One year, one month and one week.

My period arrived about half-way through the pug rescue event I was running yesterday. I was prepared for it (my temp dropped by 0.5 yesterday). My LP was 12 days this time; usually it's 13, but it's been 12 the last couple of months. My OB wasn't worried about it when I asked, she said it was fine.

My pug rescue event went well in spite of everything. Apparently I'm good at putting on a brave face when I need to; I'm sure nobody knew there was anything wrong. In private I'm not always so well composed, but that doesn't count, right?! I had a little meltdown on Friday night, because I just knew my period was going to come yet again. I'd been so positive for that cycle, and it really hurt when it didn't result in a BFP. I guess I pinned all my hopes on the HSG miraculously making me super fertile, or something like that. Ridiculous, I know.

I think if I'm not pregnant in the next few months, we'll probably be taking a little break from TTC. If we do, we won't prevent pregnancy (ha! Like we need to anyway!) but I'll maybe take some time off from charting and just see what happens. I'm a bit of a control freak so I'm not sure I could stop - I like knowing what's going on, at least to some extent! Maybe I should try it for a cycle or two, though.

I've been thinking about emailing my cousin, the one whose wife is pregnant with baby #2. The one who claims to understand exactly what we're going through, because they tried for a few months for their first. The one who gave me the oh-so-useful advice, "relax!". I feel as though I should check in with them and ask how everything's going, but I can't bring myself to ask. I wish them well with the baby, of course, but now that they know a little of our struggles I'm finding it really awkward to contact them. I don't know what to say. I don't want their pity, and I definitely don't want to hear that all I need to do is relax. It's going to be like the elephant in the room - I don't want to talk about it, they know we're TTC, they're understandably excited about their new addition... and their happy updates cut me like a knife. What do I even have to tell them? I can tell them about my new role in the pug rescue, which I'm really excited about, but it just seems so lame compared to their baby news. He was on Skype this morning when I was talking to a friend, and I was so glad when he logged off without saying anything to me. I may not be very long into my infertility journey, but it's already changed so much in my life. I used to hope we'd get to talk, and now I tend to hope we won't. Their baby is due 2 days after our wedding anniversary; is it awful of me to hope it's not born on our anniversary? I know it shouldn't matter at all, but the fact that it might be just makes me so sad. If we weren't TTC, it wouldn't bother me in the least.

One year, one month, one week - that's how long my TTC ticker informs me we've been trying. I know that's not very long compared to many couples, but it feels like an eternity. Occasionally I torture myself by reading the "getting pregnant" forum, and I see women posting "I finally got my BFP after 3 whole months of trying!". Finally, because taking 3 months to get pregnant is clearly completely abnormal in their world! I wish that was my world, too. I wish I didn't know what it is to have to actively try, and fail, to conceive.

I hate that we had all the testing done and still have no answers. We're doing everything right, even my OB said so - shouldn't I at least have gotten pregnant once in this time, then? Even if it was a chemical pregnancy, or just not a viable pregnancy - shouldn't something have happened? Don't get me wrong, I don't want to have a CP or a MC. I do want to know I can get pregnant, though. I guess I'm just disillusioned with it all.

CD2 / House stuff!

My BBT was down to 97.5ºF this morning, and my period is still horrible as always. I'm feeling OK now about not being pregnant yet, it would've been great if it happened so quickly but it's OK that it didn't. I'm trying to be positive about this cycle, maybe it'll be the one! Anyhow, since I'm probably going to have a long wait until I ovulate, I'll write about something not related to TTC!

Hubby and I have been looking to buy a house since the end of March, and we found one in April which we really liked. It was a short-sale, though, so it was almost 3 months before our offer was accepted. We were so excited about that house. That is, until we had the inspection done (on July 4th of all days!). It ended up having a lot of unexpected, big, problems which we couldn't really contend with. With much sadness, we decided the only thing we could do was back out.

