The Course of True Friendship; or, Being There

I had a couple posts in mind for today: one on the two-week wait and how I'm so over it, I feel like I was never under it; one on Suor Angelica, the opera I heard on the radio this afternoon as I was returning home from teaching (an opera about a woman who learns her child has died-- and also the opera I coincidentally went to in the week between learning we had lost the m&m and my d&c). But instead I'm going to write about something happy and something surprising.

I've blogged before about my best friend--let's call her Doctor Lady--and the complicated emotions sparked by her conceiving so quickly and giving birth to her son in January. There's joy, there's sadness, there's even some bitterness, and there's relief that she lives 3,000 miles away and the baby isn't a constant presence in my life.

Doctor Lady and I have been best friends since we were 11 and are truly kindred spirits. In some ways, she's my soul mate: that one person who shares and understands everything. We shared our life experiences, like awkward junior high dances and first crushes and first kisses and first boyfriends all the way up to choosing a career and slogging through grad school and finding men we wanted to marry and deciding we were ready for babies.

We also share a host of intellectual interests, particularly in terms of literature and history (thought she leaves me far in the dust on science and math and I can write imaginative literature, which she cannot). And we have a love of the same movies and music and plays, a fondness for the same kind of joking wordplay and absurdities.

She was already in her third trimester when I miscarried. She was preparing her home and her life for her son, and I was gearing up to start over and trying to make sense of what I'd lost. And while she was always there for me whenever I called, with inexhaustible patience for my sadness, we also discussed her pregnancy and baby plans more than I wanted to then, a fact I sometimes stewed over.

Now, nearly six months after the miscarriage, we talk about the baby, and her and her husband's upcoming move, and how she copes with being back at work so quickly (she's in the Navy and could only take 8 weeks of maternity leave). We talk about my graduate studies, Lawyer Guy's work, our families, my birthday party, my summer travel plans. And sometimes we talk about the miscarriage or trying to conceive or jealousy. But not always. Not even, these days, often.

At times, I've resented this: her--and my--ability to focus on other facts, to pretend that this isn't the single most significant aspect of my life right now, to pretend that everything is normal. "Can't she tell how much I hurt?" I've wondered. "And if she can, why doesn't she ask me about it?"

But today I realized: she calls. She calls me every week. Sometimes twice a week. Even with the time difference, and the work schedule, and the 3-month-old baby, and the fellow doctor husband, she calls me far more frequently than I call her. Far more frequently than any of my other friends do, babies or no babies, jobs or no jobs.

What's that we say we want our friends and family to do for us? To be there. Not to make our problems the center of our lives, not to fix them, not to grieve and mourn like we do, but to be there.

She was there all the time and I didn't even realize.

They Say It's My Birthday; or, Sparkle Dresses!

My birthday is Sunday, but my birthday party isn't for several more weeks. Lawyer Guy is throwing my a cocktail party at a restaurant downtown, and I wanted to wait to have it until the semester was over and I could actually relax and enjoy being with my family and friends without stressing about papers to grade and/or write.

So I haven't actually bought a dress yet or done any intensive shopping. I've got a few criteria in mind, though. The lucky chosen dress must be: cocktail length; sparkly (either sequined or beaded); a color other than black (nearly every cocktail dress I own is black and I want to branch out already!); and ideally a little bit sexy. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are a few likely prospects:

Prospect #1: Antik Batik Jessica dress:

This dress is gorgeous. I stumbled upon it when I stopped into a shop on the Upper East Side before my thyroid-checking appointment with my doctor a few weeks ago. It fits perfectly, is sparkly and fancy but lady-like at the same time, and I love it.

There are significant drawbacks, however. For starters, the dress is about $200 more than what I had anticipated spending. LG would NOT be pleased to see that credit card bill. But I could get past this if not for the second drawback: the color. It's an off-white/ivory shade, which is beautiful and looks great on me, but is severely limiting in terms of the kinds of events I could wear the dress to. As in, the wedding I have to attend in Florida in late June. If I'm going to spend this much money on a dress, I want to get a lot of use out of it. And an off-white dress--even a short, obviously non-wedding off-white dress--just isn't going to allow for that.

Prospect #2: Alice + Olivia Maggie Dress

This dress is super cute and a much better price. But I haven't tried it on yet, and it appears to be sold out on the Alice + Olivia website and at Bloomingdale's. I'm not sure how I'd get it if I chose it.

