Back From Java

Hi Folks!

I'm back from my trip to Central Java. It was a spectacular but equally exhausting trip. My sight-seeing trips are hardly relaxing vacations - waking up at pre-dawn and out the door on our bicycles by 6a.m. to catch the sights in early morning light is not what I'd call "relaxing". But we had a great time!

[Sillhouette of the Prambanan Temples]

[Temples of Prambanan]

[Dieng Plateau]

[Boiling cauldron of mud steaming up from Sikidang Volcanic Crater]

[Borobudur Temple in the Mist]

[Borobudur Temple at Sunset]

And of course something had to give - all our scheduled baby-making, BBT charting and ovulation monitoring went out the window! I didn't even pee on a single stick, so all my OPKs chalked up quite a lot of frequent flyer miles for this round-trip! 

I had an appointment with Dr.NeverGiveUp the day after we got back and he pretty much confirmed my suspicions that this cycle was a bust. The u/s scan didn't show any ovulation-ready follicles and my lining had already thicken to 16mm. My BBT had not risen and was still low which indicated that my progesterone levels were insufficient, and that ovulation likely did not happen. So I'm pretty sure there won't be a Borobudur Baby.

But Dr.NeverGiveUp was so pleased with my lining. He spoke as if he was looking at fine art and kept saying with awe that it was the most beautiful he had ever seen (in my history). He pointed at some curvy white bit on the monitor and said that the lining was thick and very distinctive-"perfect". Well, it's a relief that at least my body got something right!

During our consultation, Dr.NeverGiveUp again shared one of his success stories - apparently one of his patients found out the day before that she was pregnant. She was 40 yrs old and infertile for 7 years. She had conceived on the 4th month under his treatment and on the same month that she started taking royal jelly. He was trying to reassure me that I need not worry and that I just had to be patient because I can still conceive at my age. I mean, good for all these women, but - When is it EVER gonna be my turn? Sigh!

So now I'm back on royal jelly@bee spit. You don't know how much I deplore taking this stuff. I'm still trying to perfect my technique of swallowing this snot-like jelly without ever tasting or smelling it. The other day I squeezed my nose shut with my fingers and put it in my mouth. The texture is so gross it took me quite a few seconds to convince my throat to swallow it. Then I tried to mask it by drinking some water and then eating some sweet pastry stuff, all while pinching my nose. Gawd! Do you know how hard it is to eat something without being able to exhale or breathe? I still had my nose pinched tight, and it took an immense amount of coordination to eat like that because crumbs were flying out of my mouth as I exhaled through it. LOL! Thinking that it was all clear, I released my nose and the lingering waft of bee-spit still made me gag straight away. The kitchen sink was 2 feet away and it took all the effort I had not to hurl into it. Conclusion about sweet pastry experiment: Gargantuan FAIL! The next time I battled bee spit again, I tried the same technique but ate Halls medicated cough drops instead. The pungent menthol fumes seem to help a lot, and this is by far the best masking agent. So this takes the horror a bit out of my bee-spit saga! And to think, Dr.NeverGiveUp actually said that he eventually learned to like the taste of it (he's taking it for anti-aging/cancer reasons). "It tastes quite nice!" he says. He also suggested freezing it so you can take it like ice-cream! Like freezing poop into popsicles actually make poop taste good! 

So anyway, it's CD35 now, my ute's feeling a little tender and Dr.NeverGiveUp said that my period will probably happen within a week. Sadly, it looks like there won't be any BFP this cycle. At least the sex was good!