Two Week Waits And Trashy Romance Novels

It's good to know that my uterus is still working- somewhat. Dr.NeverGiveUp scanned my ute on Friday (7DPO) and told me that I had ovulated and that the lining was building up very nicely at 11.9mm. Then he tells me later that my egg quality wasn't very good though for this cycle because it was quite big @25mm. He's an optimist but yes, always a realist!

Here's what I learned from him during my appointment:

• In his experience follicles that are 18-20mm in size seem to be ideal because he has noticed that most successful pregnancies occur from follicles of that size.  

• The ideal thickness of the uterine lining should be around 8-14mm for pregnancy to happen, but the optimal range seems to be changing with ongoing research. He says that 18mm used to be considered too thick but that is even acceptable in today's standards as stastistics have shown that women are able to get pregnant with that.

• He has helped over 600 women conceive naturally with TCM since he started his practice 15 years ago. He has also been listed as one of the panel doctors in a hospital-the first for a TCM doctor to be recognized in a (western medicine) hospital. And also invited to lecture in universities. Several of the prominent fertility clinics in town know of him and even refer their patients to him. He was trying to reassure me that I am in very good hands. 

So, here I am now on 10DPO. I think that this cycle is pretty much a bust anyway~Only 50+ days into treatment under Dr.NeverGiveUp and bad egg which took forever to ovulate! What are the odds of a BFP with that? Though I'm sure that my lining's doing its stuff cos I've been feeling crampy. It's been a while since I've felt like this.

Being in the midst of a 2WW feels very strange to me. It feels like it has been a millenium since we've TTC. We've only skipped out on one cycle because I didn't ovulate last month, but it feels like it has been a really, really long time. So I got out my calendar and counted back to the last time I had a positive OPK and got down to some serious baby-making:


.... 99 DAYS!

Holy crap! That was like 3 months ago! We've been sitting on the side lines for so long! No wonder this 2WW felt so weird! I just turned 39 this year. Is age really getting to my eggs? Last year my cycles were averaging at 35 days, ovulating 85% of the time. Going by this track record, it looks like I'll be ovulating only 4 times a year~spring, summer, fall, winter? Eeeek!!!!

Well, bad egg or not, it's still a 2WW no less, and I finally got a chance to dig out the romance novels I bought several months ago in anticipation of the 2WWs that didn't come. During my last 2WW I started reading romance novels. At that time, I asked myself what was a good way to take my mind off to a happy place far, far away? I thought romance novels may be ideal because I'm a sucker for all that feel-good romantic stuff, though I haven't touched a single romance novel since "Sweet Valley High" days back when I was a teen! (Anyone remember those?) So I walked into a book store, clueless, and blindly picked out a few books by New York Time's Best Selling authors.

Boy! Was I wrong! Those books are not "feel-good" all the way! I cried and cried and cried! There were so many twists and tragedy in the plot that it put me on a intensely wild emotional roller-coaster ride! I read "Dear John" by Nicholas Sparks which I wanted to before I saw the movie, and "Every Breath You Take" by Judith McNaught. Yeah - So much for a happy, zen 2WW!!! And for all I know my hormones probably amplified those emotions 100 times stronger! But now I am HOOKED! Especially on McNaught's books! They're dangerous-I simply can't put them down, even to sleep! In a global recession, being whisked away to a world of glamor, money and private jet planes, without any care nor accountability for carbon footprint, is such a wonderful escape. And where the heroine gets pregnant immediately after a hot, steamy 2-night sexual affair seems so ridiculous to an infertile but absolutely consoling to see that the hero and heroine really loved and wanted their children. I've read 2 more of McNaught's books this 2WW. And no more till my next 2WW. They're just way too dangerous!