Prep for a long post....

So I told myself I was going to stay away until the start of my next cycle, but I have missed you ladies far too much, so here I am. I continued taking my vitamins this month, but haven’t done anything else (CM, BBT, OPK, etc.), so who knows where I’m at in my cycle. Normally I get some ovulation cramping and didn’t really notice any, but I assume that I ovulated sometime this last week just based on how far I am into my cycle. So onto the updates:

Personal - Hubby fell off a ladder at work last Friday (he’s ok) and I had the most terrifying 30-45 minutes of my life. Long story short, his boss called me and said he fell off a ladder and was being transferred by ambulance to Harborview (the major trauma hospital here in Seattle) and he was in and out of consciousness. Hubby works on ladders as high as 20-30 feet in the air, so I was terrified and thought I was walking into a hospital with him being paralyzed, brain dead, or both. I had what I can only assume was a panic attack and couldn’t feel my face and was getting weird tingling sensations throughout my body while I was driving in Labor Day weekend, afternoon, I-5 traffic. Horrible does not begin to describe that drive. After finding an angel nurse who was walking in from the same parking garage, I asked for help finding the ER. She took me through back doors, swiped her badge multiple times, and took me directly to the main nurses desk instead of the lobby and I was able to get to him so much faster thanks to her. 😇 I walked into his room and he was bloody and had a neck collar on, but he was breathing, talking and moving. 🙌🏽🙏🏽🙌🏽🙏🏽🙌🏽🙏🏽🙌🏽🙏🏽 He ended up with a mild concussion, 3 stitches in his nose, scrapes all over his head, off work for a week, but overall he is ok. Thank goodness. Anyway, it definitely affected our BDing this past week which I’m guessing was my fertile week so I don’t have high hopes for this cycle. But he is alive and I am so beyond thankful for that I don’t even care that much that AF is probably coming later this month.

TTC - So this past Friday we had a consult with the fertility clinic to get more information on his sperm analysis. Overall his count is really good (normal is 15 million he has 47 million) but some of the other qualities like swimming ability and shape, aren’t great. She said that if we were trying NOT to have a baby she would definitely recommend protection with his counts, but it combined with my irregularity could definitely be causing some issues and we could start the fertility work up at any point we’re ready. Insurance covers ok after we reach our deductible, but we’re still pretty far from that this year, so I think we’re going to start that process at the beginning of the year if needed. In the meantime, there’s one more hormone blood test they want me to get and the HSG that Kristen described in a post recently. We may have better luck with that one as far as cost and payment if we go through my primary doctor, so I messaged her and I’m waiting to hear if she’s willing to order the testing, if not we’ll do it through the clinic in the beginning of January.

Tracking - so I broke down and bought an Ava bracelet. It was almost $250, so hopefully it’s worth it. Basically it monitors a bunch of stuff including temp in real time to help track your fertile window. I still have quite a few OPKs, so I’ll probably keep doing those to help me pinpoint for the next few cycles but I’m done with BBT because the bracelet will do it for me. I wore it last night for the first time, so here’s the info it gathers. It’ll be interesting to see how it tracks through the rest of this cycle and into next cycle. Depending on how the charts read, I may put these temps into Glow to see my temp chart, but I’ll decide that next cycle.

If you made it through this novel thank you! I’m glad I took the break, I feel much calmer, less stressed, and more positive now, but I’m excited to be back with you ladies!