ROTFL

It's CD2 and I am in NO PAIN! 

What? Did these words just come out of a "Premium" Endo Sufferer? 

Yup! They did. Totally UNBELIEVABLE, but I'm doing a little jig and am having a great CD2! 

My celebration is probably a little bit premature though, seeing as I'm hardly bleeding! Does this even count as a period since my ute didn't even behave like a normal one this past month? After all, my eggs did do a Houdini on me! Oh my gawd! Am I in menopause?

But despite the fact that everything that can go wrong in a cycle did go wrong with me, I've been unusually happy (ok-this can't be menopause). This past few weeks, it feels like an invisible rock's been lifted off my shoulders, and I would take delight in the silliest little things:

Just the other night, I was looking at a few Tintin comic books that hubs just bought (he collects them) and decided that the dog Snowy was my favorite character. Who wouldn't find a talking, opinionated, smart-ass dog whom nobody can hear, adorable? Then I started telling hubs about a dog I had, as a child, that was named Snowy too. The conversation went like this,

"Did you know that I had a white dog named Snowy? ...And a brown dog named Browny? ...And a black dog named Blackie? ...And a cat named Kitty?....." 

...Followed by uncontrollable fits of deep, belly-shaking, lung-ripping, oh-my-god-I-can't-breathe laughter! It had just dawned on me that my mother had the most uncreative names for our pets. And I just found that absolutely hilarious! I laughed so hard! I mean, okay, it's funny, but on a normal day, I probably wouldn't find it that funny! 

(Just for the record, I also had a dog named Brandy and a dog named Whiskey! All mom's doing! Hubs family does a lot better in the naming department. When we were married, I inherited their black dog which hubs originally wanted to name Carbon! OMG! ROTFL!!! But he thought, wait, what a dumb-ass name for a dog, so they chose Diamond~another form of carbon. Now, that is cool! But then again, they did name their sausage dog (dachshund) Flappy-because its ears would flap when she came running! And just for the record, again, I too had a sausage dog named Jessie, and a second sausage dog named Jessie 2 and a third sausage dog named Jessie the Third! My mom's a creative genius with names!!! ) 

And just last week, hubs and I went to watch Predators because Inception was all sold out, and during one of the goriest scenes, I laughed out so loud because it seemed fascinatingly, ridiculously funny. It was odd because I suddenly realized nobody else was laughing!

Anyway, the point is, I've been laughing a lot! Could this be a hormonal thing, disastrous as mine is? 

To Defect Or Not To Defect?

Its 11DPO and this 2 Week Wait is driving me absolutely CRAZY! I am glad I've got a lot of updating to do on my blog, though I've been spending time on the internet instead obsessing about 2WW symptoms - again! I just never learn do I, even after another year of futile obsessions during the 2WWs of 2009!

As I have hinted, much has changed in my TCM routine this year. For one, I have only seen my regular TCM doc once this year. I felt like we had come to the end of the road with him, especially when the last cycle under his care ended up in me having an anovulatory cycle. In lay terms -

No ovulation = No egg = No chance in hell of conceiving!

So when that happened, it's like,

What's going on here? I'm getting worse!

Because from what I know, and what my Fertility Friend and OPKs tell me, I usually do ovulate every cycle.

I know these things happen occasionally and who can ever be sure why, but it's just easier for me to blame him! Time is ticking... And granted that he did help me get pregnant for the first time in my life last year, there hadn't been anymore pregnancies under his care since my m/c in March '09. I was getting worried. And time is still ticking...

My husband and I had developed a great relationship with him over the year, but he hadn't given us what we wanted. I don't care how many couples he's helped got pregnant since. It's always frustrating to hear about so and so who got pregnant. Everyone he's helped seems to be getting pregnant except us. I had no idea why or what to do. If I hadn't been pregnant under his care I would have left a long time ago, but he did help me get pregnant once naturally, and that was the hold that he had on me. I looked very hard for signs that it was time to move on. After our last visit with him, I pretty much got all the signs I needed.

The First Sign - he hardly showed any concern for our inability to conceive last year. Infact, he suggested that we cool it off and wait for three months instead.


What? You want us to Wait?

I'm thinking, there had better be a damn good reason for this. Turns out, his reason was not based on ovaries or qi or meridiens or hormones, but based completely on his beliefs in the chinese horoscope! He really believed that a baby born in the Year of the Tiger (which starts on Feb 14, 2010) was a really bad match for us, especially for my husband, a "monkey". He said that it would be tough on my husband while the kid's growing up and very tough for our child later trying to grow up under a "monkey" parent. It would be a very difficult relationship. Wow! That really threw me off. I wasn't expecting that at all! We cried out in disbelief but all he kept saying was, "Trust me. Believe in what old people have to say."

Well, that got me really nervous. The chinese horoscope is fun, but I've never taken it seriously. Could our dreams of having a happy family be ruined by the timing of our child's birth? He wanted us to wait 3 months so that our child would be born after the Year of the Tiger. Telling an aging, desperate infertile to wait and do nothing for 3 months is like being banished to hell to suffer for eternity! I had to go and have a consult with Dr Google and see what he says. More on that later.

The Second Sign - I didn't feel like he was focused on our problems anymore. Sure he has dying patients with cancer and life threatening diseases, and babies with brain development problems that are in much dire need of his attention, but I want my TCM doc to treat us like we were his one-and-only most important patient in the world that he would drop everything for! And he was not giving that to us anymore. He was also spending less time in the clinic these days, being more focused on getting his other clinic opened within the next month. He's stretched thin, and his staff never knows when he would be in. I like it when he used to be there 24/7 (seriously - he even works on sundays and public holidays).

He gave us an excuse to disappear. So, (take a deep breath...)

We defected!

We had one last electro-acupuncture with him that session. (By the way, when he pricked that spot over my right ovary, the pain was so intense, my screaming startled him! Yup - either he wasn't careful or something was going on at that acupuncture point!) We got one week's worth of herbal medicine to boil at home and we have not seen him since.

Coming soon... Introducing our new acupuncture fertility specialist...

Dr Yeeeouch!