Firstly, Congratulations Ramzubo! Hope to see you over in the November DDC soon, and fingers crossed for stickiness for you!
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Secondly, nice looking thread, Boots! You take your duties seriously! It never even ocurred to me that I could work on it before I put it up, and it's lookin' fantastic.
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Birdie: Good job not cheating on your elimination diet! It must really be hard. I couldn't even convince my husband to try it (even though he's the one who gets worse symptoms - he had a migraine again yesterday). I believe he said "I don't want to stop eating eggs," and was still unconvinced when I explained that he didn't have to stop eating eggs if he wanted to try it, he could leave eggs in. So now I'm trying to just observe him and figure out what it might be. I'm starting to think maybe MSG, I know last time he had a migraine it was the day after he ate Mr Noodles, and this time it was after he ate something with boullion in it, and his sister had a bad MSG reaction in high school. Failing that, I'm thinking dairy, which would be a shame because no-one eats more yogurt than my husband - he eats one of those big tubs nearly every day! It makes sense to sometimes have a cycle where you're not so gung-ho. I think it's a great mechanism to protect us from disappointment. Weird about the domestic violence call, I hope everyone was okay too.Â
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Tank: I'm sorry you're having to deal with family troubles. My dad did stop talking to his mother for the most part. She had mental health issues and was always creating huge drama, took everything as a sign that she wasn't loved, and could never ever let a topic drop until everyone was screaming at each other. He stopped calling her and when she called he would only talk as long as she stayed reasonable. She wasn't interested in getting help, she just wanted to keep up her expectations that the world was out to get her . . . or she was genuinely crazy. But either way, there wasn't anything my dad could do to help, so he stopped talking to her. I think it really made him a little bit better. So if you think it would help you to stop talking to your grandmother, then stop talking to your grandmother! They don't actually have the right to make you feel like you're doing something wrong with your life - that's why it's called YOUR life. I don't think it's wrong to want them to feel bad for making you feel bad, but it probably won't work either. When I have hard interpersonal stuff going on, I don't ask what's right, I ask what's functional. If you tell them you're pregnant right now, will it have a beneficial effect or a negative effect? What are the best- and worst-case scenarios? So, for the example of my grandmother, if my dad stopped calling her, it would have the effect of him not having to listen to her poison. The best-case scenario is that she realizes that if she wants to talk to him she needs to get help, and she becomes less crazy. The worst-case scenario is that she feels like her son doesn't love her - which she does anyway. So for him, it made sense to not talk to her. I hope that helps at all, I find sometimes it helps me to distance myself from the emotions in a situation and look instead at what might work. Other times, I scream and yell and storm out the door . . . so you can guess which one I prefer, when I can manage it. 
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Boots: I don't know where to read about anovulatory cycles, but I've heard on these boards that it's pretty normal for women to have them once or twice a year. It's a good thing there's not a Borders close to us, or my husband would be unimpressed that you mentioned that! He doesn't really understand why I want to OWN so many books, when I could just get them out of the library. Whenever we visit my parents I simply HAVE to go to the used book store there - it's enormous and absolutely chock-full of fantastic books. It's the best used book store I've ever been in. When we were down there last November, I told my husband I wanted to go and he sort of groaned. To make him feel better, I promised to only get 7 books. I think he thought I was joking, ONLY seven . . . but it was really hard. I did it, but it took a lot of deliberation! But really, of all the addictions I could have, books seem pretty benign - a little heavy and bulky, but other than that they never harmed anyone. There was that one time that I pitched a big book at a guy in my sixth grade class . . . I don't remember what he said to deserve it, but it was really bad and sexually explicit. I was in a lot of trouble (the book broke when it hit him), and had to go sit in the hall (first time ever for this goody-two-shoes) and then my teacher came and asked why I did