Another Month Gone

Got my period yesterday.

It's been four months of TTC, or trying to conceive, as they say, and Mr. Lyrehca and I are impatient.

Back in August, after eight months of fine-tuning the blood sugars, after an unrelated health issue on Mr. Lyrehca's part, after somehow feeling more OK about the whole baby thing than ever, I stopped taking the Pill.

My blood sugars were actually looking good, even to me. My always-low A1Cs crept even lower. The secret to having managable blood sugars, I figured, was eating pretty much the same thing every day.

Breakfast, it's oatmeal, Splenda-sweetened peanut butter, another packet of Splenda, and some raspberries or blueberries mushed together with a side of skim milk. It's a glorious deconstructed peanut butter and jelly sandwich that reacts appropriately to a bolus and doesn't (usually) send me soaring high an hour after I've eaten (as those white simple carbs do). I will eat this meal for the rest of my life.

Lunch, I'm keeping the local French sandwich shop across the street from my office in business. Since January 2005, I have eaten a turkey or chicken sandwich with herb mayo, Swiss, cucumbers and onions on whole grain bread. People at work can't believe I eat the same lunch every day, but as I tell them, it's easier for me to do the same bolus every day and forget about it. My sugars, again, react appropriately. (The office doesn't know I'm TTC, but they know about the diabetes. They'll learn about the reason behind my daily same-sandwich-schtick in due time).

Dinner's the wild card, because really, a girl's gotta have her fun sometime. And since I go out and socialize over dinner more often than I do over lunch or breakfast, dinner's when I carb count and bolus and generally eat whatever I want to eat.

That means my overnight blood sugars are generally whatever they want to be.

I am awake nearly every night in the wee hours, testing to see if I'm actually within range (which always shocks but pleases me) or woefully high (hello, bolus button!) or low (hello, LifeSavers!)

So, back to the TTC. (Interesting, all the acronyms and fake names for this activity. We're having sex without birth control so we can have a kid, People. Is that so hard to type? But on bulletin boards about pregnancy and elsewhere, TTC is the common term. Besides the more-sanitized TTC, I've seen the appalling BD, for doing the "Baby Dance." or BM, for "Baby Making." Doing the baby dance? Oy. We're trying to fuck over here--move the top hats and tutus to another bed.)

OK, off the soapbox.

August, went off the Pill, was told to have protected sex for a month to get said Pill out of the system, and September, we're going at it.

Early October, the period arrives (and its name is NOT "Aunt Flo," another cringe-worthy pseudonym). I call my high risk doc and endo and ask if we're doing something wrong.

"Get an ovulation prediction kit," I'm told.

We get the kit, which consists of seven sticks I'm supposed to pee on after a certain number of days after the last period. I pee. I see lines telling me I'm about to ovulate. We have our sex.

And again, the period arrives.

I call the high risk ob again and tell her we're still impatient. And since we're 35, we don't want to sit around, literally pissing the time away if there's a problem.

I'm given the phone number of a local infertility clinic and call in November. They don't have an opening until January, which I take. I figure if there's still no positive pregnancy result in the new year, it'll be closer to the "six months of unprotected sex and no pregnancy" definition of infertility, anyway.

In November, I do two things. I call the infertility clinic and tell them I want blood work for an ovarian reserve test, which are blood tests done on the third day of your period to determine if you're even producing enough eggs or not. (Being a researcher is handy; my super diabetes endo didn't know what I was talking about when I called her about this, but thankfully the infertility folks did.) Although my appointment's not for two months, I figure, if I can get the test done and figure out the results, I'll know we're not wasting time these two months if there's no egg to fertilize. I get the blood work done at my primary care doc's office, and get the results faxed to the infertility clinic and myself. And while the infertility clinic won't discuss the results with me til my Jan. appointment (and why would they? They haven't even met me yet, the nutty impatient research-happy diabetic who just wants to get the show on the road already), I can analyze the results myself through the wonder of Google. As far as I can tell, I've still got eggs aplenty. So cross premature menopause off the list.

I also start charting my waking temperatures and oy! observing my cervical mucus. According to a very-often-quoted book out there in pregnancy- and conception-land, taking your temperature first thing in the morning and checking out consistency of your vaginal goop will tell you when you're ovulating so you can figure out when to best fuck for fertility.

There's a nifty online package of this charting thing where you can enter your temps and goop reports online, and the program will pinpoint when you're ovulating (as long as there's no underlying medical problem). So in December, I take my temperature. I check out the mucus downstairs. I keep online records. I tell Mr. Lyrehca when it's time for sex. My computer chart looks great.

And then yesterday the period arrived.

I know next month might work for us and then I can cancel the expensive and not-covered-by-insurance infertility appoinment. I know in two weeks I could conceive and that this stuff just takes time for some people. I also wonder if there's something clogged in my uterus or tubes that's preventing things from connecting and moving along, or if Mr. Lyrehca's swimmers aren't swimming, in which case, bring on the infertility experts.

But right now, all we can do is wait.

And as you can guess if you're still reading along, patience ain't one of my virtues.