Prospect #3: Alice + Olivia Beaded Tank


Another cute, sparkly dress from Alice + Olivia in my price range, but this one is still available (so I could presumably try it on). Again, though, there's a problem with the off-white color. I'll have to see it in the flesh (the cloth?) to decide if it looks more sparkly-silver or more creamy-white.

Prospect #4: Tory Burch Rannon Dress


I must confess, I'm a huge Tory Burch junkie (and Lilly Pulitzer and J. Crew-- I'm basically your walking nightmare of a stereotypical Junior Leaguer). I already have this year's summer T Burch sample sale marked in my date book (June 22nd!), and I never come away with less than six things. I own three of her dresses already, although they're all tailored linen shifts rather than sparkly plunging-v cocktail dresses. But they fit me like a dream-- I think the form they use to fit my size must be to my exact measurements or something. So this dress is totally appealing. And it's not off-white!

Prospect #5 (and beyond): Rent the Runway

I don't have pictures for my final options because I'm considering a rather unorthodox approach. I joined Rent the Runway a few weeks ago. It's a new site that allows members (membership is free) to rent designer dresses for a few days, rather than purchasing them. If I did this, I could wear a much pricier dress than I feel comfortable buying (and a cursory search showed some very pretty ones). But the rental fee is around $100 or $200, which seems like an awful lot to spend for a dress you wear once and don't get to keep. Like I said before, I'm all about buying semi-expensive clothes and then wearing them into the ground. So I probably won't choose this option, but felt it was worth mentioning just in case.

Let me know what you think about my prospects! I may end up buying none of these dresses after shopping and trying them on, but whatever I get will be along these lines.

Temporary Sanity; or, Weekend Update

What a nice weekend! Lawyer Guy and I had dinner at the "secret" back courtyard restaurant a few doors down from our house on Friday night. On Saturday I went to a great yoga class and then had dinner in Manhattan with LG followed by a screening of His Girl Friday at Film Forum. Yesterday I went to a fantastic new church--progressive, friendly, with great sermons and beautiful music--and then read 500 pages of a rather ridiculous yet entertaining mid-Victorian novel and cooked dinner for LG, who was at the office preparing for a hearing. I got a little too ambitious and made pate brisee, with the intention of whipping up an apple and pear tart, but ran out of time for baking it. So the dough is in the freezer and I'll make the tart sometime this week.

I also... (drumroll please)... OVULATED!

Because I'm TMI-ey like that (and because I know all you pervs totally want me to overshare with you), I must point out that LG and I had sex every day last week. No, hold your applause, it's appreciated but unneeded. And of course I did have my mandatory freakout that we were having too much sex, as our BFP cycle we had sex only once during my fertile period. But then I reminded myself that if LG and I are having fun, that's the most important thing and I really shouldn't look a gift...um...horse in the mouth.

So now here I am, starting the last week of my twenties. Starting another two week wait. I feel really good. Today I doubt that I'm pregnant, but I feel good. I've got my birthday weekend to look forward to (and my meetup with SuchAGoodEgg here in NYC!). Things feel okay right now.

I can pretty much guarantee that after my 30th on Sunday I'll fall into the 1ww vortex of hope and despair. And AF's due to show on Mother's Day, which should be a nice red cherry on the top of that Sunday.

But for now, like I said, things are okay.

(And coming to a blog near you soon: potential birthday sparkle dress pictures!!)

Grin and Bear It; or, Enough of this Moping

I'm a grump.

Lawyer Guy has to prepare for a hearing all weekend. I've got ridiculously awful student papers to grade. My MIL is bummed that we're skipping the Mother's Day gathering at SIL and BIL's. I still haven't had a Peak reading. I had to cancel my therapy appointment to go to a lecture I'm really not interested in. Worst of all, one of my (and your) bloggy friends received the heartbreaking news today of a second miscarriage. Things seem bad, bad, bad right now.

I may not be in a place to see the positive in this situation or in your situations (sorry mom, can't do it), but I can see the positive in other things. So damn it, I'm gonna smile:

- LG and I are going to see His Girl Friday at Film Forum on Saturday after he finishes work.

- Bella the Havanese makes the most ridiculous sounds when she sleeps. She's snorting and wheezing right now and I love it.

- We are thisclose to getting the last piece of our income tax puzzle from my dad and filing and getting that amazing refund.

-The office that performed my d&c last November has claimed I will not owe any more than the $500 deductible and the check my insurer wrote us (fingers crossed this is borne out).

- I get to shop for dresses for my 30th birthday party, and I'm getting something sparkly.

