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

[shaescott]

Sunday was when i tested diluted and it was a stronger positive but they were still weird lines. The diluted is the torn hcg one. The top hcg is concentrate.
Middle is wednesday and i threw in a different brand and took pic in timeframe but it was fmu again.
Bottom photo is the most recent that i took on Thursday with fmu. I havent taken more because im sick of them not getting dark, the concentrated is faint and the lines still arent going all the way down even though i use from different boxes.
I’ve even tried mixing up between using 10 and 25s trying to see what’s wrong. They’re not negative and not positive.

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Are the orange tests hcg and the blue LH? Or are they all hcg tests? Regardless, the clear blue is definitely positive. I hope you get answers soon.

 

[DobbyForever]

Ditto. I’m frustrated on your behalf.

 

[DobbyForever]

Unrelated I just binged yellowjackets and I’m so confused

 

[HalfricanMa]

Unrelated I just binged yellowjackets and I’m so confused

I havent heard of it.

 

[autumnal]

Guys I'm soo happy we found a great new church today, we've been trying to find one since we moved here over a year ago.. we were going to one that was okay but they have been being weird this month so my husband wanted to switch. He seems really happy. Such a relief and a blessing!

@HalfricanMa those tests are seriously so confusing. I'm sorry you are dealing with this strange situation!!

@shaescott good luck this cycle I'm just finishing af and second guessing my decision to skip this cycle.. hahaha the hormones always win!

 

[HalfricanMa]

@autumnal what a wonderful feeling when you’re church hunting and think you’ve found a good fit!!

 

[HalfricanMa]

Are the orange tests hcg and the blue LH? Or are they all hcg tests? Regardless, the clear blue is definitely positive. I hope you get answers soon.

Dark orange is 25mIU/mL, light orange are 10s, and yes blue wondfo are LH. The clearblues have always been giving clear positives. Looking forward to Tuesday’s appointment. She’ll order ultrasound im sure, im just unsure if she has a machine in the office or if i’ll have to schedule at another location. My symptoms were stronger at the beginning of the month than they feel right now, but i certainly still have the movement that I can see. It correlates mostly with times I lie down. And the thirst is still through the roof.

 

[shaescott]

Gigs just saw your “how to embrace major life changes” video pop up on YouTube I didn’t watch it but the title alone made me laugh because of your current situation.

Halfrican when was your last period?

 

[HalfricanMa]

Gigs just saw your “how to embrace major life changes” video pop up on YouTube I didn’t watch it but the title alone made me laugh because of your current situation.

Halfrican when was your last period?

Ah I’m totally searching that on youtube! Haha! (Hmm..harder to find than i anticipated. Just didnt know anyone on here had a youtube channel. I guess i should’ve assumed so. I’m old lol)
My last period was feb 2023.

 

[shaescott]

Ah I’m totally searching that on youtube! Haha! (Hmm..harder to find than i anticipated. Just didnt know anyone on here had a youtube channel. I guess i should’ve assumed so. I’m old lol)
My last period was feb 2023.

Oh okay, so LMP can’t be used here. Dang.

 

[gigglebox]

Shhhhh shae!
Yes i have a very schizophrenic channel, heh. It started as all jewelry related then also had crystals, now it's all over the map with arts and crafts and jewelry reviews and now a podcast that I do with another youtuber. Shae's referring to the podcast. If you're interested I can PM it to you, I just like to keep this baby forum stuff completely separate from the rest of my life lol so if you find me there, don't mention this place haha.

Shea I know right?! We laughed about it, too. I haven't announced to youtube yet but my podcast "coworker" knows. I'm planning to announce this Sunday as long as my appointment this week goes OK. Pretty much everyone else knows at this point that's close. Actually I told a couple of friends via text (we were supposed to see them this past weekend but they had to cancel) and their reaction was super disappointing. They texted back "congratulations!" and that was it (it's a married couple, and they have two kids). There was no, "omg!! how far along are you? When are you due?" NOTHING. Super weird! I'm like...are y'all mad at me? It's the type of reaction someone upset would give OR someone with fertility issues, but they have 2 kids and he got snipped. So I'm like what'd I do?

