Fingers crossed! Fingers crossed!

That's what Jill at my gynecologist office said after answering some questions and making an appointment for me to have blood drawn for progesterone levels on the correct day. 

It's fertility workup month

There should be a sarcastic exclamation point wrapping up that sentence but I can't summon a smart ass attitude right now.  It feels more like:

It's fertility workup month :(

My mood has been excellent until this point; until scheduling the appointment for the last part of this initial workup.  It's been so easy compared to what some have been through, first was the day 2 FSH (and a slew of other tests), then the peeing on sticks to identify the LH surge (that smiley face came pretty damn early, which if that is a trend then timing has been dismally off), then on Thursday there will be the progesterone blood levels.  And then the results.  And I'm not looking forward to that.

Discussing the fertility workup is such an appropriate topic for my blog but to be honest I don't feel like I have anything novel to say.  It all has been said here before - I'm gutted from Toren's death but have learned to function anyway, I'm terribly sad over not having children and I'm terrified that I never will have a living child.  It's embarrassing to not have progressed along to raising a rainbow baby by now.  These aren't things that I feel comfortable discussing with anyone.  Since hanging out with mothers hasn't been appropriate, my friends are primarily 30-somethings who are childless by choice and starting a conversation about how much I would like a child isn't something I want to do.  My family has probably given up on me by now and some would be all judgy about my quest for a child out of wedlock and even if I didn't feel frowned upon I don't want to subject them to another reproductive roller coaster.  I wouldn't want them to get excited for a new family member only to be let down, again.  SnuggleBunny is on board but doesn't understand just what a big deal it is.  He knows that deadbabies are a very sad thing but not that a missing baby changes everything.

And actually, I haven't been doing all I could to have another baby because pregnancy is frightening business.

But the hope of another baby has been very important and I'm afraid of hearing test results that whisk that hope away.  Up until this point my fingers have been crossed but they are not today because the test results will be what they will be, regardless of what I want them to say.  Not being able to have a baby (even just one!) would be devastating and the hopeful part of me says it would be too devastating to actually happen.  But you know what?  Toren's death was something that was too devastating to actually happen but it did anyway.

.....

Anyway, I am doing the tests and for the most part I've been keeping cheerful.  I'm charging into this holiday season with so many commitments there will be little time to contemplate another Christmas without a child.  I'll probably have a fun part-time job during December so that will be a productive way to keep busy.  But the there's something that I'm so excited about!  I'm doing a 90 day fitness challenge!  Here's how it works, we are in teams of 4 and work out with a trainer 3 times a week.  I've done personal training before and disliked it very much and it's still a mystery why this sounded like a good idea, but I LOVE IT!  It is so fun to work out with in a team!  It's day 16 of the challenge and I have not lost any weight but my body fat percentage was one percentage point lower, which could have been measurement error but at least it wasn't higher!  My trainer has been very encouraging and instead of feeling defeated so early on I'm increasing the amount of cardio I do every week and decreasing the amount of cheese I eat - would you believe he said to limit cheese to once per day?  ;)

.....

Expressing these fears has made me feel better and I'll let Jill be my cheerleader for right now. 

May we all have peace this holiday season :)