This is it!

I did it. I made it. I'm 40 today. Happy Birthday to me! So, this is it, eh? Not much different from yesterday. I did not feel this super sinking feeling in my ute, seems just as it has always been. Yeah, sort of like Y2K... freaked out that the end of the world was coming, and then... nothing. Not even a cyber-fart.

So I'm going to continue to believe that every thing's okay in there, until proven otherwise. In the meantime, it's time to celebrate! Celebrate four decades of being me. Okay, so maybe I don't really want to celebrate all of it; there were certainly moments that I won't mind at all if they never make it into the "public record". But it's been a great ride so far. Looking forward to the next round.

I share my birthday with Michael Jackson, which has always been fun (and hence the nod to him in the image to the right). I also share it with my paternal grandmother, who would have been either 102 or 104 today (or maybe even only 101... she never did set the record straight). My grandmother and I shared a love for geometry and acting, and, I'm hoping I've inherited her fertility too. She had both my father and his older brother in her mid- to late- thirties, and my youngest uncle when in her mid to possibly late forties. I know fertility is not necessarily inherited, but well, it gives me comfort at least to know I come from a line of very fertile women. My maternal grandmother had 9 children. Granted, I am an only child, but I'd like to blame that more on social circumstances than biology (my parents split when I was 8).

I've not been particularly open about TTC with my mom yet, well, she knows we're not preventing, but maybe I should talk to her and see how actively my parents tried to have more children. But then again, that means I'd 1) have to admit to my mother that I have sex and 2) have to admit to myself that my parents had sex. Um, yeah. I might be forty, but there's a part of me that still feels about twelve.

Kitchen 'speriment #1: Green tea fail

Okay, so here's what I mean about being over-whatever --- over-anxious, over-zealous, over-analytical --- or, in this particular instance, over-DISTRACTED. I've just come back from doing laundry (we're in an apartment, so laundry is down three flights, out the door and around to the basement on the other side of the building) and I notice that it seems really hot in the apartment when I get back. Now, it's a GORGEOUS day outside, and while I only have one little fan on, I'm thinking the air outside should be cross-ventilating through.

I start hanging up hubby's and my long-sleeved shirts and when I get back to the living room I sniff and think, wow, they're really cooking up a storm downstairs. But then I think, hey, that's a really strong smell, and it's a burning smell. Wha-ha? It takes me a few passes through the apartment, but then I go in the kitchen and @#$!%* --- the front burner in on full blast, baking a pot* that used to have boiling water in it... oh, about an hour ago. I'd put water on to boil for some green tea when I came back from putting the clothes in the dryer (or was it the washer??)...

*Yeah, I have a tea kettle, but it's broken. Has some rust issues, and I'd prefer to get my iron dosages elsewhere, so until it's replaced, the tea gets boiled in a pot.

Anyway, now I've got to wait until the pot cools down so I can wash it. No green tea for me today, 'cos I'll take my prenatal vitamin at bedtime. Well, I might stay up past midnight, so I could still manage to pull it off.

See, I was thinking of drinking green tea this cycle, to see if it would help with CM (cervical mucus) production. But green tea inhibits the absorption of folic acid, so you don't want to drink green tea within four hours of taking folic acid supplements, or prenatal vitamins containing it. I've had a hard time coordinating drinking green tea with my vitamin schedule, since I take a 3-times-a-day supplement. But then I finished the bottle and got a one-a-day version, and just started them today. But I'm still not timing things right. It's silliness, and I get frustrated with myself for being silly and for, well, being me, sometimes. This wasn't supposed to be complicated. Ha!

T minus 1 and counting...

I might as well begin at the end... the end of my thirties, that is. If my mother knew I had this blog going, she'd probably be pretty upset to see me outing myself, because if I reveal how old I am, then her age is incriminated, by association... oops! When I'm with my mom (or either of my parents actually, dad's pretty ageless too) people often ask me "How's school going?" Granted, I did spend much of my adult life in grad school trying to major in, well, racking up degrees. So, in everyday social situations, it seems I can "pass" for late twenties or so.

