And thats a no.....

Okay, so I was too excited Friday and decided to do a test Friday night - totally stupid I know - and I knew at the time, but I did it anyway.

Of course it came back BFN, and even though I knew it was too soon to show anything, my heart sunk a little anyway.

I'd been getting more and more symptoms that were pointing "in the right direction". My boobs are seemingly bigger and the aereolas darker (even hubby commented). I've been so tired I've needed Nanna naps in the afternoon, I've been ravenous and eating everything in sight....but now I know it was all most likely AF symptoms.

She still hasn't arrived yet, AF that is. She was due today but that means nothing anymore.

I tested again yesterday, 14 or 15 days past ovulation so definately should've returned a result if I was pregnant.

I'm not.

Another BFN. I think I'm okay.

I am still holding out hope that there is a chance this month. Perhaps I've ovulated later than I thought. My cycle hasn't exactly been reliable and has been more like 32 days instead of 28. If thats the case I might get another HPT and test on the weekend.

If thats another BFN, well, just try again next month.

I thought I'd be more devastated and to be honest, I did have a bit of a cry yesterday thinking that perhaps another baby is just not on the cards for us.

But of course, I wont give up hope until I have a REAL reason to. There are so many pathways to take before I get to feel those feelings mentioned above.

I found out another friend of ours is pregnant. I am so bloody happy for her! She has endometriosis and took 18 months to fall with her first, after being told she couldnt have children. The new bubba didn't take as long but is still a miracle all the same.

While feeling somewhat jealous of her, I also look to her as a source of inspiration. If she can do it, so can I.

Meanwhile, I am adoring my little girl even more. She is so precious and its amazing how I feel so lucky to have her now.

I took falling pregnant for granted....I will never make that mistake again.

Not a lot to report

Well I am in the 2WW and its driving me crazy! These weeks would have the be the longest out of the whole TTC experience and it happens every month!

The only good thing about it is I am starting to get tender breasts and I am very tired so I am hoping that perhaps this is our month!

Then again, I have learnt that you never pay more attention to what your body is doing until you start TTC and I could have these symptoms every month before AF and I just dont notice so much.

To be honest, I have been trying not to think too much about it. Well, thinking about it is okay, dwelling on it is not...so I've been trying not to dwell.

I have been keeping myself pretty busy. I have enrolled in TAFE for a night course in Photoshop. I am hoping to one day be good at something I am passionate about, instead of just being average like I usually am. There was an actual photography course, but due to the crappy town I live in not having enoug people interested, I may not get the chance to do it. (Class sizes need to be at least 12)

I am totally in love with my daughter at the moment. Everything she does is just so cute! Her personality is coming out more and more and with each new thing she does, I realise just how much she isnt my little baby anymore.

She's been co-sleeping with us for a little while now. I haven't the heart to make her sleep in her own bed, especially seeing how cold it is in her room! I have issues with leaving a heater on so her room gets so freezing during the night.

So I pop her into bed with us and she sleeps soundly, but diagonally across the bed between me and Duane hehe.

I am lapping up the closeness. She usually never stops and its great to be able to lay there with her sleeping in my arms. I know, in the long run, it isnt exactly the best circumstances but I am hoping by the time summer rolls around again, that she will be comfortable back in her own bed.

And back down the emotional rollercoaster.....

No, AF hasn't arrived yet, I am just feeling so completely low again today which is pretty weird after my burst of confidence in my last post.

Not a lot to write really....just feeling a bit in dispair...

Sometimes I find myself wondering if I am worrying about nothing, that I will have a baby within the year and all the TTC issues will have been forgotten.

But then I wonder whether I should, indeed, be very worried. I am scared this is going to be a long term thing, and the anxiousness and desperateness I feel now is hard enough to get through already - what if it DOES get worse??

I desperately want to fall this year, I don't want a large gap between #1 and #2, yet I should be happy I can fall at all, even if it takes longer than my "preferred" time gap.

I wonder if people who have been TTC long term (1 year plus) ever thought that they would be the ones having all the trouble. Or did they stay blissfully unaware thinking that this next month would be their month? When did they start getting those little niggly thoughts "is it ever going to happen?"

It's so entirely stupid really. This is only our 5th month of trying. In all reality it could take another 7 before I can start thinking something is really wrong. I guess I am preparing myself for this, in case it does become a reality.

Hopes are up

For some reason, this month, I am feeling eerily confident regarding TTC.

I am 95% sure that I have ovulated (yesterday) and the best thing was hubby and I BD at lunchtime so we *should have* got that little egglett!

However, I know this is totally a fairy tale and totally unrealistic thinking. But I just have that air of confidence and I ain't letting go now!

I am currently at CD13 (cycle day 13) so I am officially in the 2 week wait (2ww) if I take yesterdays cramping as ovulation.

