Waiting, waiting and more waiting... all the time impatiently

Must be about time for another update. As my last post explained, my period eventually turned up, so it was back to the drawing board for another month - or should that be back to bed? :) TMI!!

However, galvanised by my last trip to the pre-pregnancy clinic, I ordered some ovulation strips from Amazon and decided to get proactive (as if TTC every two days doesn't count already!) The strips are much smaller and less elaborate than the expensive ovulation tests you can get in UK pharmacies, so I was curious to see what they'd be like (and to be honest, whether they'd work!)

First step in the instructions. Pee in a clean cup - don't do it first thing, like with a pregnancy test, and don't do it immediately after drinking in case you dilute your urine too much. Save up a full bladder and then go for it! So, on day 10 of my cycle, as suggested in the little leaflet that came with the strips, I came home from work and set about it. Step two - wait for twenty minutes and allow your pee to come to room temperature. Ick. That's attractive. Step three - dip the stick in the urine for ten seconds, but don't allow the urine to go above the line indicated on the strip. Step four - sit back (or perch on the loo/side of the bath) and wait for up to ten minutes to see a result. You need to see the control stripe turn pink, otherwise the test hasn't worked. A second stripe that's paler than the control stripe, or no second stripe at all, means a negative. A second stripe that's as dark or darker than the control stripe and you're in business. Ovulation will occur within 24-36 hours, and you're recommended to have sex any time within that 12-24 hours of a positive test to have the best chance of conceiving.

So then, how did the first test go? Well, after about 30 seconds the first control stripe appeared. I waited, and waited, and waited some more. After 10 minutes there was only one stripe. Not too surprising really. After all, if you have a (reasonably) regular 28 day (ish) cycle, you'd expect to ovulate on day 14. Of course the reason for the strips is that cycles vary in all kinds of ways. You can have a long or short regular cycle. You can have an all over the place kind of random seeming cycle. You can have a 28 day cycle but ovulate early. You can have a 28 day cycle and ovulate late. So many possibilities... but the strips are supposed to take some of the guesswork out of all this. Last month's cycle for me was 30 days, and the one before was 26. I'm averaging about 28 days, or thereabouts, plus or minus a couple.

On day 11 of my cycle I did a second test. 45 seconds after dipping the stick I saw not one, but two lines. Hallelujah. My ovaries might actually work! (Paranoia, much?) Jumped on S when he came home (let's draw a discreet veil over that, shall we?) So then, according to the pee sticks, I'd be ovulating not on day 14 of my cycle, but probably more like day 12-13. Does that mean this is a going to be a cycle that's on the shorter side? Curious minds want to know.

On day 12 of my cycle I did a third test. Would it still show positive, or would my luteal surge (see, I can rock the technical language) have been and gone? Well, a second stripe did appear after about three or four minutes, but it was much paler than the day before. That seemed to confirm that I was more likely to have ovulated on day 12 than day 13.

At that point I stopped using the ovulation sticks, saving my 57 remaining ones for the next and subsequent months. And, I started waiting. Yes, waiting seems to be a real feature of the whole TTC journey. It's also, frankly, a real feature of being diabetic:

• It's the second half of your menstrual cycle. Wait to see if your period will come, or if you're pregnant.
  
• You're hypo. Eat 15g of carbs wait 15 minutes and test. Repeat until your sugars return to normal.
  
• You've had a blood test for your HbA1C. Wait for your results (and boy does the time drag). [Although, see my last post for just how awesome my current Diabetes clinic is, when it comes to sharing results!]
• You wake up in the morning with your Dawn Phenomenon at it's worst. Inject and then wait a full hour before breakfast.
  

Yep. Waiting seems to be a big feature of life these days, and whilst you wait your brain fills the time with silly thoughts and needless worries. I have another few days to wait before I know what the outcome of this month's trying will be. I'm on day 21 of my cycle, and if my period comes 14 days after predicted ovulation that would be day 26 (next Wednesday, 18 August). If it's a 28 day cycle I've got a full week to wait, and if it's a 30 day cycle I won't have an answer until next Sunday. Grrr. How do people do this month in and month out? I thought I was a pretty patient person, but I must be wrong. Poor old S - I must be such a pleasure to live with whilst I have this pregnancy obsession. He's so much more down to earth and chilled - he's so sure it will happen. I'd love to believe him, and I know that worrying about it won't improve my chances - in fact, it might well do the opposite. There was an article on the BBC website yesterday which confirms this - see: High stress 'delays pregnancy' Not rocket science really, but there it is in black and white.

I have a pretty demanding job, and have been in a number of high level ongoing negotiations recently, so this little bunny may well count as being stressed. So, I'm trying to be a bit more proactive. I'm going to be more hardline on what time I'm willing to set off in the mornings. 'A meeting in London, you say? Well, that's fine, but I won't be able to get there until 10 am at the earliest' (and even that means being on the 7.30 train from Bristol, and getting up at about 5.45 in order to inject, eat and make it to the railway station). I'm also going to try to make sure that meetings finish no later than 4pm, so that I can be home by 8pm at the latest and eat at a sensible time. I'm on the flexi clock, and when I've accrued 7.5 hours I can take a day off. If I have more than 15 hours at the end of the month then I'll lose the excess. So, I'm being diligent about using my flexi time. Finally, once in a while, especially when I have lots of documentation to digest, or an important draft to write or meeting to prepare for, I have a day working from home, instead of travelling 40 miles to my distracting open-plan office, where the phone never stops ringing.

I'm sure there's more I could do, but it's a start. It's the weekend tomorrow, and I intend to have a quiet one, slobbing around the house. Next week we're visiting some of S's friends in Cambridge (a very long drive) and stopping over at my parents' house (about a third of the way there), so we're not going to have a lot of 'us time.' Still, at least by then the waiting will be over and I should know if I'm pregnant or back to square one.