Not out of the woods...yet

It has been a little over 29 days and the joy and elation I felt when my period finally returned has seriously dissipated.  Our trip to Mexico was a wonderful reprieve from worrying about this ever-elusive baby and from waking every morning to take my temperature.  Instead, I tried to sleep in (despite the loud neighbors and roosters) and take it easy.  I felt optimistic that things were now ‘back on track’ and that we simply needed to get back on the horse.

Oh…how naïve.  This week has been tough.  When we returned from Mexico, I started temping again.  It appeared that I had just ovulated and I watched each day as my temperatures seemed to soar higher and higher.  In fact, the highest I have seen them since my whole adventure into BBT (basal body temperature) began.  I even noticed that my temps went triphasic, which can often be a predictor of implantation and consequently a positive pregnancy test.  However, I kept getting negative tests.  I realized, the morning my temperature dropped from 98.2 to 97.6 that we were definitely out of the game this month. 

  

But oddly, that wasn’t where things turned bad.  It was in the days following.  I had told myself that regardless of the outcome – pregnant or not pregnant this month – I would be content that things were progressing in a positive way.  My cycle had returned, my body was getting back into the swing, and in time, we would get that positive test and we’d be on our way to building this family.  When my ‘period’ did arrive this month it lacked all gusto.  I am only calling it a period because it arrived when it should have.  It’s punctual; I’ll give it that.  But what it said loud and clear to me was that things are still not right. 

I called Dr. Johnson yesterday after the one-day period and our plans for the hysteroscopy on April 30^th are back on.  Yesterday was hard.   I think it is all compounded by the fact that I turn 37 next week and it makes me wonder if I will have a baby while I’m 37.  Will it take longer than this year? Will it never happen?  Then what?  For the first time in decades, I don’t feel like celebrating my birthday.  I don’t feel celebratory at all – about anything.  I just want this birthday to pass, for the months to pass until we actually have good news.  Right now, nothing feels very good at all.

When I got off the phone with Johnson’s office, I did what anyone with half a brain will tell you not to do.  I searched the Internet to find any information about pregnancy after hysteroscopy with removal of adhesions, which, in my completely untrained opinion, is the diagnosis.  For once, the first link listed was a woman my age, asking the same question.  And unlike what you usually find when you play this sort of World Wide Web roulette, the responses were so positive.  Women saying that yes, the cycle right after their procedure, they were pregnant.  And it wasn’t just one woman saying that, it was many.   And although I finished reading and felt optimistic and hopeful, it still left me feeling overwhelmed with sadness. 

I know I keep saying it, and I keep telling myself, our time will come – it will.  It’s just getting harder to believe it when any time it seems we get close to our dream, it keeps moving further away.