NYE

Lexington, Gillian, Grayson...these are just a few names that float around in my head these days. My hopeful womb continues to yearn. These last couple of weeks I've been more observant than usual waiting for any symptoms to appear. But my breasts never became tender, my stomach never grew nauseated with an influx of progesterone, and my test(s) never yielded positive results. I'm not pregnant. And I suppose it's for the best, really.

It's New Year's Eve, and CJ has momentarily gone to work at the hanger finishing up an upholstery job he took on for a co-worker of . He says he will be home by 1pm, but I predict that he will be longer. He tends to work harder than the average person, meaning he becomes tunnel visioned quite easily. His ADHD also does him a disservice, but I love his ambition.

We have dinner reservations at one of our favorite restaurants, Anthony's Lounge and Ristorante, at 4pm this evening. It's a little earlier than I would have liked, but we were quite limited since NYE reservations typically book up faster than the average holiday. I figured we would enjoy a nice filet mignon dinner followed by a movie, then scurry home to watch the Ball drop. Quite honestly, we aren't the most adventurous couple when compared to our peers, but we are ok with this. We are really comfortable being creatures of habit and embracing the old souls that we are. Admittingly, these are some of the characteristics that really attracted CJ to me in the first place. At the end of the day, (or the year, I suppose) you've got to be OK with who you are, knowing there is only so much variation that we are capable of. The rest is merely cemented in our DNA.

 With this being said, I don't intend to change much this year. I know there are a lot of things I need to work on, like being more patient, more kind, watching my tone with loved ones and being more productive with my time. I graduated in August, and I still have not taken my CBEST which I need to apply to credential programs. I've allowed fear to manifest and completely discourage me from confidently taking this test and applying to programs. I know CJ is counting on me. Our hope is for me to obtain my credential, start working as a full-time teacher so he can quit his job with the school district and open up his own upholstery and carpentry business. Evidently, living solely on a teacher's salary isn't the most lucrative, but the benefits are excellent.

This past month was the first month since getting off birth control in May that we intentionally planned our intimacy to be more in line with my fertile window. My period tracker app continuously changes my day of ovulation, however, so unless I am supplementing the app with tracking my temperature every morning (RBT), I will never know when I am ovulating exactly. Fertility specialists suggest that having intimacy every other day during my fertile window will enhance my ability to get pregnant, but unless CJ and I are determined to get pregnant (which we aren't) we can't really justify doing this quite yet. It's hard to describe what CJ and I are doing regarding getting pregnant...but in a nutshell, it goes something like this:

We aren't actively trying, but we aren't actively preventing it, either. We aren't modifying our intimacy in any way nor are we increasing the amount of intimacy we have.

CJ has more of the attitude that if we find ourselves pregnant, we will embrace it with open arms. If we aren't, we will continue doing what we are doing until one of us is at a place where financially it's more feasible to justify supporting a child and begin actively trying, then.

Enough with all the baby talk. I've let my coffee get disgustingly tepid and have just spilled some of my Mango yogurt drink down my boob. Blogging completely shirtless has its pros and cons, but this is definitely one of them.


D

Hopeful Womb

It's so thrilling to me...that this very moment I could possibly be pregnant.

I mean, I suppose not necessarily FULLY pregnant since my fertilized egg has probably not descended or implanted into my uterus quite yet, a journey that will take my precious blastocyst several days to accomplish. As of right now, that's all it is...a free-floating blastocyst. Or I suppose it could be nothing at all, really. There is no way in knowing at this point in time if I am in fact pregnant in the most generic sense of the word.

"But if I were pregnant...suppose it did happen..." This is all that I can think about these days. I am clearly going insane thinking about the possibilities, reading into every bodily feeling and emotion. How would we tell people? What would our family think? How would we afford it? What would this mean for our jobs? Would we need to trade one of our cars to get a more 'stroller/car-seat friendly' model? Would we sell the bike? I suppose the guest bedroom could be turned into a nursery, but what would Carla think? How will I finish my credential program? How much does it cost to actually birth a child in a hospital? Would my mom come? WHAT IF WE HAD TWINS? I hope we only have one to start with. Would we ever be able to move out? How will this impact CJ's career? What would this mean for us moving to Kansas? Will I be a good mom? What if, what if, what if, blah, blah, blah.

They say stress diminishes fertility. I once had a doctor tell me, "You just need to relax and it will happen." Coincidentally, this was the same doctor that I was seeing for my anxiety problem. As you can imagine, I found her advise to be a bit challenging.

Overall, 50% of all fertilized eggs are lost. I'm praying my uterus defies these odds and is 100% receptive of our precious traveler. I intend on taking a pregnancy test on Sunday, which will be Christmas Eve. My womb is hopeful. What a perfect gift that little plus sign would be.

But I Do

I once had a love

who wrote all the right words 

And his poetic soul resonated 

With mine

And much like his love,

His words eventually ended 

with the smallest of black holes;

A period.