Then there's the disconnected part of me that just wants to detach from everything from my youth and in some ways I wish I could just cleanly cut ties with everyone I used to know that I don't keep in constant touch with anymore, as crazy as that sounds. I'm sure that's trauma talking but I just don't like thinking about the past and those "friends" remind me of it too much. And frankly I don't feel like the same person now. Some of these friends now, If I met them today, I know we wouldn't be friends, ya know? Especially my gal friends from HS. Like I've just changed too much. I was a depressed loner in high school and now I'm a devoted mom and family is my life. My ideals on things have changed, too. And my priorities; obviously my kids are the priority but I also prioritize hobbies and maintaining a house/farmette over outings with friends. These friends still go to parties and bars and sporting events and that's just not me. Actually that's never been me lol.

Anyway I'm not going to continue on that rant lol I just thought that was a strange reaction from "friends".

 

[HalfricanMa]

Aw sorry that was their confusing reaction. But I can totally relate. There is not one person from high school that i still talk to.

I think I’m similar to you. I’ve never been into clubs. I’m actually more of a morning person, so by 9pm i’m ready to sleep. But nowadays with 2 kids i’m wanting to sleep by 4pm LOL! And yet we want a third! Haha. Although I felt sick most of the night. I ended up taking a zofran and was questioning the idea of a third pregnancy—unless miraculously i’m already there. Haha!
The last pregnancy with the polyhydramnios made it so difficult and my husband deploying made me have to sell our sheep & chickens. I’d like to get chickens again. Been going to the chicken coup to fix it up again little by little while hubby is away. When the spring chicks are hatching we’ll get more. My son loved gathering eggs and cooking them up each morning. I’d like to get an angus heifer & calf or more sheep. I loved the sheep following me!! Honestly, it was wonderful living the literal analogies made in the bible. Shepherding analogies made in scripture have so much more depth after having a bit of experience raising sheep. I also thought to have bison because thats delicious meat, but im not sure how to contain them. My husband was a dairy & sugar cane farmer so we do a lot with his experience. We have an apple orchard but its not producing apples yet and ants—yes ANTS— ate our 6’ almond trees. They bloomed gorgeous flowers fall and spring.

 

[autumnal]

@gigglebox I'm so sorry about the weird reaction your friend had. Makes me wonder if she regrets getting the husband snipped and is having trouble dealing with that? But still the baby should be celebrated in my opinion!!

@HalfricanMa good luck with your appointment! The experience raising the sheep sounds so amazing. At least you got some beautiful memories!

 

[shaescott]

Gigs hahaha I was wondering if the pregnancy was referenced at all in the video, sounds like no.

That’s a bit of an underwhelming reaction for sure. I’d be losing my mind as the friend. I already text one friend of mine like once a month to check in on her TTC, they started TTC in July I think, but she’s just trusting the app estimate of ovulation, and I’m like GIRL USE OPKs!!! I made her a whole informational multi-page Google doc on TTC bahahahaha, she loved it though. I think she’s just trying to be casual about it right now, she’s 25 and got married in June, she’s not exactly running out of time.

I am also not friends with a single person I was friends with in high school. I follow a lot of my high school classmates on social media and some of my ex-friends, and I enjoy seeing them succeed in life and get married and have kiddos. I even like watching the posts of the guy who hit me square in the face with a dodgeball freshman year and laughed, he temporarily blocked his stories from his now wife and told everyone he was planning to propose and like chronicled the whole thing, it was sooo cute. They were high school sweethearts too, so it was extra cute. We’re all adults now, and while I have no interest in hanging out with any of my former classmates, it makes me happy to see them happy. I don’t care about people’s party posts, like whatever, you got drunk at a club again, whoop-dee-doo. But the engagement/marriage/baby/career posts make me happy. One girl got an engineering internship with NASA. Blows my mind. She’s this adorable blonde pigtailed petite girl who I knew at 6 years old, and now she’s out there doing science with NASA.