We started looking again at the end of that same week - no point wasting any more time, right? We looked and looked, and saw some nice houses but nothing that really compared to the one we'd wanted to buy before. Anyway, on July 13th we saw a gorgeous house and the next morning we made an offer. Two other couples also offered on that house the same day, so we weren't too hopeful. However, we got lucky and our offer was accepted that evening (it's a traditional sale by the owner, so none of this 'waiting around to hear from a bank' rubbish!). The inspection was done July 15th, everything is good apart from some very minor issues which are to be expected at this point (the house was built in 2002). The seller agreed to our request that he fix the minor plumbing issues, so we were happy! Then came a stumbling block, the appraisal... The appraiser valued it way below asking price. I guess some people would've been happy about that, but we were filled with a sense of dread because we really didn't think the seller would sell it for the appraisal price. We were right, he wanted more. We really didn't want to lose this house, it's in great condition and it's almost 2200 square feet (the last one was almost 1700 square feet, so it's a big difference!) and the seller was even leaving the appliances (fridge, washer and dryer - the washer and dryer look pretty new, too). It's in an area we like, it's pretty close to the in-laws (maybe a little too close, it's literally 1.3 miles!) and we like the layout of the house too. So, we reached a compromise with the seller - we're paying him more than the appraisal came out at, but not as much as he would've liked. He accepted the revised offer within a few hours, so all is good! Now the mortgage is progressing nicely and we're all set. We should be getting the keys by the end of this month, and we'll probably move a week or so later. We haven't started packing yet but I'll get onto it next week, when my period is gone!

Hubby's parents are very kindly giving us their La-Z-Boy leather reclining couch and love-seat set, which we're thrilled about because despite being about 8 years old they look pretty much brand new, and they're super-comfortable of course! The new house has 2 living areas so we would've had to buy another couch set, so this is going to save us a lot of money. They're also buying us a really good Oreck vacuum cleaner as a house-warming gift! Yay! They wanted to buy us a fridge or something like that but because all of that comes with the house, they decided on the vacuum cleaner. That works really well for us (well, me in particular since I'll be the one using it!) because the one we have now isn't exactly very good and this new one is meant to be really good at getting pet hair out, which is something the old one doesn't do very well. Since we have 2 pugs, who shed a ton, that's gonna be awesome! There's more carpet in the house than we would've liked, but it all looks good and I want to keep it that way, so this will really help :-)

The new house has 4 good-sized bedrooms, and I'm not sure yet which one will be our future baby's room... Hubby works from home so one of them will be his office, the master bedroom will obviously be ours, and then there are 2 other rooms - 1 will be a guest bedroom and the other will be the baby's room. Maybe we should have the baby's room next to ours, I'm not sure. I definitely don't want the guest bedroom to be the biggest of the smaller bedrooms - not to sound awful or anything, but that room won't get that much use and when people are staying with us free of charge, they'll get what they're given! Also, while I'm sounding like a bitch, we won't be getting the most comfortable bed for that room either... For the sole reason that I just know people would outstay their welcome if we make it tempting enough! I want our guests to be comfortable in our house but we've had a couple of guests in our current house, which was a nightmare because it's too small (2 bedrooms, but the second bedroom is hubby's office, so it's definitely not ideal having people stay). One of our guests (my Dad, actually) really took the piss when he stayed, made such a mess everywhere and wouldn't lift a finger, he wouldn't even let our dog out when she needed to go potty and I was in the middle of cleaning the bathroom (he was maybe 10 feet away from the back door!). I like having guests but it's also a pain in the butt, honestly. I don't want my Dad turning up for 2 months, his 10 day visit was more than long enough and because he criticizes me all the time it got old very quickly, bending over backwards to please him and make sure he had a nice vacation etc... So yeah, the bed we buy for the guest room won't be like our lovely comfy king size bed, hehe. :-)

I'm thinking it'll go something like this: The far right bedroom (master) is ours of course, the next is the baby's. To the left of the baby's room is guest room and the one on the far left is hubby's office. That would make his office the second biggest bedroom, but at least he uses that room pretty much every single day so it's not going to waste. The guest room might get used once a year, if that, who knows? I might put some other stuff in there too, or use it for something else the rest of the time. Maybe instead of a proper bed we could get a sofa bed for that room, I don't know. It's something to consider, anyway.

So aside from TTC, the new house is also our project! Not that we really need to do anything to it, it doesn't need painting or anything, but we'll have to buy a few things for it and make it truly ours :-) It's really exciting! Our first home that's actually ours. Oh and we might even be moving in a year to the day since I arrived in the US! How crazy is that?! :-)