- The weekend of my 30th birthday is the Cherry Blossom Festival at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and The Philadelphia Story at Film Forum.

- All three of my little sisters will be living in NYC this summer.

- Lawyer Guy has been a sexual machine this month (hey, the least I can do is give the guy props when he deserves them after airing his dirty underwear like that).

To All My Weirdos; or, Resolutions, New Year's Unneeded

To all my wonderful internet weirdos: Thank you so much for your supportive posts. As much as I tell myself that my mom doesn't understand, it's really hard not to internalize the things she says and start beating myself up for being a self-indulgent mope, a whiny brat, or a defeatist loser. Having you say that I'm okay, you're okay helps immeasurably.

I've been thinking the past few days. I was serving on the jury of that case I told you about, so I had some time to think. Some late mornings at home to cry, hoping my eyelids would de-puff before I made it to the courthouse (but honestly not really caring if they did). I came to a possibly upsetting realization:

I wish I weren't trying to conceive right now.

Ladies, I'm tired. I am so, so tired. This is draining my soul. And the grief over losing my m&m-- a singular, precious individual who will never again appear in this world--is all tied up in anxiety over long cycles and short cycles and irregular cycles and luteal phases and strong temp shifts and weak temp shifts and no temp shifts. I wish I could have had six months to just be sad and not worry about the rest of this shit that's clogging up my life.

But (and there's always a but, right?) I want a baby. I don't want to push off the arrival of that baby any longer than fate and biology have already done for me. I want to give us our best shot at conceiving as quickly as possible, and I know that means pee sticks and temp checks and timed sex.

And truthfully, there were outside factors motivating jumping back into TTC right away. My doctor told me not to wait, for starters (she seemed to think we'd be more fertile post-miscarriage). I thought TTC would help me move on and heal. And then there were the less admirable reasons for trying: I wanted to be pregnant when my SIL gave birth (didn't happen). I wanted to be pregnant by my 30th birthday (12 days away, not happening). I wanted to be pregnant by my EDD (June 26th, unlikely to happen).

I think if we don't get pregnant this month--and based on 9 High readings with no ovulation, I'm feeling rather pessimistic about our chances--I want to take a month off. Still continue with unprotected, regular sex, but take a break from the monitoring and the temping.

Past breaks didn't work. They didn't actually relax me. They also didn't get me pregnant, as I hoped deep down they would. Only the monitor did. But the thought of a little breather from worrying about my ovulation makes me feel happy, so it's probably the right choice.

And then maybe I can stop having so many freaking downer posts on here. Jeez, what happened to me?

Mama Told Me There Shouldn't Be Days Like This Anymore; or, When's It Too Much?

Last night, my mother and I had another one of our unproductive conversations about the miscarriage. They happen like clockwork, once a month, and it's always the same scenario-- her offering well-meant advice that completely invalidates the feelings I've experienced in the last 5 months, and me responding with (I admit) rather hysterical distress.

This one started off because I mentioned that I'm definitely NOT going to spend Mother's Day at my in-laws with the new nieces this year, and followed that up by saying that I really don't want to go out to brunch or do much of anything and I'd rather not spend time thinking about it.

My mom got her panties in a wad over that and told me I should be grateful to have a mother and should think about people other than myself. Which I could have expected. She's always offended when we don't make a huge deal out of Mother's Day, even as she tries to act like she's above it and doesn't care (and for the record, I have taken my mom out to brunch in the city the last three years, alone, because I was the only sister living close to home. Now two of my younger sisters live in the area). But I honestly don't think it's asking so much to be spared thinking about a holiday that makes me so sad!

The Mother's Day issue aside, we launched into a variation on the same conversation we've had multiple times in the past, except my mom was more explicit than ever about telling me she thinks I'm dealing with things the wrong way. She said I'm turning this into a "negative" experience instead of trying to see the "positive" sides of it; she told me I seem to have a "chip on my shoulder" about other people's pregnancies/babies and she doesn't like to see it; she said I never seem "cheerful" any more; I don't seem like myself; I should feel grateful for all the good things in my life; and she thinks I have something chemically wrong with my brain as a result of the miscarriage hormones and I should talk to my gynecologist about it, rather than my therapist. She also thinks I need to find a support group (in real life, the internet doesn't count because there are so many "weirdos" on it) of women who are dealing with this "productively" instead of ranting about their bad luck like "a bunch of NOW feminists who blame men for all their problems" (yeah, I don't know where that last bit came from, either).