it, and I said that the boy had said something bad . . . and the teacher asked what, and I said I wasn't allowed to say it, and he said that this time I was allowed. I really don't remember what he said, but when I told the teacher I remember the look on his face. At the time I was very relieved that he then told me I didn't have to pay for the book and that the boy would have to instead (it was a $17 book, which was about two month's allowance for me). In retrospect, I've started to wonder where an eleven-year-old boy learned how to say something that shocked the teacher. Given the little more that I know about that kid, I can't help but wonder if maybe he was being abused. The next year he said something similar, and I hit him over the head with a dictionary, and he punched me in the stomach. We both got sent out of the room, and then I could tell he was really upset. So we talked just a little, and I apologized for hitting him and told him he couldn't say stuff like that to people, and he apologized for saying it. I still think about him pretty regularly (as you can tell, since I just rambled on and on about this stuff, prompted only by the thought of books). I hope he's okay, guys from my hometown have only one way to deal with emotional stuff, which is self-harm and committing suicide. I've tried to find him on facebook, but he has a really common name and I haven't seen him since the seventh grade. Phew, I had a lot to say about that! Anyway, back to a happier topic, books. I love that you "had" to order a couple of books and some earings to get super-saver shipping on your OPKs. You SAVED money, right? And I sure hope you don't need 50 OPKs either! It's probably a good idea to get some advice from the other ladies with long cycles. Ask the experts, makes sense to me! I'm glad AF started for you, nice of her to show up sooner rather than later and give you a chance to try again.
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Taxlady: Thanks for the prediction! I'm glad you predicted girl, because the Mayan calendar thing and the Chinese calendar thing both predicted boy. This way, it was correctly predicted either way! I hope you're right, though - not because I care at all about the sex of this baby but because I want to help you keep your fantastic record! I'm so sorry that the weekend went so poorly. I think it's hard to be the female when you're trying to conceive. Men don't take pressure nearly as well, so we have to keep it all for ourselves. I actually didn't tell my husband most of the time that we were fertile. He didn't ask, I didn't tell. I just let him think whatever he wanted when I suddenly was feeling all randy. It's a bit harder to do that though with OPKs in the bathroom, pre-seed on the night table, instead cups at the ready, and when you're trying to surreptitiously stick a pillow under your butt after sex. I mean, he's right there, it's not like he might not notice. I'm sure he feels even worse about it than you do, but it's still hard to not be disappointed. Poor both of you.  
 
 I really wish there was anything at all that I could say, I really just feel like you deserve to get your BFP, and NOW! But I guess we don't always get what we deserve . . . and on my worst days I sure am glad, because there have been a couple of times I really deserved a kick in the pants. Sigh. I hope you find some productive way out of that limbo soon. I'm thinking of you.
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ShannonO: GSB is Golden Showers Boyfriend, for the little digital guy that smiles when you pee on him. I'm glad your race made you feel good and helped to motivate you! It's funny, I always lose some fitness over the winter, because it's too cold to do a whole lot outside and I don't enjoy just "exercising" inside. Then I get more fit over the summer. But every summer my husband leaves and when he comes back he thinks I'm fatter. It's weird, because he's got it backwards. I'm thinking maybe he has a mental image of me from when I was 20, and he forgets what I really look like, and then when he sees me he's surprised that I'm not my skinny 20-year-old past self. Anyway, just trying to say that I think losing a bit of fitness in winter is normal (and if you gain some body fat, beneficial because it helps you stay warm!) Nothing wrong with that, and it sounds like you're ready to step it up again. It's sweet that your husband is getting excited about the possibility of being pregnant, even if he doesn't understand the details. It was my husband who isn't exciteable. One time when we were visiting his sister, she told me that she hoped he was enjoying the visit, because she's never been able to tell if he's having a good time or not. His own sister! It actually made me feel a lot better, I thought I was just oblivious, but really he's just not very demonstrative.
