It came along, shaking me awake in the middle of the night.  “What are you doing? Sleeping? Sleeping is for pussies! Let’s get up and puke!”

Since then, every single day has been like that.  I wake up at 2 or 3 am and I’m up for the day.  Usually I get a nap sometime in the afternoon, but I basically feel like a zombie.  I’m hardly online at all, because that requires sitting upright, reading things, and having coherent thoughts.  I’m not good at any of those things lately.

I throw up at least twice a day, usually more.  I keep about half the food I eat down, which is better than some are able to do, so I’m grateful for that.  I’m not taking any drugs for nausea or vomiting (yet), and I’m really going to try to avoid it (if I can).   There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.  There is no food I can consistently keep down, and none of the tricks I’ve tried have prevented the throwing up.

I was going to do a picture of my belly, but I decided to wait until next week.  The first ultrasound is at 8 weeks, and is scheduled for this coming Tuesday.  I’m going to be a little anxious until it gets here and we hear the heartbeat.  There are just so many things that can go wrong, and because I keep looking around on the babycenter forums like a dumbass, I’m hearing about all of them.

Even though there’s that worry in the back of my mind, I still feel like everything is OK.  I feel connected to the baby.  In fact, I’m pretty convinced it’s a boy.  And maybe twins.  It’s just one of those things that popped into my head, but it won’t leave, either.  There are twins on my mom’s side of the family, plus old ladies like me tend to release more than one egg when we ovulate…

I know it seems ridiculous, but it does look like I have a little bump already.  At first I was sure it was just umm, constipation, another lovely pregnancy symptom, or bloat, on account of the fact that I’m consuming 80% of my calories from liquids.  I’ve also considered that it’s just, you know,  fat, since the food that seems the most likely to stay down is the least healthy – McDonald’s, Taco Bell.

Anyway, I know I should be happy, because lots of symptoms usually mean the baby is healthy, which I am happy about.  It’s just draining to feel on the edge of vomiting all the time.  Plus my appetite is out of control, so I’m really hungry, but most things don’t sound very appealing.

I’m trying not to be cranky, but I’m not sure how well I’m doing with that.

I can tell you my husband is a saint though.  He encourages me to nap every day, has been taking care of most of the meals, all the shopping, gets me whatever food I want whenever I want it, and he’s even been nesting with me.

We have plenty of room here for a baby, but some serious cleaning out and rearranging need to happen first.  As my energy allows, we’ve slowly been working on that project.

We aren’t letting ourselves look at any baby things until I’m safely through the first trimester.  We had one tentative discussion about names, but I think we want to hold off on that one, too.

For once, I won’t end with promises to post regularly.  I’m not promising anything until I make it through the first trimester alive.

PS.  I almost didn’t include this, because I rarely get any sort of bloggy attention, and because I tend to think everything is a scam.  (OK, and also because I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t some grad student’s thesis project).  But if you look on that list, you’ll see little ole me at #21 of the personal relationship blogs.  The compiler of the list sent me a very nice email, and I do seem to be getting some good traffic and a new reader or two from it, so how can I not thank them and try to send a few hits to the other blogs?

I tried to get a better picture, but that’s the best I can do.  I’ve already decided to start using pregnancy brain as an excuse for everything.

That’s one of three positive tests I’ve taken over the last two days, from different brands.

My chart had very clear patterns this month, and I’m pretty confident July 8 or 9 was the date of conception.  Making my due date April 1st or 2nd.

Something tells me it’s likely to be April Fool’s Day.

PS. Yes, I know it’s really, really early to share such news, but now seems a silly time to stop sharing every step of the journey with all of you.  And there is absolutely no way I could keep my mouth shut until my 6 week appointment on August 3.

It won’t be today.

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to make the symptoms of PMS the exact same as early pregnancy, but I would like to kick them in the nuts.

I say nuts because I can only assume it was a man.

Every month I try to reason with Puppy.  (That’s the part of myself that gets overly exuberant about everything.)

Puppy: Look! Our temperature is way low today! Today’s 7-10 days after ovulation.  I think we’re pregnant!!!