She also brought a bunch of people she knows who had a miscarriage (her new friend from her bible group; our close family friend; my cousin) and claimed that none of them have the depressed, despairing attitude about their miscarriages that I have. My mom loves to bring up comparative examples, so she's done this already many times before. And my objections are always the same: a) all of those people have gone on to have other children (sometimes as many as three or four!) so their situations are rather different from mine; b) some of those miscarriages were 25 years ago; c) my mom has no idea how those people actually felt or handled this when it happened to them. All she knows are the stories they tell years after the fact.

She fundamentally doesn't understand what this is like. And I know she's worried about me, I know she loves me, and I know it hurts her to see me upset. But is this something else I have to feel bad about fucking up? I can't get pregnant, I can't stay pregnant, and now I apparently I can't even deal with no longer being pregnant the way I should.

The other really frustrating this is that I'm trying to do all the things she says I'm not! I'm trying to feel grateful. I'm trying to believe that good will come of this experience. I'm trying to be a more compassionate, kind person as a result of this. I'm trying to use this time to strengthen my marriage. I'm trying to redevote myself to my schoolwork. I'm trying to not be jealous or envious or angry.

I'm also really fucking sad a lot of the time.

We "made up" and it was fine. But this is just further confirmation of the fact that people in my life are tired of hearing about it. My friends (with few and rare exceptions) don't ask me how I'm doing any more. My mom and mother-in-law do, but it's because they're not-so-secretly hoping I'm going to say "Great! Life's never been better! I'm walkin' on sunshine, whoa-hoah!" (which I know by the way they are SO FREAKING DELIGHTED when I do anything that denotes "moving on").

Even I'm tired of being depressed. I never wanted to be Oh Woe Is Me Miscarriage Girl. That wasn't on my bucket list. But this isn't the SATs and I can't make myself get over grief by pulling a few all-nighters. What more can I actually do?

It's all confirmation of the brilliant post at Knocked Up, Knocked Down on "When to 'Get Over' Your Baby Loss." Yup, two months sounds about right.

Up on the Tightrope; or, Things that Don't Suck Quite As Much As Yesterday

Thanks for your encouragement the other day. I made a series of frantic, sobbing phone calls to my insurance provider and then to the doctor. The office that performed the d&c was not my regular Ob/Gyn's office and it was out of network, which I didn't know at the time (I went there because my doc recommended them). Apparently they charge $17,000 for a procedure my insurance only approves for $3,000. But based on my conversation with the billing department, I'm gathering that they go after the insurance companies for huge payments and then take what they can get without kicking it to the patient. The woman at the billing office kept saying that they will bill me (possibly the full amount though usually not), but "we understand if you can't pay."

I just have to wait for the bill to arrive next month. My mom said she's gone through this many times before and will help me follow the process to get out of paying it. So I feel a little relieved about this. Giving up our trip to Scandinavia to pay for this procedure would have just gutted me. That trip is the only thing consoling me for the fact that I won't have a sweet newborn to cuddle this summer.

Also, many thanks for your encouraging words about the egg white cervical mucus. It's comforting to know it's still possible to get pregnant without them, since Taking Charge of Your Fertility made it seem completely impossible. But I strongly suspect that I'm not actually gearing up to ovulate yet, and the 5th day of High fertility readings with no ovulatory cramps and no egg whites has me convinced. I have ewcm EVERY MONTH. TONS of it. That's the one thing I've got going for me in this whole shittastic conception scenario. I think for whatever reason, the monitor detected my rising estrogen levels really early this month and got me all excited about it, but they're actually just rising really slowly and I'll ovulate around my usual CD 20 or so.

I shouldn't be so upset about this, but I am. I know that I'm lucky to ovulate at all! I know that my cycles are within the realm of normal. But it takes so much emotional energy out of me each month when I never know when I'll ovulate or when to go at it with the sex. I feel like I'm walking on a tightrope for the two middle weeks of my cycle, and every morning that I don't see a Peak reading I have a little fall.

At least I have a bridal shower and bachelorette party today to distract me. I hope your weekends are filled with ewcm, LH surges, super-fast fertilizing spermies, fabulous ERs, implanting embabies, BFPs, and awesome ultrasounds, wherever in your cycle you may be.

Can't See the Parade For the Storm Clouds; or, This Sucks

Three days of High fertility on the CBEFM and no (Zero. Nada.) EWCM?

Walk to a pharmacy over a mile away only to learn they're all sold out of Preseed?

