I was threatened with divorce...

...should I ever run towards my husband with flailing arms, my thermometer in one hand and my BBT chart in the other, proclaiming excitedly that I just ovulated and therefore needed to be inseminated right now.

Geeez... me??? :)

I ain't that desperate... even though I am now taking my temperature every morning - out of pure interest in the processes of my own body.

I am desperate, however (dramatic change-of-topic abound), about my job situation. Up until recently I managed to kid myself enough to pretend that I could get through this on a day to day basis... and that I would hold out until Geo found a job, or until I would be pregnant and could go on maternity leave. Recently, however, I cannot even entertain such delusions on my daily espresso-high anymore. I cannot muster the enthusiasm to work on our projects anymore... they have never really interested me in the first place, but back then I needed a job desperately, so I went with the flow. But I have felt underpaid and underchallenged and just extremely bored for the longest time now, and least of all I feel like I NEED this job anymore. There are others out there... and so I have re-activated my curriculum vitae online... and left it there.

Yesterday I suddenly got a phone call out of the blue. A digital printing company, which had found me online, and which is interested in a personal interview with me, for they think them and I would be a "good match". Mind you, I had never even applied for this job - they are applying for ME!

Only a day before Auntie#K said to me: "With jobs it is like with love: they'll come to you when you least expect them."

Turns out this company is a 5-women-team. My job would be split between doing graphics and operating the big printing machines - something I don't think I would be too fond of. I am not really technically inclined. But technical knowledge in my field is good to have. They are quite far from where I live, but if they pay me well I think it would be worth the daily commute. That's the whole boiling point: payment. I need more, no matter how I look at it, and my boss is pinching pennies wherever he can. I work with him for a year and a half now, and he still doesn't pay me the minimum amount I agreed to work with him for. He screwed me over, agreeing with me on a ridiculous amount for my probation time - and it wasn't until a year later that he gave me a ridiculous raise that put me to a sum that was (and is) still under my minimum requirements. But what could I do - I needed that job, and the job market was BAD at the time.

Now it's so bad that not only do I not care about our products to the point that I get frequent scoldings from him that enter my head through one ear and leave them unregistered through the other, but I also feel that my creativity has suffered a lot from this. I need new challenges, something that tickles my juices again, so to say. Nothing about my current job ever did. And I don't get paid enough to actively pretend otherwise.

And in the midst of all this I get such a phone call. Needless to say I am excited beyond belief. Of course I feel bad when I hear my boss making plans for this year, on what he'll have me do, and what we'll have to look out for - this matter-of-factness with which he considers us a team. I think he thinks I will stay with his company until I retire, when in reality he is (and always was) just a stepping stone on my way. I wasn't sure when the time would come for me to actually TAKE that step, but I knew it would come, eventually.

It definitely has now, because even if that digital printing gig won't work out, I will actively look for an alternative. Despite my efforts at becoming pregnant. It's too bad for whoever will be hiring me to pay for my maternity leave in (hopefully) a few months time... but I can pay no heed to that. I gotta watch out for myself, my own well-being comes first - and my current job does nothing to ensure any kind of well-being, in any regard. I am not going to "stick it out" here until I can leave, and be stressed out and unhappy in the process. I am sick and tired of becoming desperate on Sunday afternoons at 3PM, because I realize that the weekend is almost over, and Monday morning is creeping in closer and closer.

Wish me luck on this, whoever reads this.

Day 37 - Intuition Failed

Well... Geo's gut feeling was wrong - a rare enough thing, granted. I experienced slight spotting today, and basically panicked.

There were only 2 answers to this problem: either I wasn't pregnant afterall and had nothing to worry about but a few days of heavy cramping and bleeding ahead, or - which was what put me into panic-mode - I was pregnant, and about to miscarry yet again, for light spotting is what started the whole misery in the first place.

I was unwilling to spend a weekend in crazy worries, so I decided to buy another test and do it today. I'd much rather know I was just getting a really late period and would have nothing to worry about, right?

So as I was bout to walk into the pharmacy to get said test, it suddenly dawned on me that my general practitioner is also a gynecologist - a fact which I had completely forgotten, since it's been about a decade since I last went to him for any gyn related issues, before I found my wonderful current one. The good thing about this sudden realization was this: he held office today until 6PM, it was currently 5PM, and out of experience I could basically call in and go there whenever I wanted to, without tediously waiting a few weeks for an appointment.

