I think I'm done.

We've been TTC for 14 months now, and we have absolutely nothing to show for it. Well, nothing except for lots of frustration, sadness and disappointment. Not even 1 BFP: nothing. All of our test results were perfect, and that's frustrating as hell because we have no answers at all. What are we supposed to do? Keep trying until I hit menopause? There's no closure, no peace; only unanswered questions and grief. All I know is I can't do this for much longer.

I'm only 10 dpo and I already know I'm out. I knew it yesterday, I just had that feeling when you know you're going to get your period. It's not even due until Sunday, but I know it's coming. Last night before bed I started spotting, and it just confirmed what I already knew: I'm not pregnant. All the supposedly promising symptoms I had - the sore boobs, nausea and fatigue - were just progesterone messing with me as usual.

I've probably mentioned before that when we bought this house almost a year ago, we made the mistake of labeling one of the bedrooms "the baby room". We've never done anything with that room, because it was supposed to be a nursery. We'd been TTC for a few months when we moved in, so we figured I'd be pregnant within the next few months. How wrong we were... Anyway, I can't stand to look at that room now. We use it as kind of a storage room, but we could easily put the stuff that's in there somewhere else. I think I'm going to turn it into a craft room, so I can at least use it for something. I might do it when my hubby is away, it'll keep me occupied for a while. At least it would keep all my craft stuff together in one place, away from the dogs and off the dining table. Maybe I can get a proper sewing table; that would make sewing easier because everything would be at the right height. I also want to get a comfy chair in there too, so I can crochet in peace. I can do that on the couch, but the dogs can get in the way and try to play with the yarn so it's not always easy.

I think there's a small part of me that thinks, "maybe if I do something with that room, I'll miraculously get pregnant - it would be typical, right?". If that happened, we'd be able to move the craft stuff out of there. It wouldn't be an issue, the house is almost 2200 sq. ft. after all. I sometimes wish we hadn't bought such a big place. We were planning on having kids here, so we'd grow into it. The big front room was going to be used as a playroom; instead, we hardly ever use it for anything. There's only the 2 of us and the pugs; we don't need all this space. We don't even have people over very often: my family (and the majority of my friends) are all in the UK, and my hubby's family, well... his mom is a freaking cray-cray who we can't have a relationship with for our own sanity, and we don't see his brother these days. His dad is OK and will probably be over in the next couple of weeks or so, but that's it.

I find myself wanting to adopt another pug, but I know it wouldn't fill the void in our lives. Part of the reason we haven't adopted another is because if we do have a baby, 3 dogs of our own would probably be a lot to manage on top of everything else. We could put fostering on hold until things calmed down a bit, but we couldn't do that with our own dogs obviously. I know I shouldn't adopt another, but part of me thinks that if we can't have a baby then why the hell not! Three dogs is cheaper than having a kid, even when you factor in unexpected vet bills etc. I don't think my hubby would agree to adopting another, anyway, so it doesn't matter what my heart is telling me. I haven't mentioned this to him because I know the answer will be a resounding "NO!" Plus, like I said, it's not going to fill the void of not having a baby. I just need to put the thought out of my mind and stop letting my emotions govern me.

CD21

My BBT this morning was normal, but my CM was still very watery and this afternoon I checked it again and it was egg-white! That's a really, really good sign! It means that I'm very close to ovulating - hopefully any day now! :-)

In other news, the house we're hoping to buy appraised for almost $21k less than the asking price, so we're anxiously waiting to hear what the seller is going to do. We're obviously hoping he'll still sell us the house but it's a big difference from what he wanted for it, so we're not sure at all what will happen.

So on the one hand, I'm happy (EWCM!) but on the other, I'm kinda sad and anxious (house uncertainty). There's not much we can do about the house, anyway - our realtor asked the mortgage company if they would allow us to get another appraisal and they said no (the logic being that if the second appraisal came back higher we would be willing to pay that, and thus presumably more likely to get the house). As things stand, the seller could take the house off the market or hold out for a cash offer. Or, he could surprise us and sell us the house. Man, this waiting sucks!

CD7

That was a horrible period, but it's over now thank goodness!

Not related to TTC, but we've just had a big disappointment regarding the house we were hoping to buy. We made our offer 3 months ago (it's a short sale) and we found out last Tuesday that our offer had been accepted. We were so excited! Then yesterday we had our inspection done, and it was bad news. There were lots of problems uncovered, not least problems with the foundations which have caused a hump in the floor of one of the bedrooms (the window has shifted too) and electrical wiring problems, plumbing problems and water damage and mold problems. After speaking with our realtor today, who advised us that the bank who owns the property will not do anything about any of these problems, we've withdrawn our offer. We're totally gutted, we were supposed to be closing on the house on July 21st and we couldn't be more disappointed. All that waiting for nothing. We were so looking forward to living there and now we're going to have to start over again, looking at more houses. We have an appointment on Friday to view a few houses, we're just so disappointed and I feel so empty. I haven't been able to eat today, I just feel sick with sadness.

I hope this doesn't interfere with TTC this cycle - I should be fertile from Saturday through to next Wednesday and I'm really hoping this will be our month...