Paging Aunt Flow....tap, tap, tap,....is this thing on?

UPDATED

:(

Where is she? It's CD31. My first cycle this year she arrived in the afternoon on CD31. But the next cycle it was CD30. So technically she's not late. But my temperature climbed today - like triphasic style. And while she has given me every indication that she will get here eventually, I am not an optimistic person when it comes to matters of my ute.

Is she just late....or is the HCG back? And while IF'ers are all too familiar with the maxim that a positive pee stick doesn't mean a baby to bring home and love forever, I am in a position where a positive pee stick might not even mean a pregnancy. So I'm scared to pee on a stick. Or get my blood drawn. But there seems to be no reason to really worry until tomorrow.

Could I be pregnant? My boobs are sore. But isn't that an AF symptom? I'm not really sure, I haven't had enough AF's since stopping BCPs to know. I'm really tired. But I'm always really tired. Plus, while DH and I did BD during the time I O'ed, we used protection - religiously. And there was no indication of any protection failure.

I have all the telltale signs of AF...she's probably just being fashionably late. I didn't O 'til CD18 after all. But it's frustrating. It's around this time every month that I always fall into the idea of shortening The Wait so I don't have to go through this for too much longer. But I don't really think shortening The Wait would do the trick. Because if I really had been trying this month (or if we were going to start trying thiscoming cycle - which we're not), I'd still be worried. These pivotal days in my cycle will always be tense and the waiting will be difficult, trying or not, because now there's cancer in the mix.

I spent Saturday at a work barbecue. One of my friends had maintained the whole week prior that she wasn't bringing her 8 month old to the party and I had been kind of relieved. Finally a chance to just hang out, it won't be so hard to hide my jealousy if she doesn't bring her son. But she brought him. Of course. Somehow I knew she would. Was she telling me she wouldn't just to protect my feelings? And there were three additional babies in the group and one 6-months pregnant woman and a couple young kids. I held the babies, I ooo-ed and ahhh-ed, I wanted to kiss them they were so adorable but thought maybe that wouldn't be appropriate. I love kids. That's something I've realized about myself in the past couple years. I can't wait - not just to be pregnant and not just to have a baby - but to have a child. I haven't always been this way but now I am. With a vengeance. So where is my turn? Whenever I'm holding someone else's baby, I always start to think about how very possible an option adoption might be for me. I have baby fever. I'm in the thick of it. Probably even moreso than when we started trying last year. Logically it seems out of place. Why can't I just enjoy my otherwise blessed life? There are plenty of reproductively-healthy people who just don't want kids at all and for very good reasons. I thought I would grow up to be one of them. So why the change of heart? Whether it's biological or environmental I cannot stop thinking about it. I thought the forced break would be good for me in the sense that it would give me a chance to let go of the obsession for a while. But it has only made the yearning stronger. Every minute of every day for almost one year I have thought of nothing else. I think it's starting to get on DH's nerves and we haven't even started trying again. I make bitter remarks, I take every opportunity to hint at how excited I am to try again, I let him know every instance of his or my relatives telling us we need to get on it. I think he needs a break from it as much as I do. Luckily, there's at least one more month in The Wait, so hopefully I can discipline myself enough to just cool it.

Speaking of relatives hinting at getting to it...I also went to a traditional Greek memorial service for DH's dad this weekend. DH has a huge family. Several young adorable kids. One of whom belongs to DH's sister. I was chatting with SIL during the luncheon after church and when she asked which dessert I was thinking of getting I remarked that I really liked those little tea cookies with the powdered sugar on top but didn't see any which was funny because they seem to be at EVERY Greek function I've ever been at.

SIL: "Ohhh, yeah those are more for happy occasions, like weddings...and baby showers...and baptisms.....hint hint hint."

Me: "Oh, interesting. I didn't know that."

She actually said the "hint hint hint" part. Goddamnit, lay off. I find it so rude when people do this now that I totally shut off. Maybe they'll get the message. A message I never wanted to send: I'M TRYING HARDER THAN I'VE EVER TRIED FOR ANYTHING EVER IN MY LIFE AND I'M HAVING MORE THAN MY FAIR SHARE OF TROUBLE GETTING THE THING I WANT MOST IN THIS WORLD SO COULD YOU KINDLY RESPECT MY PRIVACY AND JUST ENJOY ME AND DH FOR WHO WE ARE?

This all would be a lot easier on me if AF would just show up already.

UPDATE

No, she hasn't shown up still. :( But I have RAGING PMS. :) I think. Or maybe I'm just tired and bitter on account of not having had a vacation in over a year and having so much trouble with this starting of a family thing. I am numb with rage lately over both of these things. Numb. This has to be PMS, right?

Anyway, the update is that infectious disease called me and, joy of joys, I don't have to go in for my appointment tomorrow because I was RIGHT (!) about my lyme disease test results. I read them correctly. They were negative. Negative negative negative. My PCP had insisted that one of them was positive. But it wasn't. It was negative, plain as day. So when I called my PCP last month to ask her whether she could re-read my results and tell me if I really needed to go to infectious diseases as she had recommended she should have said "no, as a matter of fact, you're right! You do have negative results. I'm so sorry at my ineptness at reading simple lyme disease results that even a layperson can read and for any inconvenience I may have caused you." Instead, as my regular readers may recall, she said I should still go in for a consult because my results were 'ambiguous,' and lyme disease is hard to diagnose. I doubted that she had looked again at the results as I had asked but not wanting to take any chances in these precious months leading up to TTC, I had made the appointment. And now I am free! And vindicated. And once again, disappointed at how truly inept medical 'professionals' can be. And how piss poor their communication is. And once again I have a doctor that I can't trust.