Good. One worry off my shoulders, I am motivated for next month. Despite his usual cheerful manner and his way of teasing his patients a lot, this time he was actually very serious about my request. He took my worries very seriously, and examined me thoroughly after a test confirmed that I am, in fact, not pregnant. He found nothing out of the norm, and reassured me this fluke was really nothing to worry about. "Just try and relax."

Yeah... sure. Surprisingly enough, I feel much better than I expected I would. The blood in my undies brought me right back to the days when my miscarriage started to happen, and the relief to learn that this time my period just decided to play games with me made me feel so much better now. I thanked my doc for having made the upcoming weekend a calm one for me, but telling Geo the outcome wasn't so easy. I could tell that he was really sure that this time his efforts had taken root, and that he really wanted to believe it, too.

Looking forward to more eager trying, though. I have decided that I will start to chart my basal body temperature this month. I'll go and buy a thermometer tomorrow. I am very interested in creating such a chart, actually have been for a long time, and now I have a good reason to actually try it. Maybe it'll let me figure out if I am ovulating at all.

Ah well, better luck next time.

Day 36 - Done Deal

Or - at least that's what it seems like when it comes to Geo. He tells me to stop freaking out and just accept that I am pregnant, he treats me as if I was, he voiced his concerns about me having a small cup of decaf (- decaf!!!) coffee today, and I caught him reading up on articles like "Pregnancy Week by Week", and "How to treat Mom after she has given Birth" on the internet.

This makes me melt to a puddle on the floor, and made me smother him in kisses, even though I am still running to the bathroom every hour to check for the late arrival of AF, cause - come on - I am SO not pregnant!

The test said so!

Now, let's see what my gyn says. If nothing else, my appointment is a done deal: January 29th. That's still a week and a half to go. I decided to simply NOT buy another test, keep running to the bathroom every hour, and wait until that date. If nothing else, it'll give me a morning off work, and that's always a good thing. And after that, we'll just keep on trying. :)

Day 34 - A Glimmer of Hope

Well, despite my negative test result on Sunday, Geo now seems to be certain that I am growing a lil' Booger again.

I would laugh at his foolishness, wouldn't it be for how I almost fainted last night in ballroom dance class after a few steps, and how every time I move my head faster than a sloth, it starts spinning in a wild rollercoaster ride.

However, the vehement lack of boobage-pains as I experienced them last time, not to mention the NEGATIVE TEST RESULT, make me assume that this period is just a fluke, something that still results from the D&C and the hormonal wreckage that my misscarriage caused my body.

At any rate, I will call for a doctor's appointment today. Knowing the popularity of my doc, I know it will be at least a week or more like two or three before I can see him, so I can quietly keep on freaking out until then, or - should my period decide to show up afterall - I can still cancel it later.

I will get another test, but will leave it inside the cabinet until *checks calendar* the 24th, which would make me 2 weeks late. I will not test again before that, no matter how much annoyance I will cause my beloved husband with my constant whining and questioning my uterus and the world at large.

If only it wasn't for the miscarriage, I would actually enjoy this time of not-knowing and waiting-to-find-out. I wouldn't pay so much heed to every little out-of-the-ordinary feeling my body sends to my brain, and wonder if it's caused by a new pile o'cells inside of me, and if so - if it's anything potentially dangerous or life-threatening to it.

I can tell you one thing - a miscarriage takes all the fun and innocence out of this baby-making business.

For the meantime, and just to be on the safe side, I am acting as if I was indeed pregnant, starting from ditching the caffeine in my daily coffee and ending with skipping my evening glass of red wine. Who knows, right?

And for that matter, I would like to mention that my friend, who had gotten pregnant around the same time I did, has lost her baby at five months pregnant, one day before New Year's Eve. She had suffered an early miscarriage before, worked about a year to get pregnant again - and was finally listening to her five month old fetus' heartbeat in the hospital, until her contractions started and she suffered a stillbirth. How this made me feel I cannot even put in words. My baby would have been roughly the same age by now. To be pregnant for such a long time and then STILL lose it, and that AFTER you've already suffered a miscarriage before, the thought alone wrenched my guts. I cannot even imagine what my friend must be going through right now.