Cathy: Or it means that we slept with the window open and we’re freezing.  See the goosebumps?

Puppy: Was that a twinge? It was! That was totally an implantation cramp!

Cathy: No, I think that’s from the wine and ramen noodles we had for “dinner” last night.

Puppy: You should stop drinking wine.  We’re totally pregnant.

Repeat above scene with each common early pregnancy PMS symptom:  fatigue to the point of stupidity, food cravings, bitchiness, crying at the drop of a hat, nausea, and sore boobies.

That’s what I found this morning when I logged onto Fertility Friend* to enter my temp and the first day of my period (click to enlarge it).  A “free VIP upgrade” that I didn’t want, for this very reason.  Because it gangs up with Puppy to convince me I’m pregnant, and then I’m outnumbered.   And really start to believe it.

It’s all Look at your good sex timing!** and Look – an implantation dip! and Holy crap you can take a test today!!!”

Except? Aunt Flo had already arrived bright and early this morning to piss in my Cheerios.

When I do enter my period into my chart, FF just starts the cycle over, like nothing happened.  The least it could do after getting my hopes up for weeks is give me some pasta, chocolate, and wine.  And some salt & vinegar potato chips.

See the thing is, I do get my hopes up.  Every month.  Even though common sense tells me not to.

And then I get disappointed and have a difficult day or two.  Days where I try to remember that this is happening to my husband, too.  I don’t know if I always do a very good job of that.

But even though it’s hard, I think I’d rather deal with the disappointment than stop getting my hopes up.  That feels too much like giving up.

* For the record, I have no beef with Fertility Friend and I’m going to continue to use the free, non-VIP service as soon as they’ll let me.  The fancy stuff just feeds my neuroses.  Of which I clearly have several.

** Also for the record, we did it more often than that. Way more often. I’m just lazy about things that are less fun than sex. Like data entry.

If you look at my about page or my various social media bios it sure looks like we’ve been actively trying for a long time with no baby, or even a fetus or embryo to show for it.  But we haven’t really been trying.

Confused yet?

We got married in November 2007 and spent at least the first year actively trying to not get me pregnant.  Which, incidentally is how I’ve conducted my entire sexual life.  I’ve never been in a situation with a previous partner where we thought it would be good for me to get knocked up, so we made sure it didn’t happen.  Which is why I’m always astounded that when I proudly respond “No” to the “Have you ever had an accidental pregnancy?” question I get a frown and a note in my chart instead of a high-five.  Pardon me for using birth control consistently and effectively.

When Jerrad and I decided we were ready to start a family, I scheduled an ob/gyn appointment that I had been putting off for years after being surgically treated for cervical cancer.

Because after being treated for cancer, putting off yearly check-ups is a really intelligent choice.  I got lucky in that I had the aggressive fast strain that almost always goes away entirely after one surgery, and every pap smear since has been normal.  I repeat… I got lucky.  Not following up with a doctor was so irresponsible of me.  I can’t say it enough.

Anyway.  At that appointment in the fall of 2008 my ob/gyn found lots of gunk in my uterus that started off a thoroughly blogged year of tests, D&C’s, and waiting to get into see a surgeon who could remove the fibroid garden in my uterus.  Throughout this time we were having plenty of unprotected sex, including several months of me taking my bbt, charting, peeing on ovulation predictor kits, and seducing my husband with announcements of my impending ovulation.

It was all for naught, because when we finally got to surgery time and could see the inside of my uterus (well, not me, I was asleep), it was obvious a pregnancy would never have happened.  The fibroids were taking up more than the available space in my uterus.  Seriously, once I figure out the scanner, I’m totally going to show you guys.

Since I do happen to be slightly over the age of 35, at my initial surgery consult, Dr. Specialist talked with us about the subject of fertility in general and where we would stood with treatment.  While I’m certainly not grateful to have had the fibroids, I am extremely grateful that it has given us a sort-of back door access to the knowledge and services of a specialist without the “trying for a year” most couples have to go through to even get a referral.

