On the Wheel Again

Anyone else feel like a hamster on a wheel with this whole TTC thing?

I do. I guess when it’s meant to be it will be.

Maybe.

That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. *sigh*

‘I don’t know if I can even honestly say that we’re trying this month. I’m still charting and I began taking B2 and B12 again to try and get my charts back on track. My eating has been a lot better this week and over all, other than not getting enough sleep I think I’m doing alright.

J is tired a lot and worried about getting a job and I know that that has a lot to do with how he feels about TTC. Fact is, we’ve been unofficially trying for two years last month. We’ve been officially trying since last May. I’m 36, he’s 43 and time is running out. So should we continue to try and get pregnant during this period in our lives with the economy so up in the air? Do we have a choice if we want to have children?

So yeah, all things being equal I think we’re kind of half-assing it. I’m charting and taking vitamins but we’re not really timing BD any more or less than usual. Gone are the days where BD is possible every day. I think every other day would be the best we could do if we really did put our minds to it (and that’s okay with me). But that’s not happening either. Maybe once every three days… four, sometimes? Does it really matter?

I’d be lying though if I said that there wasn’t just the smallest part of me that resented the economy being bad and the Euro being up the in air, and my husband (though no fault of his own) being unemployed.

But it is what it is and in the long, grand scheme of things I know that I really don’t have any problems at all. I am so blessed beyond what so many have, I don’t want to complain too loudly.

Here’s my chart, I’m checking it against a chart from last June since that one seems to be the closest. Besides, it’s fun to compare.

So who knows? Maybe I’ll get pregnant this month. I doubt it, but then, anything is possible. Right?

In Which I Begin Anew

Happy 2012!

I wanted to stop in and quickly update where we stand right now.

*For the really quick version skip to the bottom for a summary.

You know how sometimes it takes stepping back to gain the perspective you need to see what is staring you in the face?Well, that’s kind of what has happened in the last month or so.

I began charting back in mid May- about half way through my cycle. I noticed that first month that my LP was on the short side and began taking B2 and B12 in an attempt to lengthen it. My charts immediately improved. Until September, that is.

In September I took a business trip right around the time I was supposed to ovulate and it threw everything off. Since then, my cycles have been totally out of whack. I’ve only had just the one anovulatory cycle, but my O days have been all over the place and my LP has been different from month to month. I assumed that it was that dang anovulatory cycle that did it.

I believe now that I assumed wrong.

Looking back on it I realized that something else happened around that same time period that could also have had a huge impact on it.

Our C%BRA insurance ran out the end of July, our private insurance began the beginning of August. Now, we’re very fortunate to have been able to take advantage of private plan insurance but one of the down sides was it meant that we now have a $100 yearly prescription deductible. That may not seem like a lot, but to us, the idea of spending $100  just a few months before the end of the year when the whole thing rolls over and begins new seemed silly.

I was only taking one medicine, Adderall. I have a mild (thank God) form of ADD- it’s not so bad that I can’t work or function without medicine, but it is enough that the medicine makes life easier. When I stopped taking it, I also found that it had an impact on my health that I hadn’t anticipated.

A lot of people will say that Adderall has an appetite suppressant quality- and for them, that may well be the case. My dosage is so low (read: my fifteen year old takes a higher dose than I do)  that I never really noticed that part of it. What I did notice was that all of the things that I normally do to ensure that I eat properly; things like preparing my lunch the night before (or in some cases, cooking on the weekends for the week), coupon clipping to make sure that we have the extra money that eating organically and cleanly is available, remembering throughout the day to sip my water, basic things that ensure that I stay healthy I stopped doing when I stopped taking my medicine.

Having mild ADD is frustrating because you aren’t always aware of what you’re missing. And then when you are aware of it and you strive to focus on that one missing thing, you instantly lose focus on something else.

I couldn’t afford to lose focus in my work. So that became my main focus and everything else suffered. I’ve gained about twenty pounds, I’ve all but stopped blogging, I’ve basically been living in a bubble for these past several months and it’s been driving me crazy!!

What I’m getting at is that the extra twenty pounds coupled with the crappy eating habits, the preservatives, the additives, the well, dare I say it? Shit that has been entering my body for these last four months has probably also had an impact on my cycles. Garbage in- Garbage Out and all that. Right?

So here we are in January and I’ve just gotten a new prescription. Yippee!! I paid the damn deductible (that hurt) and fought with my insurance company over it. It seems that they will no longer accept the generic that I’ve always taken and that WAS a $15 co-pay. Now I have to have the name brand stuff and it will cost me $75 a month! Needless to say, I’ll be calling my doctor next week to talk with her about switching medicines. I can’t justify that much money each month.

So there you have it. I slightly rambling explanation that could have just as easily been summed up as:

No medicine = Crap consumed + No focus  = Messed up cycles = No baby

I start taking my medicine again in the morning. I’m so excited! I hope it doesn’t take me too long to get this extra weight off. I’m shooting for about 20 pounds by Valentines Day. And yeah. that’s a lot, but I think I’ll drop the first eight pounds really quickly (I usually do). So it evens out a little better from there.

So here are my goals for the next five and a half weeks:

I’m happy goal: 10 pounds lost.

I’m ecstatic goal: 20 pounds lost.

Here’s to hoping for a better, healthier, more prosperous 2012!