And all this just goes to show that nothing in this life is ever a sure thing, or a done deal, no matter how much the odds are actually FOR you. Life doesn't "just happen", at least not to everybody. My thoughts go out to my friend and her stillborn son, to my own angel baby, and the potential inside my own belly right now. Even if it's nothing but a fluke period, it can never hurt to change my lifestyle to accomodate my future baby as well as I can - even if it'll be another while until I can finally welcome it inside of me.

Day 33 – Guess what I DIDN'T get for my Birthday!

...that's right. I am still waiting. Still nothing. And by now the "nothing" is to be taken quite literally: no period, no cramps, no PMS-like behavior, no boob-pains anymore either... NOTHING.

So I tested. On Saturday at 6:30AM, because I couldn't take it anymore.

Oh, my birthday, you ask? It was really great. Bee baked a marzipan cake just for me, which she brought into the restaurant. Everybody came with the exception of my best friend Auntie#K, but let's not go into that, lest I get pissed off again. Sunday I got my birthday lunch at my parents' place, and more marzipan cake.

And oh, the presents!!! I got Desperate Housewives Season 1&2, I got Dungeon Siege II Deluxe, I got a brain teaser game for the PC, I got a stroll down memory lane, I got a "smartass encyclopedia", I got "The Digital Photography Book" by Scott Kelby I was drooling over, and I got "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. And some cash.

And a Minolta Dynax 7D with 2 lenses, an external flash, 4 batteries, 2 chargers, a vertical photo-attachment, a book and a bag for less than the third of the price that all of this together would cost!!! Gotta love my connections (- that is: a rich uncle who buys himself the newest of the new whenever it comes out and then gets rid of the "old" stuff that he doesn't need anymore)... it's the first truly PROFESSIONAL camera I have ever owned. It has about a gazillion of buttons, it weighs about 3 lbs. and it's a digital SLR. I went a long way from my early point-and-shoots to this one.

Check it out: Konica Minolta Dynax 7d on dpreview.com

Now, please be properly impressed and awed.

Oh, the pregnancy test, you ask?

...negative, of course. :(

Day 30 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I bought a test yesterday, and - just for good measure - started to take a folic acid supplement. One can never have enough folic acid, and I heard from serveral trustworthy sources that one should start taking it even in preparations for pregnancy. It aids cell growth, and I'd be wise to start my very own internal folic acid depot, or so I heard.

At any rate - I planned on taking the test this morning. Yes, I am still free of AF.

But then I didn't. I got really scared of a "not pregnant" result, plus the boobage pains have diminished, and the ovarian cramps have turned it up a notch. Just your cookie-cutter pre-mens symptoms, and - have my cycles not been completely out of whack since the D&C? I can't rely on 28 days anymore, and it hasn't been unheard of for me to go through 34 day cycles either. So I'll hold off on the test... if nothing shows by Sunday, maybe I'll do it then.

For today, I'll just enjoy my birthday. I'll get off an hour early today, I'll spend some time with the family, and for 8PM I have a table reserved for 10 people in a restaurant I have never been to, but is - supposedly - fun. Just to be on the safe side I'll refrain from drinking tonight. I'll come up with a believable excuse.

My hopes are still up.

Day 28

Well, what can I say. The soreness of my breast mosts likely stems from my repeated poking and prodding in an attempt to check if they feel sore at all or not.

Up until about 2 hours ago I could have still considered the possibility of fertilization having been completed this month - alas, the cramps. Oh, the cramps!

Goddamn cramps.

AF will hit me on my birthday in 2 days - I just know that it will. Happy birthday to me, no bun in the oven this time. Hey, at least I can get senselessly drunk with my friends. Not that I am the drunken party type, but considering the circumstances... and circumstances are plenty:

I will turn 28. 28! That's 30–2! I will now be a late twen, whoopty-do. Whatever happened to the last years, and why does it seem that ever since 20 every single goddamn year seems to be over faster than the one before? Next thing I know, I'll be heading towards 40(!), because 30 will be a thing of the past. And I am already dyeing my hair regularly, not out of fashion considerations, but a desperate attempt to hide my white hairs. It's called "premature greying", and it runs in the family. Google it.

