CD26, 10DPO

Negative this morning the first morning I realistically could have gotten a positive. Is okay. I am very, very glad I've been testing -- if I had been waiting and building up to this morning, I think the letdown would have been enormous.

Well, I'm still not out of the game. But I need to start planning for next month.

Monday: buy Ov-Watch with second day shipping. Should be here on Wednesday, aka CD1.

To buy:
more syringes, 10cc Air-Tite. 20?
Syringe tips, 20
needles (18-ga?), 20

I'm undecided about LH tests. They completely failed for me this cycle, and they're messy and tedious. OTOH, it'd be interesting to see how and if they correlate with the Ovacue and Ov-Watch.

Musings about ovulation prediction technology:
The Ovacue has not been useless, but it has been a bit of a disappointment. I'd say its major utility is for not predicting, but confirming ovulation. That's not nothing, but it's also probably not enough for something that is sold for $400. I'm pretty happy having paid $250, and I figure I can easily get back $200 of that when I sell it. But the length between cue peak and ovulation is just too variable. Maybe it's fine for people who just need to know vaguely when to fuck -- but if that's all they need, they can probably get that far with cervical mucus. For precise timing it's just not that useful.

On the other hand, it is *the* only way I know of confirming ovulation, and if you didn't have any health insurance covering infertility, that could be huge. Or if, like me, you just really hate doctors. Considering all I have spent and will spend on ovulation prediction, I'm sure it would have been cheaper to go to a doctor and be monitored via ultrasounds... but I just really, really want to at least try to do this at home, on our bed, together. And I'm so lazy. If I buy some gadget, then I do not have to leave the house. The outside world is cold and has no little white dogs.

If the Ov-Watch actually does give four days advance notice, then it will be worth every penny. I chafe at the expensive sensors (although I also intend to try and figure out if there's any way to reuse them), but if it works it will be exactly what is needed.

I've also ordered some water-hardness testing strips for testing my saliva. I'll be interested to see how closely the calcium/magnesium change lines up with the NaCl peak of the Ov-Watch, or the mysterious "electrolytes" of the Ovacue. If -- as this patent seems to indicate it might -- it matches up pretty well with the Ov-Watch then that will be, like, a major breakthrough in lesbian insemination technology, considering that I just paid $10 for 50 sticks. It's like the freaking wedding industry. If it's vaguely fertility-related, color it pink and add an extra zero onto the price. And we will pay it.

I bought the law and the law won:
Got the bill from M's lawyer. A cool $225 more than she estimated, but I guess if you're a lawyer that's pocket change.  Grrr. Well, if she had told me up front how much it was going to cost, it's not like I would have said no. I think the whole lawyer thing is going to end up being $1k+ more or less wasted, but it falls into the category of insurance, I guess. I have to be able to say that I did all I could do to protect us. Although it's not true; I could have pushed harder for M&G to actually execute the agreement before trying the first cycle... I just didn't care any more by then, and indeed I think that if we had had to wait another month I would be in a corner somewhere eating my hands.


Things that I used to laugh at TTC-ers for doing:

1) Testing before the period is due. "Oh for heaven's sake," I used to think. "Wait two more days and you'll have a free test. Quit squinting at faint lines, come back in a week and you'll have a real result.

...

Yeah. I have new insight on exactly how long two days -- or a week -- can be.

2) Posting to message boards to analyze symptoms. "My hair is extra static-y this morning and I craved curly fries..." There are so many boards that post early early pregnancy symptoms, but none of them have a posting area for "symptoms I got in cycles during which I was not pregnant." I suspect the two boards would look very much alike. But. But. But. I was totally in the mood for tuna fish yesterday. Does it mean something?? *searches message boards*

3) Perusing pictures of other people's HPTs. In fairness, I wasn't so much looking to see what they looked like -- I am smart enough to tell "line" from "no line" -- as the reported DPOs. But still. I spent the better part of an hour looking at pictures of strangers' urine tests. That is not right. Does it mean something??

4) Referring to the menstrual period as "AF" for "Aunt Flo", and the act of sexual intercourse as "BD" for "Baby Dancing". I still laugh at this, particularly the second term. Cripes, how do you expect to ever get pregnant if you can't even say "HAVE SEX"?

I also don't much like the terminology of BFP and BFN, but they are so ubiquitous that I feel that I could hardly communicate without them. A BFP is much more than a positive on an hCG test. I'll just pretend to myself that it's "Big Fuckin' Positive", which somehow makes it infinitely more palatable.

And, on the subject of "baby dancing":
Although it is one of the griefs of being lesbians that we are automatically infertile together, it is one of the great gifts that we never have to turn sexual intimacy into a mechanistic process. I mean, I hear it's fun for a while, the "purposeful fucking" as Lauren used to call it -- but I also hear that after a year or so, it gets grim and depressing. I can easily imagine my body rebelling against being told what to do and when to do it.

The real question, though: will I ever be able to concentrate on my job again? If not, what the heck and I going to present at this meeting next weekend?