abdominal surgery because she has an artery compressing her renal vein causing abdominal pain (turns out she’s had this for years, it’s finally an answer to her pain!). For some reason the condition is called a “nutcracker”. It’s a very rare condition but luckily they found a vascular surgeon who has done surgeries to correct that condition 10 times! She had an exploratory procedure last week where they went through a vein in her groin/inner thigh under local anesthesia only and inflated the compressed vein with a balloon to see if it would cause pain, because if it did, it would mean that the condition was causing her pain, and if it didn’t hurt, it would mean the surgery wouldn’t fix the pain at all. Lo and behold, it caused severe pain, and it felt exactly like the abdominal pain she’s been having for years! She is very relieved to have finally found an answer and that her surgery on Wednesday will finally fix the pain. The only reason they found the issue was that her cardiologist tested her for genetic disorders related to aortic aneurysms and she came back positive, so they did a full body MRA looking for aneurysms and it showed up on the scan. Anyway. She’ll be in the hospital for 3-4 days most likely after the surgery. She decided to defer her first semester of college to spring to deal with all these issues (and she hasn’t quite finished her online coursework for senior year anyway, she had to do online schooling to accommodate all her issues like her POTS and her chronic pain). I’m hoping that this decrease in pain will make it easier for her to thrive with her education.

AFM it’s currently 4 am and I am awake because I’m trying to prep for night shift tonight. I ended up going to bed at like 10 and setting alarms for 2 am, I didn’t actually get up until 3 am though lol. I was too exhausted to not sleep. But honestly I’m still quite tired now. I may try to sleep another 2-3 hours and then nap for a few hours in the middle of the day. Once I’m on the night shift schedule it’ll be easier, but starting is super hard. I’m jet lagged from the time zone difference of coming back from Italy, which makes it worse. I actually just ordered a light therapy lamp so when I’m staying up until 3-5 am, the lamp can tell my body that it’s day time at night, and I can slowly bring down the brightness to simulate the sun setting, and I have blackout curtains for sleeping during the day. I do feel like I need a valance box though because light comes through the top of the curtains behind the rod. But I have a sleep mask, so that helps.

Slowly opening wedding gifts since I need something to do at 4 am. We got an antique style candelabra and it’s HUGE, I was NOT expecting it to be almost 2 feet tall, I thought it would be 1 foot at most. Serves me right for not checking the dimensions lol. It looks nice though, I’ll have to find massive taper candles to go in it lol.
Photo from the registry of what it looks like:

We also got a Le Creuset kettle which is great because our current kettle is rusting on the inside, which probably isn’t safe lol. We have a Le Creuset casserole dish but it’s too small to comfortably fit an entree into, it’s only 2.5 quarts, I’d been overflowing it, and someone got us the bigger 4 quart version, which is a big relief lol. The smaller one really needs to be reserved for appetizers, like baked dips.

I guess since it’s 4 am it’s 6dpo! Just a few more days until I can test! I actually found 2 more digital tests in my bathroom closet, so I now have 8 of them lol. Perfect for early testing
I know that you’re not supposed to get symptoms before implantation, but I still worry that I don’t feel like I’m pregnant. The anxiety is setting in that it’s always a no so it’s still going to be a no, and I know this time is way different because I have a full chance, but I still worry that maybe I’m not as fertile as my mom told me I am. If I spent the last 2 decades of my life being told I’d get pregnant first try and I don’t, I’m going to have major beef with my mother

 

[shaescott]

First night shift of my career started an hour ago, I am not looking forward to being awake at 3 am. But I got up at 3 am this morning and was awake until 10 am then slept until 4 pm to prep for the shift.

Unfortunately when I woke up at 4 pm, I had night sweats. I know that doesn’t mean for sure I’m not pregnant, but it feels damning to me since I often get them a few days before my period. I have literally no pregnancy symptoms at all. I also checked my progesterone with the fertility monitor this morning and it was only 9. It’s always above 10 for me normally in my luteal phase. Google does say that you just need a PDG level of 5 (the urine progesterone) or a blood level of 10, so that makes me feel better, but I’m still nervous that it’s so low compared to my usual. Maybe I was just having a transient dip. I’ll check again tomorrow. I know this cycle is different than my other ones since I got a full payload but I still just feel like I’m kidding myself and I’m not going to be pregnant.

 

[shaescott]

Me brain when walking down the hall at work and my arm hits my boob and it hurts:


Cuz I totally never get breast tenderness in my luteal phase, nooooo neverrrrr

9 hours down, 3 hours to go. I am exhausted. It doesn’t help that my patients have no meds after 9 pm until 6 am, I’ve had one guy asking for PRN sleep meds and that’s it, so I’m just sitting here on my phone trying not to pass out. I’m going to have to plug my phone in again lol

 

[shaescott]

I’ve caught my second wind thanks to coffee brewed by a lovely CNA.

Additional “Shae being completely consumed by the TWW”

Me before work: you don’t need to tell your coworkers you might be pregnant, keep one thing to yourself for once in your life, wait until you find out to say anything

Me at 2 am when my coworker recommends lots of caffeine to survive night shift: well I can’t have too much caffeine cuz I might be pregnant

Me by 5 am: has told no less than 3 coworkers that I might be pregnant and will find out within a week or so and that I’ll be mad at my mom if I’m not cuz she promised my whole life it would only take one try

Luckily none of them were grossed out by my saying that (or didn’t show it) and they asked follow up questions which makes me think they didn’t just want me to stfu nurses talk about more personal stuff in the workplace, so thank God I’m a nurse, I think if I worked in like an accounting office I would’ve been to HR a few times by now