Forgive my lingo, it is just so much easier to write with these shortcuts especially after posting in online forums. 2ww pretty much means the wait I have from now until I can do a HPT or AF shows up, whichever comes first.

Thinking has been in overdrive. I am already thinking what I will need when it comes to the next bub. Well, perhaps not what I NEED, but what I would like to have.

The first is a Phil & Teds pram. As I will have a newborn and a small toddler, I think this would be a good investment (and an expensive one at that!). I like the look of the newest P&T but at over $850 a pop, I am not sure this is the one I will be getting!!

Secondly, I am investing in the best breast pump money can buy. Breastfeeding next time around will NOT be an issue. I am not going to let it be.

Failing in breastfeeding Ella was such a hard time for me. I know I could've done a lot better, done a lot more, been that little bit more patient/stronger/wiser and I will be damned if I will let that amazing experience get away from me for a second time.

When I gave up BF Ella, I was very hard on myself. The child health nurse (CHN), my mother and my doctor seemed to think that this pressure was put on me by society. By being the "right thing to do" nowadays, but the simple fact of that matter is - I WANTED TO BREASTFEED MY BABY.

It didn't matter what anyone else said. If the "norm" was bottle feeding I'd still have wanted to BF. It was something I looked forward to as a mother, something I wanted to do with all my heart. And yet, when I was doing it, I threw it away as if it were nothing. Damn PND to hell.


I had a bit of a scary moment a few days ago. I had 5 minutes to actually think about what it was we were doing. Was I really ready? Did I have some sort of glamorous picture in my head about pregnancy/childbirth/raising a newborn? Did I really know what I was getting myself into?

Truth is, I guess you never really realise what it is you are getting yourself into. It's part of the excitement, the buzz. All I know is I long to be able to experience it all again and to give my daughter a play buddy.

Everything else comes after that. It has to. Otherwise if I concentrate too much on the morning sickness, the millions of bloodtests, the contractions, the burning toilet experiences, the sleepless nights, the sore boobs, it honestly wouldn't be as appealing.

Instead I think of the excitement of that BIG FAT POSITIVE, the tentative steps towards telling family and friends, the first ultrasound, hearing the heartbeat each doctors visit, the excitement of first contractions, that first cuddle, that first feed - THE FIRSTS.

I think they make it all worth it. That, and having something as wonderful as this to treasure always.

On a lighter note

I noticed that the post I did yesterday was quite "straight to the point" and didn't give time to get to know us and our family!

My husband Duane and I have been married for 2 years this November. We met in January 2004, at the Australia Day fireworks. From then on, as they say, the rest was history!

We fell pregnant with Ella in 2006, and found out 5 months or so before the wedding so we had a lot of people ask us if it were a "shot gun wedding"! But no, we are soul mates and this was just another chapter to our fantastic lives.

Ella was born on Tuesday the 20th March 2007. I had been in and out of hospital for high blood pressure in the last trimester, which was my only pregnancy problem! That, and the fact that I had a monster growing inside of me! At 35 weeks, her estimated foetal weight was already over 7lbs! But at 39w 5d, she was born a healthy 9lb 9oz, naturally with an epidural.

Being a new mum was absolutely daunting, and the most amazing experience I have ever had, period. Nothing compares to holding your newborn bubby all covered in muck and looking into their eyes for the first time.

But it wasn't always as magical as that. I suffered Postnatal Depression (PND) and was diagnosed when Ella was 3 months old, soon after I stopped breastfeeding. I think, in part, both contributed to the other. I gave up breastfeeding because I felt it wasn't doing my precious baby any good, which was on account of the PND, yet giving up breastfeeding sent me spiralling even further which didn't help the PND one iota.

I still mourn breastfeeding to this day. I regret not soldiering on and fighting for something I wanted to do so badly. But you learn these things, and a lot more, when you are a first time mother.

Ella is a fantastically happy little girl. I say that even though for the past 4 days she has been clingy and sooky due to molars breaking through and a cold because she just really is HAPPY.
She was such a content baby. People often asked me whether she ever cried, to which I answered with an exhasberated YES! Obviously she only ever saved it for mummy and daddy and for 3am wake up calls!

She loves people. She is just as content in a strangers arms as she is in my own. She's a show pony and knows she is centre of attention when she is in the room. She's my little star.

She is independant and stubborn, just like her mother. She doesn't stop for cuddles, she is always doing something and I love it and hate it at the same time! I've been hoping that once a sibling comes along she will slow down a bit, or at the very least have someone to run around with.

My 5 year old step-neice Kiara and her get along famously. Ella idolises her and follows her everywhere. I've never heard her laugh as much as when she is with Kiara. I can only imagine how much my heart will soar when she is like that with her own little brother or sister.
Of course that is just my fairytale. I am sure there will be tears and hairpulling and smacking and pinching!

