Drowning!

In my job, my work comes and ebbs like the tide. From time to time I am bored out of my mind, usually I have just enough to keep me busy, but on occasion, I get more than I can handle. The latter is where I'm at right now. It makes me laugh because I am usually complaining that I don't have enough to do. I would like my work load to be just right. I hate being bored, but having more than I can handle is never a fun thing either.

At my last few monthly reviews I let my PM know I wanted more work. We sat in his office and talked about other areas within the company that my skills could be utilized, what other projects I could work on, etc.

Dammitall, I got my wish. I am up to my eyeballs in work right now. I have so much stuff due before the 15th of January I don't know how I am going to get it all done without working a few late nights here and there or bringing work home with me. I haven't missed a deadline yet and I'm not about to let that record slip. Deadlines are a big deal, and it doesn't go down well if one slips and its your fault.

On top of being overloaded at work, things are crazy at home. It is currently Hubs' turn to be sick. The man never throws up. Ever. He's like Se.infeld. Well, last night for the first time in years (like my strep record that was recently broken), he worshipped the porcelain throne all night. He was so sick he had to stay home from work today. I had to bring him home soda, chicken broth, and crackers just so he could get some nourishment in him.

Let us not forget, Baby Bean and I are still sick as well. We're both at the end of our current colds and are at the nasty "clearing out stage," but I know the next round is just around the corner.

What this is all leading me to is that my blog reading and commenting is going to drop off severely for the next two weeks. I love blogging. It is my obsession and everyone in my close personal life knows it. I feel like it is my patriotic duty to leave comments that brighten the blogger's day on every blog I follow every time it is updated. That is just not going to happen the next two weeks. Mostly because when I get some down time at work, I read blogs. Down time is a thing of the past until Christmas week when I'm taking two full weeks off.

So, if you notice and/or care, I apologize profusely that I will not be able to keep up with all of you (especially Heather who updates daily). I'll still check in when I can, but there is no way humanly possible for me to be the oober blogger I have been. Give me two weeks and I'll be back. But then two weeks later I'll be gone again. After that remains to be seen.

Know that I will miss you all very much and look forward to Friday the 18th when I will be back in full force.

Love and Hugs!

P.S. Thanks to JourneGirl and Cherish This Baby who awarded me with the Valued blogger award. You two cracked me up. I promise I will spread the love as soon as possible.

P.P.S. GOOD LUCK IN THAILAND JOURNEYGIRL!!! I will be thinking about you. :)

In Response

I thought I would post up a quick blog in reponse to the comments on my last blog, and because I am still totally confused about my temps!

I had some serious cramping yesterday starting at around lunch time and lasting through the rest of the evening. Although I am sick of thinking, "Maybe I'm ovulating today" every single day for the past week, I thought that my cramping was a really good indication the egg had been released. But when I took my temp this morning, I wanted to shake my thermometer again. My temp only crawled up one tenth of a degree from yesterday's 97.0 to 97.1. I am just utterly confused!

I do take my temps first thing in the morning right after I hit snooze for the first time (I usually hit it at least 6 times before getting out of bed). I actually get a kick out of my thermometer because it saves up to 10 temps taken within a 96 hour period, as well as the time they were taken. I will go into the memory and smile at the fact that each temp is EXACTLY 24 hours apart.

The things that are really confusing me are the fact that my temps were going up for the two days following the 14th, and then dropped from 97.9 to 97.1. Then the fact that they stayed low for days on end is just boggling my brain. My last few temps have been 97.1, 96.7 (which isn't an option on my chart that bottoms out at 97.0), 97.0, and 97.1. On top of that, these are the lowest temps of my cycle. Up until the 14th, my average temp was 97.5 with the lowest being 97.3. Even if I DO ovulate at this point, how much should my temperature jump? Should it jump to .2 degrees above my coverline to indicate ovulation? Or should it just jump .4 degrees from the 97.1 from today? At what point would my temp be indicative of ovulation? If last month's chart is any indication, my temps should be around 98.5 after ovulation. I'm a long way from that right now. Frustrating!

I would seriously think my thermometer was frizting if I hadn't retaken my temp yesterday with a different thermometer that confirmed the reading of the first. Is it just me, or does everyone else think this oddity is stress induced? In reading, "Taking Charge of Your Fertility," I don't think this pattern is at all normal. Even in the example charts where women ovulated late due to stress their temps didn't drop like mine has. I am seriously so frustrated with it that I'm debating if I even care enough to keep temping!

Maybe I should just quit doing anything in the conception way. The OPKs stressed me out big time because I was so afraid I'd never get that positive test and I'd be landed back in the dr's office. The temps aren't stressing me out, but they sure as hell are frustrating me. I thought it was fun at first to correlate temps with monthly symptoms, but I don't think so anymore. Perhaps ignorance is better. If I don't know my temps are really low and therefore don't know if I'm ovulationg, I can't worry about it, right? Maybe I just need to get that job in Texas so I can completely focus my thoughts and energy on something else for a while.

While I know this post makes me sound like I'm stressing about the temp thing, I'm really not. I'm just confused and frustrated. I'm just sick of knowing I'm broken and not "normal." I hate being on the bad side of statistics, and I feel like that is all I have been on this past year. I'm the 1 in 7 couples with fertility issues. I'm in the 1 in 25 women who have endo. I'm the 1 in 600 women who have erratic temps....

I think I seriously need a beach getaway. lol

Taking a Really Long Break

I have decided that I am going to take a year off from infertility treatments. I don't know what changed my mind or why I decided on a year, but I did. I think it might have been a bit of inspiration from my friend Cowboys and Custard. I think when I read that she didn't have her first child until she was 35 it flipped a switch in my head that said I had plenty of time, and that I should just take this next year off and let my body do its own thing. I really feel like this is the path I want to take right now. When I made that deicision, a real sense of calmness came over me, and I knew I'd made the right choice.

I just want to have a year where I don't think about treatments, hormones, shots, doctor visits, bills, etc. On top of that, my husband and I want to move, and we want to do it soon. Moving would involve a job change for me. Both changing jobs and moving are high stress times for me and not condusive to getting pregnant. So I have decided that I am just going to let things happen the way they will for 2008. If I get pregnant, great! If not, no big deal, we'll pick up treatments next year. I still have plenty of baby making years ahead of me. What's the hurry?

Over the next year the only thing I am going to do is temp. I'm not even going to use OPKs because the last time I did that it sent my stress levels through the freaking roof and postponed my ovulation. Kind of self-defeating.

I just want to take this next year to be me and to be happy. I want to only appreciate what I have in my life, and not what I want and don't have. I am married to the most wonderful man in the world. He is so perfect for me, and we are so much in love with each other. I have the best dog in the whole world. She keeps my stress levels and blood pressure low. I have a wonderful job and what I do is in high demand right now, which will eventually lead to our being able to move to Texas, where we really want to be. We have a wonderful house full of memories that we have made together. Does it get any better? (Can you tell the sun has actually been out here for the last week?! lol!)

So that is where I stand right now. Happy and content. Why change anything?