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Rush2ady: I swear I found a thread that explained a bunch of the acronyms when I first came to these boards. I'll look for it. Okay, I couldn't find it, but this one is okay.
http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1081373/learning-to-speak-ttc-please-sticky
The thing is that this thread has its own special lingo anyway, like GSB=golden showers boyfriend (a positive OPK (ovulation predictor kit)), and EWBJ=Egg White Bajingo Juice (or CM, cervical mucous, or CF, cervical fluid). I swear there was a sticky when I signed up, but the site changed, so maybe it disappeared. I do my charting on fertility friend. If you sign up through one of the other member's charts (just go to their chart and then hit the sign up button), it gives them free VIP time. You don't actually HAVE to pay there once the trial period is over, you just lose some of the functions. You can still see your charts and record data, you just can't do any of the fancy analyses. Here's hoping you don't need it, because those symptoms are already telling the tale!
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Cristinimartini: Just to reiterate, you don't actually HAVE to pay for fertility friend after the trial - it just becomes more basic, just charting, no symptoms on the chart (although it does record them for you still, you just can't see it except when you check each day), no pregnancy signs estimator, no analysis of your BD pattern, no test day, no expected fertile days, etc. I used it for a couple of months without paying. It still is functional, but they're smart to give everyone the thirty day trial - they know that we'll all miss the fancy features when the trial is over. And it works to buy a subscription to get pregnant - but I only bought a 3-month subscription. Just make sure you wait until it's on sale. Incidentally, they have a sister site, a pregnancy tracker, where you can chart your pregnancy weight gain and pregnancy symptoms . . . so it might be worth getting the one-year one anyway, if you want to do that stuff. As for your chart this month, it actually looks quite nice to me. The many days of positive OPKs is a strange thing, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. And I would say the fainter evening ones are definitely due to higher water intake. The day before my positive OPK last cycle I had a really faint OPK - both the control line and the test line were really pale. I think it was because I had been drinking a lot of water that day. That's all I personally have to go on, but it was pretty convincing to me, since even the control line was light. And CD12 looks good for me for your O day. Sounds like you've got as good a shot as ever!
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AFM: I'm doing really well now. I'm a lot less tired and can walk my dog now without feeling totally exhausted, I'm only craving things that are relatively good for me (like spinach and homemade beef jerky), and I'm feeling more confident every day. I'm still a long way from sure that I'll end up with a baby, but I get more sure every day. I have been really hungry most nights when I wake up to pee, and I just have to eat something. Usually I go with an apple or banana, because it's so easy. If I'm really hungry, I eat one of those two things, but with peanut butter. I checked my daily food habits against the stuff laid out in "What to Eat When You're Expecting", and I'm doing okay, although they want me to eat a lot more calcium (good thing I'm taking a supplement), a bit more protein, and one more whole grain serving. Not bad for just eating what I want, I'll pay attention now and should be able to get it just about right.
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I've been having some pretty intense dreams. Last night alone I remember one about our house being freezing, with frost covering all the doors, one about lusting furiously after some young farmhand (I've been having furiously lusting dreams every night, but I'm afraid to actually DTD with my hubby because I don't want to jostle anything in there or have an orgasm and release oxytocin . . . I miscarried last fall the morning after we DTD for the first time pregnant. I'm trying to wait until I see the doctor, but that's another two weeks, and I'm in the mood! Also, don't worry, I'm trying to take care of my husband's needs every once in a while anyway . . . I don't want him to start off already resenting baby for reducing his fun time, there will be plenty of tiime for that once baby is born!). I went back to sleep after the farmhand dream to try and get that out of my head. Unfortunately, it was replaced with an even worse one where my dog kept running off with the neighbor's pack of hoodlum dogs, and I was worried she would get shot, but my husband didn't care and kept telling me not to worry, but he said it by saying "Stop shmooping!" because he had just invented the word shmooping and thought it was perfect. He was smoking a lot of cigarettes, every time I looked he had another one in his hand, and I would grab it and stomp it out and look up and he would have another. His unconcern for our dog, his constantly having a lit cigarette, and his overuse of the non-word "shmooping" made me so angry that I was incoherent. I knew I had good points that he should actually be taking into account, but I couldn't express them and was just emitting strangled sounds of fury and crying. Pretty much none of that is accurate, but it made for one helluva dream.