Like I said earlier, no one has said “infertile” to me, but I do know I have some challenges.  Almost a quarter of my cervix was removed during my previous surgery.  My mom and both of her sisters have lost pregnancies.  More than one.  Fibroids and polyps almost always grow back, so now the clock is ticking too.

But even so… another reason I think we’re luckier than some couples?  Infertility is never going to just come up out of the blue and bite us in the ass.  We’re prepared for it.  We’ve been talking about the possibility that I can’t produce an heir to the throne since before we got married.  He still chose to marry me knowing that my parts might not work.  That has to give us some sort of coping advantage.

During these discussions we talked about what we would do if I wasn’t getting pregnant.   I know some couples are fine with never having children or actively choose not to.  But, that’s not us.  We can’t think of anything more important than being parents.

We also talked about how we each felt about fertility treatment and adoption.  Fortunately, as in most things, we found we were much closer to agreement then disagreement on where our “lines” were.

This is where I hesitate to be specific, because I would never want anyone to feel like I was passing judgment on their choices.  I’m not… by any means.  I can only talk about what feels like the right thing for us, and what doesn’t feel like the right thing for us.

None of this has anything to do with the rules or dogma of my religion, but it does have to do with my spiritual beliefs about family and love and the birth of the soul and all this other deep shit I haven’t decided if I want to talk about here.

So, where we stand is this: if I can’t get pregnant from making love with my husband, we’re going to adopt.  We’re willing to do lots of things to help that along – surgeries, tests, maybe even some drugs to encourage ovulation.

That’s one reason why we’re going to go ahead and do a sperm analysis.  If there’s a problem, then we’ll know and it will help us make decisions about adoption more quickly.

It’s not just for the blog material.

Well, I suppose again isn’t exactly the right word, since all of our previous trying efforts were destined from the start to be futile on account of how there were a bunch of fibroids already taking up all of the room in there.

And no doubt confusing any sperm that dared enter. What the hell is this? The directions said to go straight up and to the left or right. Are we in a forest? A hedge maze?

On account of my advanced age, if I haven’t conceived within six months, we’ll look at some next steps, like checking my tubes for blockages.

So… remember when I said I was going to do this detailed post about my appointments with Dr. Specialist and the hysteroscopic myomectomy, and scan the surgery pictures and make it all fancy like?

Yeah, I’m not.  Knowing me, if I haven’t it written it by now, chances are I’ll never get around to it.  I’ll give you the short version so we can all move on.

The short version is that he’s a fantastic doctor who obviously knows his stuff and is good at what he does.  I also happen to really like him and think he’s funny.  If you’re going to talk about your sex life and your husband’s sperm count with someone who has an ultrasound thingie up your hooha, it’s a real bonus if you happen to get along with them, too.

Oh yeah,  the other thing we’re just going to go ahead and take care of soon is Jerrad’s sperm analysis.  And yes, I have obtained permission to write about certain aspects of it.

What I learned at yesterday’s appointment was that the surgery was successful, and the wall of my uterus looks good.  A slight bit of bad news is that I still have two somewhat sizable fibroids in there, but they aren’t in a position likely to interfere with conception or pregnancy.

He was also able to tell that I had successfully ovulated from my right ovary recently (yesterday was day 20 of my cycle).  It looked all cute and kidney bean shaped and there was a super pretty corpus luteum.

Then we looked at my left ovary.  It looked like a kidney bean being eaten by a tiny football.  As he looked more closely at the cyst, he pointed out some layers and swirly things that led him to believe it was a dermoid cyst.

Yes, that’s a cyst made up of hair, teeth, eyes, bone, cartilage, etc.  Attached to my left ovary.  Awesome.

At this point he’s recommending we leave it alone.  My ovary could still be working, and there’s a risk of causing damage if we remove the cyst now.  These types of cysts are almost always benign, and the chance of it bursting is fairly small.

Although I was initially pretty irritated that my follow-up appointment got pushed back so far, the timing turned out to be perfect.  Now we know for sure I’ve got a good working ovary, and we know which month the good one is up to bat.  We’ll still try just as hard on the “off” months, but my expectations will be adjusted a bit.