Return home to open a health insurance statement informing me that I may owe $20,000 for the privilege of having my dead baby scraped out of my uterus five months ago?

I think my options are this:


This:

Or this:

Spontaneously Occurring Mood Swings; or, Turn that Smile Upside Down

It's amazing how fast my mood can turn around.

This morning I was feeling pretty good. I'm only on CD 12, but I'm already getting high readings on the CBEFM and am starting to suspect I might ovulate before day 20. Exciting! Thrilling!

I've been drinking my raspberry leaf tea and I haven't had any spotting yet. Wonderful! Optimistic!

I had a good session at therapy, a great meeting with my adviser, and a Junior League meeting tonight. Productive! Accomplished!

And then I signed on to Facebook when I got home to see that a former fellow volunteer was announcing her pregnancy with a 20-week ultrasound. I've been on the verge of tears for the last hour. I'm jealous as hell, and it's completely unfair of me to be so. This girl is a good six years older than me, had to put off having kids for years because of MS, and had a miscarriage about two months after I did.

I was afraid to call my high school friend on her birthday today because I know she and her husband started TTC in January, and I'm dreading their inevitable announcement.

My cousin had a baby yesterday, and I can't even stand to look at the pictures.

I hate my jealousy and sadness, and I wish I could make it go away.

But more than that, I just want to be pregnant again.

Circling the Airport; or, Doctor's Visit Update

It's that time in my cycle again: early days. Nothing to pee on. Nothing to check yet. No phantom symptoms or pressures to have sex. It's nice, but not so conducive for blogging. There's really just not much to say!

I did have my check-up on Thursday with my Gynecologist, which was pretty uneventful. Lawyer Guy left work early to come up and be with me while I had my blood drawn for my thyroid test. But the doctor was backed up, and after she did her routine exam she said, "I'm going to take your blood sample myself right now." And she did right then and there! She was MUCH faster than the nurse/assistants had been the previous times. I barely had time to react between her strapping on the tourniquet and tapping the vein. I didn't pass out or get sick or completely panic. I shook a little afterward with chills, but was able to get them under control by the time I left the exam room to find my husband. He was proud of me and so was I!

My doctor said the results will come back in 7 days, so sometime next week. If the levels are elevated then I'll go get a full thyroid panel at another lab. We'll see what turns up.

My doctor was unconcerned about us not being pregnant yet. She said two unsuccessful cycles of trying to conceive post m/c were too short a time to get worried about. I'll be returning for another visit in August, which is when I'm due for my pap, and which will also be right when we finish out 6 months of trying for pregnancy #2. At that point, if I'm not pregnant again, we'll talk about what comes next.

So I'm still in the holding pattern of the last year, and there are certainly *worse* places to be. I know that I can get pregnant without intervention, but I also know that a past pregnancy is no guarantee of a future one. I guess I'll just put August in my mind as the date: if we get pregnant before then, that will be great, but I'll mentally try to prepare myself to not. In August we'll also take our Scandinavia trip (we're planning 10 days to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Norwegian fjords--MUCH on this in future as the plans progress), which will ideally lessen the blow of any bad reproductive situations. Or at least provide a distraction.

In the meantime, it's CBEFM pee sticks, temping every morning, sex on demand, legs over the head, and all the other delightful perks of long-term baby making. Oh, and my new "wonder drug," a cup of red raspberry leaf tea every morning. It gave me my first cycle with no breakthrough bleeding in two years! Give me time and I'll be acupuncturing and alternative-remedying with the best of you.

Colonial House; or, Daydreams and Visions

Growing up outside Philadelphia, I was always fascinated with the Amish (bear with me, I promise this is going somewhere).

I loved history, especially colonial American history, and being Amish seemed to me like the closest one could get to living in the past. In the summer, I would sit on the back stoop, looking out over our backyard and the creek and acres of woods behind it, shucking corn from one of the local farms for my mother, and I would daydream about being an "oldtimey" girl, a farmer's daughter during the Revolution, or an Amish girl today, helping to prepare dinner and thinking about the sheep she had to shear and the wool she had to card and the herbs she had to collect.

* * *
This evening, I took our puppy Bella to the park around the block for her late afternoon walk. The setting sun lit up the sides of buildings with a summery, buttery glow. The trees were budding green or blooming white. The babies and their mommies and daddies (and some of the big kids too) were climbing all over the jungle gyms and swings, playing catch on the ball fields, lounging on the benches. Summer is on the way, and the entire neighborhood is ready to celebrate.

