Nosreves, your week sounds exhausting! And next week too. But yippee for two weeks off! I was reading the part about your partner being excited about Belgium and how you're feeling numb, and it just made my heart ache. Hugs to you, mama. I haven't had nearly the number of challenges you two have experienced but I do feel as if I can relate to the numbness and the feeling of defeat. If it weren't for you and the rest of the lovelies here, as well as our supportive families and friends, it would have been incredibly difficult for us to even continue trying to conceive. I believe your partner is totally right; this new clinic with it's amazing doctor and staff completely is a hopeful new beginning. You can do this. You will do this. You're going to bring home at least one baby, and this clinic in Belgium is going to help you achieve your dreams. Be steadfast in your desires! Keep your chin to the sunshine, my friend. We are all here for you.
P.S. Yes, the painting is in acrylics! I love acrylic. I'm too impatient to work in oil, and my confidence is broken over using watercolors though I'm considering trying it again. We'll see. I'm just a weekend hobby painter; I took a drawing and a painting class in high school but really it's just been a love of mine that I've kept practicing. If you have questions, I'd be happy to do my best to answer them, but to be truthful I'm still shocked anytime a painting comes out looking nice.
Welcome to Queer Parenting, Allison!!! It sounds like you and your wife have been on quite the journey. Your insem experience this month sounds so encouraging! I really sincerely hope this TWW ends in a nice positive pregnancy test for you! I'll add you to the front page roster, under "Braving the TWW" - if/when you need to be moved to a different category, just post it in bold and I'll move you!
Lise, that stinks that your school is so afraid of lawsuits! I hope it doesn't pass. I just keep telling myself that all the gay rights fights and arguments and laws and lawsuits are temporary. People fight the hardest against new things just before they change. Someday, we'll get there. I believe that. I'm just going to wait it out. 
Monday is coming up, soon you'll be able to pee on those sticks! It's strange, the things that make us happy, isn't it?
Carmen, I'm sorry you aren't feeling pregnant. That's never a good feeling. Urgh. Here's hoping for a surprise positive tomorrow! Hugs to you. 
rs - Your story about your MIL is so sweet and funny. I always adore hearing stories about supportive families, because there are so many stories of unsupportive families out there. Good luck! I hope you can conceive a baby on your wife's birthday!
TineyDreams, WOW! What a story about your friend's labor and delivery! That sounds incredible. What a great way to start off a cycle! This month's plan sounds so fantastic for you guys, I hope this is it for you!
Anna - Glad you guys are figuring out exactly what works best for you, especially with regards to your donor and the way you orchestrate that happening. And your calm inseminations sound ideal, congrats! The funny thing about TTC is that every single one of us comes at it from a different place, a different perspective. And add to that, some of us have been trying for a few months, some of us are at a year or more, and new couples are joining every day who are just starting out. I appreciate your words of encouragement, because it reminds me of the way I *want* to feel while we're trying. It's so easy to get discouraged and start to feel negatively about it, like this is never going to happen, and that isn't healthy or ideal for conceiving a child. Hang onto your optimism, it's such a valuable commodity.
About the ovulation, we're able to zero in somewhat closely on when DW ovulates, but our accuracy increases after she ovulates. After the fact, we're pretty good at saying, "Yep, you ovulated at this time, which puts it at X hours post smiley." For that we're just using her basal body temps and cervical mucus and position and openness. During the actual ovulation window, we're pretty much stabbing in the dark, it feels. Sometimes her chart shows a fallback rise, so she'll have two temp dips and spikes right after a positive OPK and it's like, WHICH ONE IS *THE* ONE?! Don't know. She always has a clear thermal shift on her chart, so we are confident she is ovulating, it's just that her ovulation is not consistent from month to month with regard to when the OPK becomes positive. It's rather infuriating. So I guess we're generalizing the ovulation timeframe by rounding up or down a little, but I think we're pretty close. Last month, her temp dipped on the same day as her positive OPK but I was expecting her to have another dip and spike after the initial one, so we didn't inseminate until a day after she likely ovulated. That wasn't very fun.
All in all, I've come to accept that I don't know jack about what's happening in there and I just have to keep hoping that at some point, we'll get lucky.
AFU, today we're 2 DPO and life is good. DW has been at work since early this morning, and I've spent the day lounging around watching Friends, talking to my mom on the phone, and working on my mom's birthday present, which is a painting of me when I was a baby. Part of the baby portrait series I mentioned a week or so ago. Later this evening is "Craft Night" at the in-laws, where I will be working on ceramic Christmas ornaments.
Happy weekend, all!
Are you using a KD or frozen? FWIW, I couldn't get a positive opk when I was TTC my DD for several months...but I knew I was O'ing because I got pregnant! Eventually I started testing twice a day and then was able to pick it up no problem when I figured out the best time of day for me to test.
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