I think it’s safe to assume we missed the boat this month, but next month, it’s ON.

After a 6 month “vacation” I’ve returned to the world of the gainfully employed, and let me tell you, the adjustment has been painful. Painful.

I mean, it’s not like I’ve never done this before. I’ve always worked – I got my first job when I was 14 – except for a few weeks here and there when I was between jobs. But these past 6 months have given me a taste of what it’s like to be a stay at home wife, and I have to say, I really liked it.

And not just because having all that free time is totally sweet. Believe me, it is.

But also because I had so much time to spend with my family. Maybe I’m some sort of 50s housewife deep down, but I loved being home to make my husband lunch, cook a fabulous dinner, keep the house clean, the laundry done, and the fridge stocked. I mean, seriously, the only thing missing was me meeting him at the door with a martini and his slippers.

Not only that, I had plenty of time to work out, read blogs and magazines and smutty fanfic, and stay on top of all the details involved in running a household.

If I got insomnia, it didn’t really matter because I didn’t have anywhere to be anyway.

I had the freedom to pee on my ovulation sticks in the privacy of my own bathroom instead of trying to do it on a break.

I was home and available for nooners should said ovulation test be positive, in which case it’s important to have sex like rightnow. Because when you’ve been trying to conceive for 7 months, and even though you’ve already had sex like 5 times in the last 3 days, missing that one potential opportunity to make a baby feels like the end of the world.

If I felt an IBS flare-up coming on, I had the ability to adjust my diet, exercise schedule, and meal routine any way I needed to manage my symptoms.

Unfortunately, I don’t have that ability right now, which resulted in me being sick as a dog last week, and missing two shifts on my brand new job. Awesome.

Anyway. I realize things just feel crappy now because it’s an adjustment, and also because training actually requires more out of me than when I actually go on the schedule for reals. I just need to get through the next week and a half or so, and figure out a way to keep as much of my symptom management routine going as possible.

But, I’m on the mend and not at all totally prepared to work 6 am – 2 pm the next 4 days. Yes, that said 6 am. As in starting my shift at 6 am. As in leaving my house at 5:30 am.

Sweet Jesus.

Unfortunately I had let things go for so long that all I accomplished was cleaning the kitchen and bathroom and doing laundry. Which means I still have to dust and vacuum and sweep today. And fit in two hours of A Haunting. And some other shit I promised to do for Jesus, all while trying to remember that I am not allowed to eat meat today.

Can I just take a moment to say here that I might be the only person who doesn’t like hardwood floors? It just means I have to clean the damn floor twice, in two different ways. And since we rent, our many throw rugs aren’t a decorating statement so much as they are an effort to protect our deposit from Jellydog’s nails.

Anywho. Of course I’m disappointed that I’m not pregnant. But not terribly disappointed. Because I honestly expected not to be anyway.

First of all, even if my ladyparts were all in proper working order, it can take 35 year old women a year to conceive. On average. Meaning it could take us that long, for no particular reason at all. Second of all, it was our first month of trying. My luck is just not that good. Third of all, my ladyparts are not, in fact, in proper working order.

Truthfully, I don’t even regret FF getting me all worked up with their pregnancy monitor either. We’re supposed to be thinking positively here, and it was fun to pay attention to all the things that were going on with my body.

I have my own theory about what happened, with no way to prove it, it’s just what I think and feel. The only “research” I have to base it on is what was happening with my own body compared to some articles, blogs, and personal stories I’ve read.

There’s lots of talk about how even when both male and female parts are working perfectly, sex is perfectly timed, everyone follows all the rules perfectly, pregnancy still doesn’t happen that month.

The stuff I’m reading suggests that it’s not so much the fertilization that’s the tricky part. In fact, unless the issue is with the woman’s eggs or the man’s little swimmers, fertilization probably happens more often than it doesn’t happen. It’s that trip through the Fallopian tubes and finding a place to set up shop in the uterus where things tend to fall apart.

When Aunt Flo showed up and ruined all my plans I went back and looked more closely at my chart. I didn’t imagine the things I was feeling, even though I was trying to explain them away with caffeine withdrawal and alien brain thieves.

