some thoughts about the luteal phase

... or as it is known by those in the know: The Two Week Wait.

- Is it just me, or are you always starving during the 2WW, too? I find dieting so much easier during the first two weeks of my cycles. But as soon as I ovulate, it's like I need all the food, NOW.

- my temperatures are still really low, with no thermal shift. This would seem to indicate my body is not responding to the increase in progesterone. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, my progesterone numbers are considered normal. Perhaps on the low end of normal, but normal enough to indicate I am ovulating. Should I just ask for progesterone?

- I asked Dr. Google how I could naturally bump up my BBT numbers, thereby hopefully increasing progesterone, and wow. Talk about mixed messages. Never trust Dr. Google.

- For example, there's one dude who says you should eat more sugar, and eat lots of whole foods, to the point that you are overeating, and you shouldn't exercise. I'm like: Hey. I am a living example of why that particular "method" doesn't work. Also, it's a little scary when people who aren't doctors dispense medical advice on the internet.

- The rest of the internet thinks I have a thyroid problem. Multiple tests have shown that, clinically, I do not.

- Plenty of internet geniuses think I should cut out gluten. I don't even know, you guys.

- Making Babies is not helping me the way I want to be helped right now. It alludes to a possible luteal phase defect. And the book and my doctor seem to disagree about what adequate levels of progesterone are ... I'm leaning toward simply asking for the progesterone supplement once this cycle is over.

- Mostly I just want to stop thinking about this forever.

Day 26

Every now and then my husband and I will be sitting around talking about this silly fertility thing and one of us (usually me, because I'm a masochist) says: What if we can't have kids?

Like, if the doctor tells us: You have no sperm. You have no uterus. You cannot naturally have a child.

My husband always says: Then I'm buying a car.

And I always say: I'll go on a trip to (fill in the blank. Usually Spain or Italy). Sometimes I say I'll get more cats. Sometimes I say I'll get a real job. Non-mommies are supposed to have real jobs, in offices. Right?

Then I'll usually ask: What about adoption? And we both kind of look at each other with a Meh look. Adoption is wonderful. Is adoption for us? We don't know until we've exhausted every option.

These conversations are all extraordinarily premature, but I like to think worst case scenario so I can prepare myself in case it really is the worst case scenario. For starters, we don't know what the problem is, and once we do know I imagine there will be options like medication, surgery, IUI, and IVF.

Which I don't even want to deal with. Part of me feels like if I can't conceive a kid completely naturally, that I don't even want to try medication and all the rest of it. Which is crazy talk, I know. But do you ever just get completely sick of even thinking about it? Sick, bitter, tired, etc.

Infertiles are always joking about their situations. Someone on Twitter the other day said something like: I should have been a teenage crack whore. The implication being that then getting pregnant would have been a piece of cake. 

I should have been Casey Anthony. I should have been the woman who lives behind me who cusses and screams at her kids every day. If I had cancer, I'd probably be able to get pregnant. If I were an alcoholic this would be a non-issue.

If you think about that stuff too long, you'll probably start feeling how I feel right now: nauseated and sad. No one ever said life was fair or easy, and actually, I specifically recall being told by various sources throughout my childhood that I wouldn't always get what I wanted and that would have to be the way things were, period.

Today is Day 26 and my period will probably show up some time in the next four days. I hurt my shoulder over the weekend and before I decided to take an ibuprofen, I remarked to my husband that pregnant women are not supposed to take ibuprofen. We agreed that I am not pregnant. No need to pee on a stick to confirm it; we just know it. I took the ibuprofen.

Day 3 of the next cycle, I'll finally be getting my blood taken. My husband will make a "donation." Part of me hopes for a diagnosis. Most of me thinks everything will come back normal. All of me is tired of thinking about it.

I know all that there is to know about the waiting game

(And I'm sorry if you have Boy George's "The Crying Game" stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Better that than "The Macarena." Or "My Sharona.")

When I made an appointment with my OB a few weeks ago, I explained to whoever it was I was speaking with: I have questions for her about fertility. I've been trying to get pregnant for a while and ... nothing is happening. 

I guess I assumed that, armed with this knowledge, the appointment-person would set me up with a non-standard meeting with the doctor, during which I could explain my basal rate temperatures, ovulation tests and suspicions about what I think is going on. With that assumption, I wrote down about ten questions for the doctor, packed my temperature charts in my purse and headed off to war. I mean, the gynecologist.

The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back with my legs in the air and a speculum in my nether regions and couldn't remember half of what I'd wanted to ask. In the past, my doctor's cheerful brevity and ruthless efficiency have been extremely welcome. That woman can do a breast exam and papsmear in five minutes flat, and before you know it, you're back in your car and feeling the least molested you've ever felt following a visit to an obgyn.

I tried to relay my concerns -- tried to convey that I'm not just some silly girl who's been bopping her husband and doesn't understand why she's not pregnant. I mean, I have charts! I've read books! I pee on sticks!

So you're having timed intercourse? the doctor asked cheerfully.

Timed intercourse is the least of it, woman!!! Timed intercourse is for amateurs! I deserve an honorary doctorate from Stanford! is what I was feeling. "Yes," is what I said.

Well, you're healthy. You're 32. Sometimes these things just take longer for some people, she said.

For her to say that was basically an indication of just how much she does not understand my level of obsession. I don't know whether to love her for making the situation seem like it's not a big deal or hate her for not trying harder to get me.

It's not as though she did anything wrong. She ordered up all the necessary tests, which is all I could have hoped for. I guess I'll stick with loving her for now.

So here's the plan. I'm on Day 19 of my cycle. I'll likely welcome Aunt Flo on Day 30. On Day 3 of my cycle, I get to have some blood drawn. Around the same time, my husband will also donate his own sample. Hopefully this will reveal something. Anything, for godssakes.

You never know. Maybe it will happen this cycle! my doctor enthused happily. 

Yeah. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.