Not Knowing

Bright and sunny.

So, three inseminations, done.

The second two were ridiculously much easier than the first... bad puns all round by the third time. I have a feeling that the last one was a little too late, and perhaps our syringe technique was not perfect the first two times but it's a beginning, at least. Who would have ever thought that I would find myself suggesting that perhaps if I went down to get some milk, Joey might use the time to put some sperm in a jar for us. What a bizarre thing this is.

All the sperm business was over by Wednesday and Joey and Helen didn't have to go home until Sunday, which meant we all kind of got a holiday together. Hollie was at work, but home reasonably early so we all got to eat and talk lots. Regardless of whether we get pregnant this time around, it was such an important, lovely time together. I felt so happy with the four of us all drinking tea together. Sometimes it feels like this is the best possible way of getting pregnant (awkwardness aside) - so many good cups of tea this way. And it does feel like we are absolutely enveloped by love through the whole process this way too. I know that the normal thing is not to tell anyone until you've got safely past the miscarriage mark, but that was just never going to work for us. It's too much of a big deal for each of us to make it worth keeping it a secret. It's been so great having our friends offering excitement, good luck, things to think about and advice. The other night someone asked me whether we would consider, if there was such a thing on the market, using a penis shaped dildo with a built in syringe to inseminate. How could I keep the fact of trying to get pregnant a secret with that kind of question on offer!?

Now we are waiting. Or, more precisely, we are in a state of Not Knowing. The difference being that you usually know what you are waiting for - to go overseas, until the holidays come, for the next episode to come online, for the train - but this seems to be all about the state of simply not knowing what will happen. I am still on school holidays, which probably gives me a bit more time than usual to wonder, but even so, it is ridiculous the way that despite absolutely knowing that there is no way that I could feel pregnant, or have any kind of physical changes yet, I keep surreptitiously feeling up my tits to see if they've got more sensitive and trying to work out if I'm hungry or actually feeling nauseous. It's not altogether comfortable, the wondering, because if all that change is going to happen, I'd really just rather know now. I feel a little bit like I'm hovering between being ordinary or something absolutely life changing happening. I'd rather know! But soon enough. And mostly, I just can't actually imagine that I would be pregnant this first time. It felt like too much of a practice round. We were so awkward and emotional, it seems like getting through that should have been enough to achieve for this month.

Bed

Overcast and mild. Still in bed at midday!!

Hollie is under the weather and has the day off. We've spent it in bed so far... such a luxury. Watching ABC family drama and talking about how our family tree will look. Working out the plan for this evening (the sperm logistics!) and talking about worries. Talking about what we are looking forward to. Sorting out Christmas plans. The cat thinks all his Christmases have come today, with both of us still in bed for hugs.

This time together feels really important. We might make a baby together tonight.

Fingers crossed!!!

Day One

Sunny. A perfect winter day.

Today is special! Before I started keeping track of my cycle, month by month, I'd always thought of getting my period as being the end of a cycle - my body's way of saying, well, you didn't get pregnant (of course, how would I have?!) so we'll scrap all that and start again in a few days. However, as the fertility charts count it, the first day of your period is the first day of the new cycle, a definitive new beginning. Somehow I've swapped over to that way of thinking, which makes today the first day of the cycle in which we might, MIGHT, make a baby. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Partly I think I've swapped ways of thinking because of my joy each month over the way that ovulation shows up with all its miraculous temperature shifts and fern shaped patterns on a microscope slide - it means that the excitement is all over by about Day 14 and then it's just about waiting for my period to come so that I can start a new chart. Also, I can see the emotional benefit of understanding it as a new beginning, rather than marking the end of a failed attempt, once we are actually trying to get pregnant. It's a bit kinder on your feelings that way, I guess.

I've been thinking a lot about how it might feel to see 'not pregnant' turn up on the little tester stick thing. The odds are not in favour of getting pregnant first time, apparently. Dr Google seems to say that you have about a 1 in 4 chance each time of getting pregnant, with the reasonably common complication of miscarriage still to add into the equation after that. Another way of looking at it is that on average it takes six months of trying. I'm never sure how to feel about these numbers. Six months is not a hugely long time in some ways... It's only six tries, after all, but then any baby-making site, anywhere on the Internet, has story after story of people who do not get pregnant despite good health and best efforts, month after month, and the people who are telling those stories seem BROKEN by the accumulation of those negative pregnancy tests.

Will I feel broken too, if it takes a while?

My aunts tell me that I come from a line of "one fuck wonders". (Not my words!). I hope I inherited that!

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