I most definitely wasn’t imagining the fatigue that started about 4 days after I ovulated. It was like nothing I have ever felt, and this is coming from someone who has had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the past. It wasn’t just that I really wanted a nap, it’s that I could not function without one, sometimes two, a day. I once fell asleep sitting upright in my chair reading a blog.

My bbt went down, significantly, 10 days after ovulation. I had mild cramping that day, and the next. My boobs hurt. My brain cells appeared to be leaving my head at an alarming rate.

The fatigue just…went away on Tuesday. I had energy and felt like doing something for the first time in almost a week. I only dozed for 15 minutes on the couch as opposed to passing out and drooling on myself for two and a half hours. I could think clearly again.

Something was different, and I felt much less optimistic about the pregnancy test the next day. But Aunt Flo had to be a bitch and come later in the morning, so I still wasted a pregnancy test when I got up.

So, maybe, just maybe, what happened was that everything was going along swimmingly, and a little embryo (or is it blastocyst?) did implant in my uterus. And then a day or so later it was all, “Damn, these are not cozy digs. There’s no room up in here! I’m out.”

Which means Jerrad and I will be spending some time this weekend filling out ginormous packets full of terribly rude questions like how old was I when I got my boobies and how often does my husband jack off, so we can get an appointment with the fertility specialist and I can have more uncomfortable medical instruments inserted into my hooha.

Of course it was. I knew damn well I was testing too early, but I did it anyway. Even though almost everyone says not to test until your period is at least one day late. Even though the directions on the test specifically said that if implantation just occurred the test will be falsely negative. I still peed on it.

FF sure thinks I’m pregnant. I didn’t tell them about my negative result today, because I don’t need another person to say, “You tested too early, dumbass”. But it still thinks my low temp yesterday was implantation. And it got really excited at my temp today, because it was pretty high, making my chart “triphasic” which is also apparently a symptom of early pregnancy.

It’s also very excited that I’m cramping, that my boobs hurt, that I’ve had a headache for three days, that my back is killing me, that I’m having creamy cervical fluid, and that I’m constantly tired.

So now my pregnancy monitor is up to 63.

The constantly tired is getting old. I need a nap and I just got up three and a half hours ago. I have a to-do list a mile long and no energy. It’s really hard not to be cranky when you are this tired.

Anyway, I’m not terribly disappointed because I know I tested too early. So, I’m just pretending it didn’t happen. That’s what I do with things I don’t like. I just ignore them.

I can’t really say I feel pregnant, because I have no idea what that feels like. I do know that if this is PMS, it’s the worst I’ve ever had in my life. I do know that if this is fatigue from caffeine withdrawal, I’m pretty sure I can’t hang. I’m exhausted to the point of being almost dysfunctional.

But the main thing that’s making me think I’m probably not pregnant is the complete and utter lack of nausea. I realize some women don’t get this symptom at all, or don’t get it very badly. But, this is me we’re talking about here. I get nauseated and throw up if food looks at me the wrong way.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I did feel nauseated last night at bedtime, but I’m pretty sure it was because I ate three brownies. Yes, three. Who knew gluten-free brownies could be so delicious?

Craving chocolate sure sounds like PMS to me. And the exhaustion could very well be a little bit of depression.

Speaking of depression, here it is, Monday again. The day I do my weekly claim for unemployment benefits. Another week of pointlessly filling out job applications. And last Friday I had the pleasure of being informed that three positions I had applied for had been filled, and I never even got an interview. I’m more than halfway through my benefits now, and it’s not looking very good. Not to mention how bad it’s making me feel about myself. Especially now since my only job is to take care of my house and my husband and I’m too tired to even do a good job at that.

I don’t even want to talk about the search for a house because it’s even more depressing than the search for a job. I don’t even want to talk about how I’m so over this town it isn’t funny.

Blah. I’m going to eat some french fries and a brownie and take a nap.