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I've been kind of emotional in my waking life too, but I've been pretty able to deal with that, because my wonderful husband helps me with it. I was feeling lonely the other day (my husband's sleep schedule is way wonky and mine is finally normal) and asked him to do something with me, but I was sure he didn't want to, so I asked in this depressed, self-sabotaging way. He pointed that out and we talked about it and managed to get past it and then had a really nice time. We played hand-drums together and then talked about society/culture. It was great, and made me feel really good. Yesterday we talked about methods of baby carrying and what might work best for us. Because he never gets too excited, talking to him about stuff like that makes me feel really good, because it means that it's real, and it's really happening, and I'm not getting all excited about nothing. Yay!
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So, to sum up, exhaustion for a while followed by a good sleep pattern, vivid and often somewhat unpleasant dreams (not all that unusual for me), and being emotional, but being able to recognize it and get past it . . . that's about what pregnancy has been like for me so far, symptom-wise. That and a definite change in the way my bowels work . . . things have really slowed down in there, but not too much because I'm making a point of eating a LOT of fiber. Mentally, I'm starting to believe that this is real. I've been tracking the little tadpole's progress on a website that gives day-by-day updates, and I'm really enjoying that. It allows me to be interested without getting overly emotional - right now our little bundle of cells looks like a tadpole more than anything. I sure hope it keeps growing and becomes a human, but if it doesn't I won't have too much of an image of the little human that could have been, because it isn't at that stage yet. If any of the other pregnant ladies are interested, it's at http://pregnancy.familyeducation.com/first-trimester I'm still not doing great at the daily yoga/kegels thing, but I have been getting at least light exercise every day.Â
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Yesterday my brand-new sheep decided to go for a walk. I was worried they would get lost, so I took my dog around the back of them to ease them back to their pen. My dog did pretty good for a pretty long time, but then she lost control and started chasing them flat-out. (I would have had her on a leash, but the leash was in the house and going to the house would have pushed the sheep farther out). So it was a parade, three pregnant sheep followed by one hoodlum dog followed by one pregnant woman. Fortunately, my husband was watching out the window and came running out too - running through the deep snow trying to keep your dog from making your sheep abort is a good way to max out your heart rate! Just about the time my husband got outside I was starting to huff and puff enough that I figured I should stop, but I really wanted to catch my dog and give her a thorough alpha-dog-roll-over . . . before she cemented in her mind that chasing sheep was nothing but good fun. My husband is a good runner (a lot better than tired pregnant lady), and he caught her and rolled her. The sheep were shaky and scared, but uninjured, and when I gave them a couple of handfuls of grain they forgot all about it as far as I could tell. Fortunately, our dog is not a biter when it comes to sheep. She just loves to chase them . . . forever. Last year she found a fawn that the mama deer had left while she was foraging. She chased it all over our property, it finally ran into our slough (which is quite shallow) and got too tired to keep running. My dog caught up to it, and I was still trying to catch up and screeching like a banshee to "leave it" (a command she does KNOW the meaning of, even if she doesn't like it). She touched it with her nose and then stood there, like it had never occurred to her what to do once she actually caught it. She continued to rest the tip of her nose on it until I got there, at which point the fawn decided I was the better bet and scurried between my legs and out behind me. Ah, adventures with hoodlum-dog. Anyway, so far all looks to be well for both the sheep and myself. Babydust to everyone!
Conceiving #1 in Our 30's March 2011 
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at age 30...after 4 months EDD 11/11 profile 
at age 30 ...after 6 months EDD 07/11 profile
  
I'm hoping he slows down a bit so I don't end up having to labor with a huge baby!
DH and I were both shocked (but completely thrilled too!)
