TTC Month 4 (October, 2010)

The Pre-Seed and FertileCM arrived and so did my period.  We were not successful in September.

I started taking the FertileCM right away (2 per day, rather than the suggested 3 per day) and starting taking my basal body temperature too.  This was very hard. My husband is a restless sleeper and after my parents left following Thanksgiving weekend, the dogs stopped sleeping through the night.  I was constantly waking up and could rarely take my temperature at the same time as is suggested for BBT. 

I did see trends though and surprisingly, Fertility Friend (an online tool used for identifying ovulation) put my ovulation day a week ahead of other online calculators.  I had read that this was a possibility, and one of the side effects of the FertileCM.  It annoyed me, because my schedule had really settled down and I was worried what a change might mean for future months. The only plus side was that FertileCM really improved my sex drive, and even though I was not set to ovulate for another week, Alain and I had been practicing quite a lot leading up to ovulation.

To make a long story short, this was the month we succeeded in TTC.  In spite of the nagging thoughts that I was too skinny and that I might have trouble conceiving, I got my first positive home pregnancy test on Sunday, November 7.

From now on, I'll be keeping a weekly (or bi-weekly) journal it'll be part of a series too, and posted after the fact.  I hope to get caught up with everything in the new year and publish real time. Once I can be sure that this baby is going to stick, I'll be excited to share everything with the blogging world.

Whose a Mama? Monster

I started knitting this monster a few weeks after I found out I was pregnant.  I love that she is a mama, and a baby carrying mama at that.  I can't wait to be a baby carrying mama.  It would be very convenient to have a built in pouch to carry around the baby (like a kangaroo).  I think I'll have to find myself a good carrier instead.

Anyways, the pattern is  Daphne and Delilah the Momma and Baby Monster by Rebecca Danger and I knit it using Spud & Chloe in Rootbeer and Grass.  It was a quick project, but took a long time for me to get around to photographing it.

I had had trouble with the mouths on my previous monsters Ivy and Ludwig so for this set I wanted to look for another option (last time I used fabric glue, it was messy and didn't work that well, especially on Ivy, who has a small mouth).  This time I found some doublesided fabric tape and used it to stick the felt mouth onto the monsters.  You set the tape by throwing the monsters into the dryer for a few minutes.  It seemed to work fine.  The doublestick tape also created a little bit of stability for the felt, which can be hard to work with if you are making a small mouth.  It tends to pull apart.

I'm really happy with how the pair turned out.

For the rest of this week and next, I am going to have a series of posts talking about my experiences with TTC (trying to conceive).  I will probably mix a few knitting posts in there too, but I think the whole TTC experience is a very important part of having a baby and I'd like to share my experience with all of you.  There are a lot of ups and downs, and I consider our experience fairly short (thank goodness).  The whole series is probably PG13, due to the nature of the discussion topic.  I'll be sure to put a bit of a disclaimer with each post.

Ducks in a Row

Over the next few weeks I will be getting all my ducks in a row before trying to conceive. I have booked a prenatal dentist appointment as well as a prenatal doctors appointment.

All this makes me nervous and excited. I think we are actually going to start trying to conceive soon. I'm a little torn about that whole process. Part of me just wants to see what happens, especially since my cycles are incredibly irregular. The other part of me wants to micromanage the whole thing to get the best odds. That can be so stressful though, I doubt we will end up taking that approach.

I've been off the pill for a year now, but I was never regular before I went on the pill and that hasn't really changed yet. Sometimes my cycles are a little long (30 days or so) and sometimes they are really long (50 or more). It makes it hard to really know when I am ovulating. Since things were so wacky, I got everything checked out in January to make sure I was actually ovulating. Things were all fine and my doctor just suggested it may take a little longer since I can't predict as others might be able to.

I had another yoga class last night and I really enjoyed myself. It is so relaxing and it feels good to work out and stretch myself out. Yesterday we worked on pain tolerance. Everything feels very practical and helpful.

I was talking to Alain before bed and told him that I really enjoyed the class, but thought I would enjoy it a little more if I were actually pregnant. He paused and said, "Couldn't I just buy you a pair of lululemon pants instead? That would be cheaper." I laughed out loud, a big belly laugh. I can't wait for him to get home (tomorrow!).