According to everything I’ve read, even if you have one of those super fancy highly sensitive early pregnancy tests, you still shouldn’t test until the day before you expect your period. At the earliest. If you test too early, it’s likely you will get a negative, even if you are actually pregnant. Which is disappointing. Not to mention expensive if you keep testing too early every month.

Wednesday is day 28, and I almost always get my period between 8am and 12pm on day 28. Seriously, it’s that regular.

That means I shouldn’t test until Tuesday, which still might be too early. Meanwhile, today FF decided to tell me they are detecting early pregnancy signs on my chart. Which is awesome unless they are big fat liars.

The napping has continued in full force, and two nights this week I slept 10 hours when I usually sleep 6 or 7. The house is a mess and I have zero energy to do anything about it other than read blogs, watch TV, and comment on how dirty the house is.

I’m pretty sure aliens are sneaking into our bedroom at night and scooping out my brain cells with a spoon. I feel like I’ve lost about 20 IQ points in the last few days. I’m forgetting things, messing up words when I talk, and sending my husband to the store to buy things I’ve already bought.

I guess I should say that the reason FF is detecting early pregnancy signs today is because today is the first day I entered them. There are so many screens on that site and I ignore half of them because they don’t apply to me.

Anyway, this morning I woke up at 6 and had to pee really bad. So I decided to take my temp then, even though it was about an hour earlier than usual, because I’m pretty sure using the potty counts as “getting up and moving around”. I was really tired and planning to go back to sleep and also didn’t want to turn the light on and wake my husband up, so I took my temp and turned off the thermometer without even looking at it. It saves the last temp you took so I knew when I woke up for reals I could check it and put it in the chart.

Of course, I couldn’t fall back asleep, so half an hour later I just got up and entered the temp without really paying attention whether it was close to my other recent temps. My chart got all excited and put a big circle around the temp and called it a potential implantation dip because it was much lower than usual and occurred 10 days past ovulation. Then my pregnancy monitor, which previously had been blank, opened up a bunch of fields, and gave me this green ticker thing that said I had 35 points.

Fortunately there was also a “what’s this?” button because I had no idea what the hell was going on. Apparently there is a whole screen of symptoms that I’ve been ignoring. In my defense, there’s a lot to read on that site and information overload comes on quickly. Especially when you have less brain cells to work with because aliens are stealing them.

The last two days I’ve been feeling decidedly not pregnant because the symptoms I’m having are almost identical to PMS. Fatigue, irritability, headache, backache, and sore boobs. My weight even went up about 2 pounds yesterday which I chalked up to PMS bloating. Instead of the thousand extra calories I consumed the night before having a big ol pile of BBQ with a giant Sprite. Which was a poor substitute for the beer I really wanted.

Hey, that was the last Friday I get to eat meat for like 6 weeks. I was doing it up.

So this time I actually read the instructions, imagine that, and they tell you to just enter your symptoms without overanalyzing everything. They don’t know me very well. Overanalyzing is what I do best.

For some reason, cervical fluid was on there, too. I had quit reading all about that as soon as I decided I wasn’t sticking my finger up my hooha every day and I sure as hell wasn’t sticking it up there far enough to check my cervical position. I did remember reading something about how some women check their fluid by what they see in their underwear, and then they can sniff it as a way of determining what type it is.

Excuse me? First of all, I don’t need to sniff my underwear to know I smell like roses. And second of all, since I rarely leave the house, I live in pajamas. Who wears underwear with pajamas?

But then I saw a section that some women just before and during implantation have gushes of cervical fluid. Ok, so that’s totally been happening to me the last day or two. It happened so much yesterday when we went to see Twilight that I almost went to the bathroom because I thought I was having my period super early. Then when we got home, I gave in and smelled my underwear since I was actually wearing some. And, just as I thought… roses.

Anyway, the pregnancy monitor really liked that, and by the time I was done entering everything my score was 50. But. This could still just as likely be PMS with a healthy dose of caffeine withdrawal. That explains everything, too.

Tuesday is like forever away.

PS. Even super awesome men like my husband just don’t get Twilight. He was a sport and went with me to see it yesterday. And to his credit he only looked like he wished he was dead once or twice.

