I am in the middle of a war with myself. As much as I want to be done, I can't break old habits. Ones like knowing the day of my cycle, ones like looking for signs of ovulation. Ones like counting down the days to my next period, or to the possibility of a magical pregnancy. When does this stop? How does it stop? How do you build up so much knowledge about infertility, and then just let it go. Can you slide back into the good old days when you never knew a single thing about it? To the days when you started your period and it was like, "Oh right...that." rather than "Where is it...where is it...Could I be...might I be?? Oh...there you are." I just don't know.
I bought a basal body thermometer. It's actually my first one. I know, all the other infertiles out there gasp. (If you are not infertile, all a basal body thermometer is is a very accurate thermometer that you use first thing in the morning, before you get out of bed. Easy and supposedly accurate to predict ovulation) I just never felt like it was worth the trouble to track temps. I had an ovulation monitor, and it seemed much better anyway. But those strips are hella expensive and seeing as how we are "letting this go" and "giving up trying" and "NOT SPENDING ANY MORE DAMN MONEY ON THIS CRAP" I felt that an $8 thermometer was better than a month supply of ovulation strips that are $50.
So I am temping this month. I am telling myself that the only reason I am doing it is because I need to know if I am ovulating. I think that's mostly true. I want to know. Not that I really know what I will do with the knowledge. Why do I NEED to know, when knowing doesn't really do anything for me? So far my temping chart is absolutely as worthless as I expected it to be. They are suppose to sorta look like this...
and right now mine looks like this....
A lovely mountain range of temperatures*. Because my body is awesome like that.I am hoping that with a couple of months of this I will really be able to ease out of the game. Let all this knowledge pass into something I USED to know a lot about. Something that USED to be important. Maybe one month soon my period can take me by surprise. I will forget it's coming, and not sit there with baited breath hoping that it doesn't. But until then, I am going old school infertility. Graphing body temperatures and hoping for a miracle. Soon I hope to let the graphing go, but deep down I know I will always be hoping for that miracle.
*this is half a chart, because I am only half way through this cycle...and my scientific brain WOULD NOT ALLOW ME to just keep making jagged lines.
your scientific mind is so cute!
ReplyDeleteI never (and still don't) knew all the ins and out of IF. I just knew I couldn't get pg and went to the docs.
My friend knew all this stuff and I was AMAZED :)
Yup, that jagged line is pretty much what I saw month after month. When I shared it with my "infertility specialist," he took one glance at it and set it aside.
ReplyDeleteI'm wishing I could un-learn a few things myself. Good luck with the charting! I tried it for 2 years when we first started TTC, and mine always looked quite nice, but apparently they didn't coincide with what my body was actually doing. That was my doctor's story anyway. I'm not so sure the docs really know as much as they want you to think. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm a temping fiend from the days of yore. :) Keep charting though, I think you might hopefully see a pattern eventually. Mine were wayyyyy wonky like yours until I did them for 2 cycles and then I was like oh! they do kind of follow the "norm", just a wee bit all over the place until ovulation. (I only ever ovulate when I'm on metformin). I put my temps in ferti.lityfriend.com, that helped me a bunch. I was doing it on my own in Excel first and driving myself crazy with analyzing them. FF at least does some of the analyzing for me.
ReplyDeleteit's got to be so hard to let go, when it's consumed your life for so long. i guess weaning is the best way. ;) i think that charting is great, because it gives you some sense of control, like you know what's going on with your body. don't worry about your temps jumping. after a few months you'll be able to recognize the pattern. either way, i'm still crossing everything for you to get a surprise pregnancy when you least expect it. anything is possible! hugs!
ReplyDeleteI have one of those as well and failed miserably because I am always in a rush in the morning!! So I tried it only briefly. Maybe I should whip out mine again and actually try. Best of luck my dear!
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