End of April Blahs

At least that's what I think I have.

I'm so tired. So very, very tired. I can't blame it all on my class since they're nothing like the craziest that I taught last year. Perhaps it's because of the hockey playoffs. I fell asleep on the basement couch and I made it up to bed at around 12:30am. I feel wiped out, and it's quite early for me to feel like this. I'm usually like this right before school ends, but we're a LONG way from there (yes girls, I teach until June 30th, ouch).

Perhaps it's the time of the month. I'm reaching mid-cycle and this is always the most stressful time for me. I'm feeling the must TTC pressure. Last cycle's false + really through me for a loop and I'm feeling the type-A "I don't want to fail" attitude that I felt when we first started on the TTC ride.

I want a baby girls. There's no way around it. I'm tired of being disappointed month after month.

I don't know if all the white wine and guacamole in the world can fix this one (although it does take a bit of the edge off).

Erin Rocks!!

Thanks so much to my Lenten Prayer Buddy, Erin!!!

She sent me a book called The Rosary and it arrived today. I was so surprised to see it in my mailbox when I got home from school!

Thank you so much for your prayers and your friendship! I can't wait to read it!!!!

Ummm, yeah....

So after my dentist appointment after school I went over to my parents' house.

Btw, I love, love, love going to the dentist! Getting my teeth cleaned is one of my favourite things in the whole world. I know, I'm weird.

I talked to quite a few people during the day about my mom's strange and angering comment and the general consensus was that they thought she was offended by my asking for the money that she owed me. I got even more riled up this morning when I called her to ask if she had my student loan statement for my taxes. What I thought would be a two minute conversation ended with her giving me a lecture about having outstanding debt (she seems to forget that ever since graduating I bought a house, got married, furnished a house, paid off a car, and no, I didn't tell her about the new car!).

I know that my student loan is relatively small, it was just under $7000. I got it to pay for my teachers' college tuition. I also know that I've been dragging my heels and I've been only paying the minimum payment for the past eight years (I know, not very responsible, but I don't even notice the $76 that comes out of my bank account every month). Regardless, when I pay it off is none of her business. I was told when I applied for teachers' college (which was my third university degree) that I had to pay for it. The only thing that my parents helped out with was rent for the last two months of school. I ran out of money and I was desperate.

Needless to say I spent most of the day upset. My class must've noticed something because I got A LOT of hugs today and quite a few "I love yous."

Anyhow, I went to my parents' house and it was like nothing happened. Last night's conversation wasn't mentioned and this morning's wasn't either. I don't know if it was because my dad was home (my mom usually behaves around him AND like I said yesterday, he would've been livid to know that she owed me any money, let alone $230!). My dad and I took a spin around their subdivision 'cos my brakes have been squeaking and my dad wanted to hear for himself.

When we got back from our little drive my mother didn't mention anything. When I arrived at their house I gave her the $90 for the jewelry and the bracelet that wasn't real gold. As I was leaving she handed me the $90 back with a cheque for $140. I told her that I didn't want it, but she insisted. Then we talked about gardening and how I thought she should plant hostas in their front yard.

Totally weird.

It was almost like someone erased her memory or that I just dreamed everything up.

Like I've said many times, she's nuts. I shouldn't let her strange behaviour affect me the way I let it. I got so worked up that I even started getting teary in the staff room! My teaching partner even commented on how upset I was.

Who knows, maybe something else was upsetting her and she used me as a target. I'm tempted to e-mail one of my cousins who lives in the neighbourhood to see if anything happened over the weekend. Even if I asked my mother she would deny it. What I do know is that I just need to let this all go, it's obvious that it's not bothering her any!

In cycle news, it's CD9 and I'm only spotting very lightly. I'm glad that my Napro doc said that it was normal for endo patients to have longer periods. At least I'm not seeing TEBB anymore! No more brown for me!!! I'm really hoping that this new dose of F.emara is going to boost my hormone levels. I also doubled the amount of flax seed oil that I was taking (my naturopath put me on it to help with my estrogen levels pre-peak). I don't know if it's helping, but my skin looks amazing!

I'm hoping that my new, hopeful attitude is going to work. Last weekend's fiasco is in the history books and I want to look at this cycle with possibility.

St. Gianna, please pray for me!

p.s. I finished and filed our taxes tonight. We're getting quite a healthy refund which means that all of our credit card debt is going to be paid off. Praise God!

Now where did that come from???

So I went to a gold party at a colleagues house. For those of you not in the know, ladies will come to your house and buy your gold jewelry from you! Another woman on my staff had a party and made a TON of cash for herself, so another colleague decided to throw another one (one woman got $600 for a few bits!).

Anyhow, I mentioned to my crazy mother that I was going to this party and if she had anything for me to sell for her. I had a few things (because any gold jewelry that I ever had or received from my mother was quickly taken back for "safe keeping") in my own jewelry box, but I did have some pieces that I could get rid of. My mother gave me this ring she had made for my dad, one earring and a bracelet. Turns out the bracelet wasn't real and the ring didn't have real diamonds in it.