All that said, I occasionally indulge in some schadenfreude watching ex friends, bullies, and classmates do stupid crap. Like the one girl who just complains about her crystal business every day on Facebook and had a kid with someone who already had a kid with someone else and then was cheating on her, posted he cheated on her while 6 weeks pregnant, and still stayed with him for like 3 years. Girl, your life choices have sucked, and I am just watching this ship burn. But there’s one girl who bullied me in like 3rd grade who I just feel bad for. She was in a domestic violence relationship for years, he was beating her, she finally left thank God and came clean about the whole thing, then her mom died (I think to suicide, she didn’t specify) leaving her to help raise her like 10 year old brother. She’s a manager at Taco Bell. Like, I honestly wish things were better for her. I don’t think she deserves that stuff.

Halfrican oooo the raising sheep comparing to shepherding in the Bible sounds super cool. I’ve turned into a bit of a theology nerd hahahaha, I’m a confessional Lutheran (LCMS, the traditional kind of Lutheran). I ended up there about a year ago after being non-denominational for a few years. I became a Christian toward the end of college. I wasn’t raised a Christian, I was baptized as an infant because my mom was raised Methodist, but my mom is a deist at best and my dad is agnostic, so I ranged from agnostic to deist in my beliefs throughout my childhood. Jesus was not involved at all, not until college, when I had this weird revelation type experience in the midst of exploring witchcraft (standard gen z college student stuff) where suddenly I just knew that I believed Jesus was the son of God and that just because the Bible said some things I didn’t like didn’t mean they weren’t true. I abandoned all the witchcraft stuff that day and never went back. Pretty wild.

 

[gigglebox]

Wow Shae, you make me feel like I need to go stalk more of my former classmates, lol!! That is really sad about the last one though. Especially if she was in an abusive relationship...so often women in abusive relationships were abused growing up (often by a father figure) and just think it's normal. So sad to be left raising a sibling. Hopefully she finds happiness!

Halfrican, your situation sounds so lovely! I'm a bit jealous of the livestock, haha. I have dreams of owning a goat one day, or really any dairy animal (goats just fit our property the best) but I don't know when/if that will ever happen. I was really going that route last year but hubby talked sense into me. It's just too much work right now, and I feel like I'd get overwhelmed by the chores of it (especially milking twice a day) with everything else I have going on. There's a small possibility we may do it sooner rather than later but I'm not counting on it. At least we get milk shares; only a bit inconvenient to have to pick up at a farm every week, but it's certainly less time consuming and costly compared to raising our own. If we ever get a large amount of land, maybe I'd run a dairy down if the grass could support her, but that's a far of dream for now! We do have ducks and chickens though (and some geese). Annoyingly my kids have to be forced into eating eggs, except for one who has only very recently started eating them. If wish they were enthusiastic about eggs!

 

[shaescott]

@HalfricanMa !!! Yesterday was Tuesday! What happened at your appointment????

 

[HalfricanMa]

@HalfricanMa !!! Yesterday was Tuesday! What happened at your appointment????

Hey thanks for remembering Shae! Doc did a blood workup and found the hcg was down to 0.6 so it must have been a miscarriage that absorbed since i haven't bled yet. Believes the recording i showed of movement is likely my digestion and said i’m very thin and now after 2 pregnancies and the latter being Polyhydramnios, my abs are just not thick anymore and thats why im now noticing it.
Anyways, she ordered a transvaginal u/s and abdominal u/s to get a good look at everything. Unfortunately, the imaging center is booked quite a ways out. Soonest will be next thursday but the appointment is at 12:30 and she wants me fasting 8 hrs to include water. Im not nursing too much but still about 3 times a day. Plus my blood sugar falls so easily i really dont know if that appointment is safe. The next morning appointment is the 13th.

Up shot: bad news is I’m not pregnant. Good news is all the tests she ran she said i’m mid cycle and currently ovulating!! In fact, she thinks thats what the mild pain on the left was about. Even better—hubby surprised me by flying home yesterday afternoon rather than his previously anticipated travel day which would’ve been tomorrow. We already got to dtd last night before we even got those results. We’ll be staying frisky!