I hate my job. And with my obvious lack of pregnancy, I will hate it many a month longer. Since I am too chicken shit to actually look for something better, I am pining for maternity leave, which - around here - lasts a whole 2 years at decent government pay. I am underpaid, I am unchallenged, I am bored out of my mind, I feel like poking my boss' eyes out the second he merely opens his mouth. But looking for something else would mean going through job interviews and adapting to a new asshole boss, and finding myself around new environments, and learning new tasks - when all I REALLY want is never to work for somebody else again. Yeah, that's right. I want to go on maternity leave, shove my regular (low) paycheck up my boss' ass and while I am at home with the baby work on making my very own company lucrative, while Geo works a regular 9 to 5 job somewhere. Be my own boss, work from home, yet have a steady income to support us should things not go so well with my company. Easy as pie - yet impossible, cause I am tied to this effin' office chair RIGHT NOW.

I am not pregnant. I'll take condolescene emails after I bled through my first tampon of the month, I'll keep ya updated.

Those are good enough reasons to allow my bro-in-law, Tio#E, to pour one too many drinks down my throat on Friday. I'll be having dinner with my husband and all my closest friends, and I am really looking forward to that.

Next month. Third time's a charm, right...?

the blue line...

One of the most unforgettable moments of my life certainly was when I stood in the bathroom of our hotel room in Puerto Angel, MX, with a pee-wet pregnancy test in my hand, not particulary caring that I was so shaky and nervous that the the stick wasn't exactly the only thing wet with pee, and counting the seconds until the stick confirmed pink on white what I had been suspecting for a few days already.

It was an exciting, wonderful, and extremely world-shifting moment - one of those where you seem to register every little detail around you without paying any attention at all, and time slowing down to a mellow stroll through honey. It was most private, just me and that stick, with my new husband pretending to be asleep outside in the bed, and really being just as awake - if less nervous - as I was. And this new reality crashing down on me with the full force of the undeniable magenta of that second line boldly staring up at me, changing me so fundamentally and throwing my entire life onto a new track so irrevocably.

It was so beautiful, I like to think back at it from time to time... and then the inevitable wondering comes again, wondering when I'll see such a line for the next time.

Well, last night it was time again. Last night that line materialized again, blue this time, instead of pink, and just as bold and unmistakable, and life-altering. Maybe even more so than last time, because maybe this time I would actually be able to keep my baby. I looked up from the stick which excitement and gratitude, to find myself inside a bathroom I had never seen before. It was dark and damp and dull, making the second blue line shine out even brighter and obvious than it should have been. In fact, it was the only bright spot in my surroundings at all, so I left... ran out... waving the stick in my hand - and crashed into my husband who was just outside. I panted, looked up at him, smiled... and showed him the content of my hand. His reaction, then - so beautiful, so loving... his eyes filled with tears and his face shone with the most loving and relieved smile I have ever seen on him, and he put his palm gently to the side of my face and the scooped me up in a crying/laughing embrace, turning me round and round and round...

...oh, how I wished the alarm bell had never rang at that exact moment. How I wished I wouldn't have to get back to Real Life(tm), on a Monday morning, starting the tedious and annoying routine of the week all over again. How I wished that I would wake up, like I did only a few months ago, with a smile on my face, and my hand wandering down to my belly, hardly able to believe the miracle happening inside of me. Alas... it wasn't so. Just another Monday morning. Just another day of waiting to see if my period was going to come or not.

Just another dream.

Another cycle passing...

Interesting how fast a month can pass when I don't spend every free minute on the internet reading up on "early pregnancy signs" and comparing them to every single feeling my nerves are sending to my brain. Last month was ridiculous - but then, it wasn't really fair: feeling light-headed and dizzy and sick every morning just around the time any first symptoms *could* have been expected.

None of that junk this month... I managed to put baby-thoughts aside sufficiently enough that I wasn't even bothered by the lack of "insemination" around the time we *should* have tried. It was a month of getting on each others' nerves - but hey, it's over now.

And a slim chance still exists, of course.

If not... there is always a next month.