So while I was leaving the party I called my mother to tell her that I had gotten $90 for her two items and I said, "Well since you owe me money for those bills that I paid for you while you were away, I can just keep the money and you can give me the difference later."

Then she said, "Well what about all of the money that you owe me?"

And I didn't know how to respond.

Last I checked I'm not in debt to my parents. I've been working as a teacher for almost nine years and I've been on my own ever since. My parents did pay for my university education and they did pay for the bulk of our wedding, but we were never, ever told that we had to repay them. Her comment totally caught me off guard and I called Mr. JB right away to tell him. He got quite upset since he doesn't want to be secretly in debt to anyone.

Now, my mother is crazy and I honestly don't know why she says a lot of what she says, but I do know that my father never, ever expected for me to repay them for my education or our wedding expenses. When we went out for dinner last week my dad wouldn't even let us pay! I offered, but my aunt said that he had taken care of it. I'm not about to argue with my father in a public place about settling a cheque!

So now I'm all upset and confused.

My mother does have a history of being completely irrational and she often says hurtful things. She's completely oblivious to our IF and she announces pregnancies to me like there's nothing hurtful about it. We've also had a history of having a very difficult relationship, but money has never entered the picture.

My parents lead a very frugal life, which is completely unnecessary. They've been mortgage-free for years and they both have well-paying jobs. They want for nothing and I know that they have a very, very healthy retirement fund. Why my mother would be mentioning my debt to them, I have no idea!

Now, if I knew what the debt was when it was incurred, I would've paid them back. I do earn a good wage and we are capable of paying them back, but can she really mention paying back my university education when I graduated TEN YEARS AGO? Can she really collect on my wedding expenses from FIVE YEARS AGO?

I shouldn't let her get to me, but she is the one person on this planet that can push all of my buttons all at once. I've wished that we could have a better relationship, but she can be so needlessly mean to me! I knew that she was really pushing it today when Mr. JB got angry. He's very patient with her, but playing dirty like she is, makes it very hard for him to be sympathetic.

I don't know girls. I'm so tired of being angry with her. I'm even a bit upset with myself for being so angry. What I do know is that I'm going to her house tomorrow with her $90 since it seems like it's so important to her.

Grrrr.

Bedridden

My body is going on strike.

My back is feeling much better. I went to the chiropractor and she adjusted me and I've been good as new ever since.

It's just too bad that the mild cold I've had all week has gotten worse. How does one survive an entire Canadian winter without getting sick once and then as soon as the weather gets better, comes down with a wicked cold??? This time I'm blaming my fertile bf's son who slobbered all over me last week. Apparently her husband has been off all last week with the same cold, seems like I got the same bug (and so does Mr. JB, he sounds much worse than I do!). I knew that I was done for when I fell asleep for four hours last night on the couch and then I couldn't get up for yoga this morning. I never miss Saturday morning yoga, especially when my favourite teacher is conducting the class.

Anyhow, looks like Mr. JB and I are going to take it easy this weekend. We don't have a choice! The only thing that I'm going to do is get my hair cut at my hair stylist's new salon. It will be quite the drive, but it's always worth it. If I wasn't feeling so sick I'd convince Mr. JB to go on an adventure, but that's not going to happen.

In cycle news, AF is almost done. I've been waking up with headaches since I started the F.emara. It's the only side effect that I've noticed and the headache usually goes away with some A.dvil. I'm hoping that tripling the dose will finally boost my estrogen levels. Honestly, what is up with my low estrogen? My progesterone is fine, which is good, right? I always thought that the two were related.

I need to drag myself off the couch so I can finish my laundry. Being sick sucks.

I am an old woman

Or at least I feel like one.

I sneezed while putting on my jacket yesterday morning and I pulled something in my back.

Now who does that?????

My back loosened up during the day -- pretty easy since I'm always on my feet at school, but at yoga I bent forward and it started to spasm.

Bad.

I limped around my house all last night and I'm continuing to do the "old lady" walk today.

Someone once told me that lower back pain means that I worry about money. Which I do. A lot.

Have I mentioned that Mr. JB bought a car? Yes, the car that he wanted. Red, loaded with every option available and it also comes with SEVEN years of car payments (the only way to get the monthly down to under $400). 

Ugh. 

Oh well, I'm sure it won't be that bad when we finally have it and drive it around. Besides, I did get that job this summer and we will have extra cash (in theory!). 

I can't wait to see my chiropractor after school. I hate hobbling around! 

One more thing....

I didn't add this to my list of things that I learned from the Tale of the False HPT, but it's pretty big.

I was having a board of directors meeting tonight at my house (with the most annoying woman in the world, it took all the strength in my body to not kick her out of my house!) and my fertile best friend called. Mr. JB said that she was checking on me, which is so sweet.