At the doctor's office, however, the disguise is gone (enter Dorian Gray, minus the soul-selling stuff). I can't pretend that I'm 29 anymore, because there it is, right up at the top of the form, age 39. Well, tomorrow that will shift to the big Four-Oh. Forty. Okay, there. I said it. Forty. Quarante. XL. Hmmm... takes a little getting used to but, I guess it's not so bad. Yehright. I'm so not ready for this. Granted, it's more concise than thirty-nine / trente-neuf / XXXIX. Yeah, well, whatever. It's not like, if I could turn the clock back, I'd stop at 39 anyway. I guess it's just that I'm going to miss that leading 3. And for some reason hitting 40 seems like a big effing deal. Oh, right. I remember why. It's my eggs. They may not have gotten the "I'm still 29" memo.

I guess for now it's the fear of the unknown that's been getting to me. We've been trying to conceive since our wedding in April (or rather, I've been trying, and DH has been a willing participant - he's much more laid back about, well, most things in life, including having kids). Of course I have been hoping that we'd luck out and get pregnant without even needing to do any testing. But well, my ob/gyn said to come see her if nothing's happened after 3-4 months, which turns out to be right around my birthday. It's been 5 cycles and nada.

So, I went for my CD3 blood work yesterday. That should give me some indication whether I should even be anxious about my eggs. I have been really nervous about getting the tests done, because, well, I wonder if the results will make me more anxious rather than less. Here's to hoping I get good results and we can continue TTC the old-fashioned way!

My husband has a prescription for an SA (semen analysis) but we still need to make an appointment with a urologist for that (have some insurance stuff to work out). Luckily, hubby isn't squeamish about getting the test done, which I appreciate. He's "only" 31, and while that may not mean a thing fertility-wise, I'm hoping that his relative youth is a good thing.

How do I start?

Someone's actually reading this??? Wow, and... Welcome!

*blushing as I try to tidy up quickly*

The first words, at least for me, are always the hardest to come by. So, I suppose I'll start with an introduction. Hi! I'm Kiki, and I started this blog as a way to let off some steam as I begin my quest for motherhood. I've been inspired by other blogs I've enjoyed reading over the past year or so (especially the ones in the list to the right), but I just haven't felt I had much of a TTC story until now. And maybe I still don't, but I'm finally feeling the urge to write.

My husband and I have been married for almost four months (wow times flies!), and we started TTC on our honeymoon - woo hoo! I've been charting my BBT (basal body temperature -- hmmm, better start a glossary) for a year now, and that's been enlightening. I've also been trying to learn what I can -- and do what I can -- to increase our chances to conceive without medical assistance. Sometimes I feel empowered by this, other times, overwhelmed. It's been quite the learning process, and really, it's only just begun. While I hear the clock chiming as loudly as if I were standing right next to Big Ben, we've only been trying for a little while, in the grand scheme of things, so I try (often failing miserably though) to keep things in perspective.

Hence the theme of Eggs Over Anxious. Over the past few months, I've watched myself try to do everything I can to facilitate getting a BFP ("big fat positive" pregnancy test). At times though, I wonder if I'm over-doing it. I don't mean that I'm already feeling burnt out, because if that were the case I know I might as well just forget about it. I've read enough stories about TTC on various message boards to know that it's not for the weak. So that's not quite what I mean. I guess what I do mean is that I can see already that I've got the type of personality that might burn out (or worse, completely thwart myself) by being too hyper-conscious in my efforts to conceive.

Yet, I know myself well enough to understand that I need to feel like I'm doing something, even if something is nothing more than writing all this stuff down so I can take a step back and breathe. The true quest then, perhaps, is a search for balance. Perhaps with writing this blog I'm trying to answer the following question: What's the "critical mass" for my level of involvement in my own reproductive process, especially when so much of it is out of my (and my husband's) control?

Anyway, over time I hope to log in here and jot down my thoughts about this journey (and, at times, other random aspects of my life), and share what I've done, and not done, what's not worked, and hopefully at some point, what HAS worked!

Thanks for reading -- I hope you find it time enjoyably spent!