J: What I don’t get, is if he’s immortal, why would he be messing with some ordinary high school girl? Why wouldn’t he just be with some hot stripper or something?

Me: Exactly! That’s why it’s so romantic. He wants her, because she’s his soulmate and he’s been waiting like 80 years for her.

J: blank stare

Me: Men just don’t get this movie.

UPDATE: Ok, I seriously need my brain cells back because now I can’t even count. Tuesday is day 28, not Wednesday. Which makes test day Monday – tomorrow.

The rest of it is so much easier than I thought it would be. Thanks to the site I’m using for fertility charting, I don’t need to do anything other than enter my temp, my test results, and when we do it, and it does everything else for me. Including analysis of my chart and various types of alerts. It even gave us a high score on intercourse.

I’m going to assume that was for timing, not technique, or else this website is way up in my business.

I seem to have acquired an internal alarm clock that wakes me up at almost exactly the same time every day to take my temp, even on weekends when my husband’s alarm isn’t set.

I don’t even miss alcohol all that much. Stop laughing, it’s true. I’ve realized it was more of a habit to have a drink or two every night than anything else. Although I did cheat a little, tiny bit. I had one glass of white wine with dinner on Valentine’s Day.

Which reminds me, I should really find out if Communion wine is a big deal. I mean, it’s just one tiny sip once a week. And well, Jesus kind of sticks in the throat if you don’t have something to drink.

I knew my biggest challenge going in would be caffeine, but even that’s been easier than I thought. I’ve gone from a double shot latte in the mornings and one to two servings of extra afternoon caffeine to one cup of coffee that is half regular coffee and half decaf. Plus, I gotta tell you, I’m sleeping like a baby now.

I’ve always been plagued by insomnia and frequently relied on drinks, benadryl, cold medicine, whathaveyou just to get some sleep. I don’t even need that stuff anymore. Which is good because I’m not really allowed to have any of it. And even if something is considered “safe”, I only want to take it if I’m say, actually sick. Even then I think I would consider toughing it out.

It’s not like I’m naive enough to think that I really am pregnant on our first month of trying. Especially given that I’m 35 and my ladyparts are known to be rather uncooperative. But I can’t help reading all this stuff about early pregnancy signs and analyzing every little thing, and hoping. Positive thinking is supposed to help, right?

According to my fertility chart, I’m on day 23 of my cycle, 7 days past conception, if it happened to occur, and at least 4 days away from taking a pregnancy test. Everything else looks picture perfect on my chart. My ovulation date was easily pinpointed (right before Valentine’s Day, awww), our intercourse was perfectly timed, and my temps are doing what they should.

Including dipping slightly today, which if I did conceive, is when the cute little embryo would be burrowing into the wall of my uterus. Probably saying, “Damn it fibroids, get the fuck up out of my way!”

I’m also having some cramping today, another symptom of implantation. But that could also just as easily be my cranky intestines protesting the chicken nacho salad concoction I had for lunch yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, the last thing I remember was that it was 3 pm and I was just getting annoyed that A Haunting was a repeat again, then all of a sudden it was 5 pm, my husband was standing over me as I was curled up on the couch, drooling, snuggled under a blanket I don’t even remember reaching for.

Then it took me at least 45 minutes to pull together a dinner comprised almost entirely of leftovers because I kept forgetting what I was doing.

Was this the exhaustion and pregnancy brain that plagues the newly pregnant even though it’s too early for that? No, probably not, especially when the more likely explanation is that I’ve recently cut my caffeine consumption by almost three-fourths. How can that not affect your functioning?

But still. I’m looking at my expected due date if I did conceive this cycle and thinking about things. Things like how much it would rock not to have to fast on certain days during Lent because I’m pregnant, when I’ll have a cute pregnant belly, when I can buy maternity clothes, and best of all, when I’ll finally have me some big ol boobies.

My expected due date would be November 5. Umm, November’s full enough already between my husband’s birthday, my birthday, and our anniversary. Not to mention the holidays. Also, that would give us three Scorpios in the house. Yikes.

Still. I just want it to be time to pee on a stick already!