You see, my fertile bf was by my side when I had my breakdown in university. We were roommates and she helped me navigate my way back to sanity and she's always been worried (sometimes a little too much!) that I'm going to fall into that abyss.

I asked Mr. JB what he told her and he said, "She doesn't realize how strong you are JB."

And he's right, IF has given me strength I didn't know I had. I didn't know that I would need to be this strong, but almost five years later, I have channeled strength from places I didn't know existed.

So I guess that makes it 12.

And that's a good thing, right?

Woohoo!!!

No, AF didn't miraculously stop.

But I did get some AWESOME news over the lunch hour! I got the curriculum writing job for the Minis.try of Ed.ucation for the month of July.

And guess how much it pays.

$300 a day PLUS transportation and $40 worth of meals per day.

I danced all around the school celebrating!

I'm so glad that I finally have some semblance of happy news to share!!! 

I've never worked in the city and I'm going to take the train in like a normal commuter. I'm so excited! 

Better get back to teaching my little monsters. They're starting to get restless!

What I've Learned....

I'm going to try and learn something from my short Tale of the False HPT (in no particular order):

1) I will NEVER, EVER test before Peak +17 (17 dpo). EVER. Apparently my body likes to get to P+15.

2) POAS brings on a period. I have no doubt.

3) Pre-period symptoms are very similar to early pg symptoms. If it happens again, I will not convince myself that I am pg, even though I didn't want to admit that I thought I was.

4) My body is getting back on track. When I started with Napro back in February 2008 I had crazy erratic bleeding, a luteal phase defect, stage IV endo, adhesions, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids and wonky hormones. The only thing that I still have are the low hormones, and those are being controlled with HCG and F.emara. I don't know when I will get pg, but I know that I will be healthy for the REST OF MY LIFE.

5) I need to stay calm like Mr. JB. False hpt or not, I need to be more relaxed like he is!

6) I shouldn't yell at my husband about compromising his car choices, when I really wanted to do was cry about AF arriving. Btw, he's going to go to call the bank tomorrow to see if we can get a better financing rate than what the dealership is offering. What is the deal with only offering 0% financing on 2009 models and 5.49% on the 2010's????

7) You girls are the most awesome friends. I wouldn't have been able to deal with this drama and heartache without all of you. I felt absolutely horrible all day and whenever I would check my blog at school I would see another encouraging comment. Also, I'm so glad that my class was so well behaved. They must've sensed that I couldn't handle bad behaviour.

8) Our neighbours on the other side of us are jerks. We've put up with them playing ridiculously loud (and bad) music at all hours of the day. We've complained to them, our management company (we live in a condo townhouse) and we even called the police to see what we could do. They shouldn't mess with an infertile woman who just got a false hpt or they're in for a fight!!!

9) Our Napro practitioner (for those of you that don't speak Napro, she's not a doctor, but she helps us with charting and other fertility-related advice, she's awesome!) thinks that things are looking great. My mucous scores are great (15.3 for those of you that want to know) and that my chart post-surgery/post-L.upron looks so much better than when we first started seeing her. She's also gave me some great advice regarding vitamin D and magnesium. Apparently low vitamin D levels are related to low hormone levels! I need to see my GP to see if I can get my vitamin D levels tested. She also said that low magnesium levels can cause muscle aches. She recommended a magnesium gel that I can get to help with my achy, post-yoga class body!

10) Getting a false hpt isn't that bad. For example, getting my horrible diagnosis last year was much, much worse. I have to remember, we've only been trying for five months, and one of those months I was on heavy-duty antibiotics that I wasn't allowed to get pg on. So four months is a drop in the bucket. I can't really count the other four years since we didn't have a real chance with my compromised anatomy.

11) Lastly, I'm going to continue believing that becoming a mother is possible. This isn't about the plan that I have for my life, its His plan for me. Anything is possible with God, and becoming a mother is definitely possible.

So there.

I wish....

...that I was blogging from the lab saying that I was waiting to bet my blood drawn.

Alas, I'm not.

I woke up bright and early to test (yes, using a dollar store test) and the flow was definitely more red and AF-like than last night. To top it off the test was definitely negative. No faint line, nothing (and yes, I checked in natural sunlight, the light in my bathroom AND my bedside lamp.

My boobs aren't as tender and I'm definitely crampy.

I guess I am one of the few than has gotten a false positive.

I also checked my chart this morning and two cycles ago I did make it to P +15. I wasn't very confident about that cycle since we didn't try very hard (it was the month that my neighbour died and we weren't in the mood at all that month!).

I will take my blood work requisition with me today and if the bleeding stays light (as it is right now) I may go after school. Mr. JB and I are meeting with our Napro practitioner after school 'cos I have no more stickers and I need a new chart. Perhaps she'll have some insight to what the heck went on yesterday!

Thanks again for all of your prayers and support. It would be an understatement to say that I'm disappointed.

Jesus I trust in you.