Duane adores Ella. He really does go weak at the knees for her. She is truely a daddy's girl and I love it, as does he!

I remember once, he turned to me and said "I never realised I could love someone else as much as I love you". That is just the most perfect sentence in so many ways. And the feeling is mutual.

He is the most caring and gentle soul. I have never met anyone more courteous and friendly. He has a million and one friends and twice as many aquaintances and to be with him is such a great thing. If anything is handed on to my daughter, I'd hope it would be his nature.

Ella does get her "don't stop" trait from her daddy. Ever since I have known him he has always had to be somewhere or doing something. Usually it involves cars, actually 99.99999% of it involves cars!

Duane is a speedway driver. He's raced ever since he was 9 years old and gave it up briefly when we met, only to be back into it a few years later with a bigger and better car than before.
I love being a speedway wife. And Ella loves the speedway too. She points to our pictures of Peter Brock's Commodores on our loungeroom wall and says "Da-da!". Any racecar is her beloved daddy!

Duane also paints cars for a living. He is a tradesman spraypainter and he does a fantastic job! When I first met him he had a bright yellow ute (Yelo Tera, how I miss you so) that he had done up for a show car. He won many a Show and Shine with that ute, and later build me a matching sedan to boot!

Both were sold to make way for our little bundle of joy, and we traded the ute for a wagon. He gave up a lot when we had her, as did I, but I wouldn't change it for all the tea in China.
Becoming a parent is the best thing I have ever done. And it helps that I am mummy to the best daughter in the world!!

Wouldn't you agree?

An urge too powerful to ignore

Ever since my daughter was 8 months old, the yearning for another baby popped up out of no-where.

If you had've asked me in the months before this age, if I wanted another baby, the answer would've been a resounding NO!

However, my baby was growing by the day and learning knew things, and I yearned to be able to give her a sibling to grow with.

Unfortunately, in January 2008, I found out I suffered from an endocrine disorder that affects 1/10 women, called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS. I also had a thyroid problem which could also affect my fertility so the feelings of another baby constantly played on my mind.

Would I be able to fall again? Will it take a long time?

I scoured websites in search of more information and colapsed under a snowball of information late one night. I exploded into tears much to my bewildered (and sleepy) husband that I couldn't hold it in anymore and all my fears came tumbling out.

I felt guilty for wanting another child when I already had such a beautiful baby girl who constantly amazes me every day, yet I felt unfinished, and absolutely terrified that I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

My fears, of course, were unfounded at this stage. We hadn't been trying to concieve (TTC) so how would I know that any of my medical conditions would affect me? I had, afterall, fell with my daughter quite quickly.

After a midnight deep and meaningful, husband and I decided to start TTC. I am under the impression that, at first, he felt it wouldn't be happening so soon anyway, so we'd be "safe".

We started TTC when our daughter was around 11 months old, right before my husband started a new job. Halfway into cycle 2, there was a mini freak-out on his part, and TTC was put on hold for the rest of the month and needless to say, we recieved another BFN (big-fat-negative) HPT (home pregnancy test). My heart sank.

Deep down I knew that the possibility of a BFP (positive) was low, but I still held out for a miracle.

Yet, only 2 months into TTC, I knew it was only early stages.

Onto my 3rd cycle (and plenty of BD - baby dancing) I was started to get really good vibes! I was starting to get "early pregnancy symptoms" coming up to when my mensturation (AF) would be due. I was tired, had sore boobs and best of all, AF was 10 days late!

However, 3-4 negative HPT were telling a different story, so I went for a bloodtest. Negative. AF arrived that afternoon.

We have now finished cycle 4. AF was, again, fashionably late this month, only by 5 days, but late all the same. My hopes were not raised as I knew it would have been a repeat of last month.

I had quite a lot of cramping and clots (sorry!) and passed quite a large clot, which is unusual for my body. After posting about it on a parenting forum, a lot of answers were "it could be a miscarriage". Whilst I know this is totally unlikely, it plays on my mind a lot.

So we are now entering the 5 month of TTC our beloved and much wanted #2. So far all I have worked out is that the PCOS is now deciding to mess with my cycles whereas it never used to.

My thyroid levels will not be checked again until December and I am supposed to be trying to lose weight, which I have NOT done so far. Despite eating better and walking regularly, the weight isnt budging and I am too impatient to wait to start TTC so we are continuing on.

Meanwhile I sit here at my computer reading of everyones BFP's (and feeling so very happy for them) yet feeling so very sorry for myself.

I know my journey has just begun, I know that there are people out there who try for years without success, but this yearning is getting to me and I have never been a patient person.

Until next time.