As Bella sniffed her way to the perfect pee-spot, I thought about the months to come: the amateur Shakespeare productions, abridged and pitched to children, performed on a makeshift stage; the family film festivals projected on a screen on the back of the little colonial house in the park's center. I had a vision: four months from now, late-July heat heavy in the air, a screening of Meet Me In St Louis or The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland's face projected two-stories high, and Lawyer Guy and I pushing a pram between lounging families on picnic blankets, the nebulous, genderless baby blob that is our perpetually 7-weeks gestation m&m sleeping under his or her green and silver canopy.

What could have been.

* * *
Some people start trying to conceive with a tentative we'll-just-see-what-happens toe dipped in the water. Some of them get their we-never-knew-it-would-happen-so-fast BFPs and are borne along a stream of ultrasounds, hormones, and expanding waistlines until the baby arrives: no time to think, to consider, to get scared. Suddenly, a baby, two parents, a family created, and life readjusts and they readjust with it.

Some of them face difficulties they didn't expect or lose the pregnancies that came so easily, and the doubts that might have surrounded their ceremonial tossing of the condom box disappear. "I am ready," they realize. "I do want this. Whatever I thought in the past was wrong. I have changed."

But I was ready before we started trying. For years I waited, ready. I had no doubts, no questions.

With each month that passes, my future parenthood seems to recede in the distance, to become less rather than more possible, less actual, more fantastic. Me pushing a pram seems like a daydream rather than a prophesy, so easily imagined, so impossible to achieve.

* * *
I still love history, and it's still history of the domestic and literary (rather than intellectual, national, or military) variety. I tour historic homes, old forts, recreated settlements. The Brooklyn Museum has a series of eighteenth-century rooms: recreated farmhouse interiors with immaculately laid wood tables and delicately painted wall hangings and period-appropriate china and cherry four-poster beds all behind a plexiglass barrier.

I can look at them for hours, projecting myself into the impossible past of my imagination, envisioning my alternate eighteenth-century life and the feel of the pewter ewer or the cast iron toasting stick or the brass warming pan.

But I can never get past the glass.

The Games We Play; or, Positive Bullsh!t

Today's CD 1 so it's time to play everybody's favorite game, "How Much Positive Bullshit Can Sloper Come Up With To Make Herself Not Cry." Last month I sadly lost-- too many cycles out of the game left me rusty and unprepared. But with some serious training over the past 34 days, I'm proud to report that I'm in better form than ever and cleaning up the field with ease.

Without further ado, I present: The Positive Bullshit

1. "I didn't want a December baby anyway. Sharing your birthday month with Christmas (and your father, cousin, and aunt) would really suck." +1 point

2. "Everyone else I know had a late 2009 or is having a 2010 baby: 2011 belongs to me! Suck on that, bitches!" +5 points

3. "I'm glad I'll get pregnant with the sticky baby after I turn 30. 29 was a shittastic year, so 30 will obviously be the bomb." + 3 points

4. "Now I can take my orals and teach all of Fall '10 without worrying about the baby coming early." + 1 point

5. "Back in January, I secretly thought to myself that I would have a January baby." + 10 points (if it happens); - 5 points (if it doesn't)

I admit that "owning" 2011 among my family members is the strongest piece of Positive Bullshit, which makes me petty and greedy, but I don't care. They can all suck a big turd and send me giant presents when I give birth, because I'm clearly taking on all the fertility troubles allotted to this family so they can breeze through and pop out easy baby after easy baby. Presents, dammit. Presents!

In the meantime, this Easter will consist of church with some of my sisters, followed by brunch and several huge Bloody Marys, rather than putting together an Easter basket for my husband (who LOVES them in a way that his Jewish ancestors would likely not appreciate) and slipping a positive pee stick among the cellophane grass. I know, cute right? The little bunny holding the hpt? The jelly-bean filled plastic eggs announcing our little Easter egg?

Darn it, where's that Positive Bullshit again?

Whiny Whinerson; or Good and Bad

Today is a BAD day because:

- I had a temp drop this morning (boo)
- Right before I went to jury duty (booo)
- Where I was selected to be on a trial (boooooo!!)

and because:
- my pre-AF nausea is intense (it's a new post-m/c PMS symptom)
- and I have a tummy ache

Today is a GOOD day because:

- No blood means a teeny bit of hope (yay)
- The weather outside is delightful (Yay)
- The court had wifi so I planned the itinerary for our Scandinavia trip (YAY!)

I hope your April Fools Days were more good than bad.