O or :)

I’m handwriting today’s post before typing it in because I just boarded my flight home which will be a 5h40m flight and I know my laptop battery only goes a fraction of that time…plus, we haven’t taken off yet, so I’m stuck with an old-fashioned way of entertaining myself since my book is on my iPad and all electronic devices must be turned off.

Also, I am in my final half-hour of four-hours-of-not-peeing, so I can POAS (pee on a stick, mile-high edition) and see if tomorrow is the day for my IUI. I’m using Clear Blue Digital OPKs (Ovulation Predictor Kits) for an indicator of when I’ll ovulate–they pick up your LH surge which happens 24-36 hours before ovulation. The Clear Blue Digital give you a “O” or a “:)”, and I appreciate the fact that it is all or nothing, yes or no, black or white. The other tests show 2 lines and you try to compare the test line with the control line to figure out when they match, but this drove me crazy in the gray area of “is that a positive?” “is that a positive?” with R and I obsessively texting photos of our OPKs back and forth for confirmation. I actually missed the window in my first month of testing because I was so nervous about pulling the trigger. Incidentally, w/ Clear Blue Digital you can still check the 2 lines on the stick inside the digital device, which is good backup and to be able to see the nuance of when the LH is increasing but not yet a smiley-face. Dr. Tran says don’t wait for a positive, go in for the IUI when the line starts getting darker. Which has the potential to make me lose my mind again, but we’ll cross that bridge later.

Not that much later though–I’m already on Day 12! My trip really made the past week fly by, and the work half of it kept me from writing here–several readers became concerned that they’re no longer getting email updates, but the fact is that I just didn’t have time to post for 5 days or so. I joked to Mlle Jeanne that I was taking a break while she gave birth to a healthy and adorable baby boy (which fills my heart with joy!)–I knew she wouldn’t want to miss anything. 😉

The fact is that my days in NYC made it impossible for me to do anything but fulfill my work obligations–this time it wasn’t even possible to catch up with friends outside of work (and even at work I barely could pull my closest friends into a 15-min hallway catch-up although we did have time for them to gaze at me with wonder and awe, as if I was already pregnant, which I love.). So I basically went from family immersion and babyland with my sister’s family to full-on corporate mode. There was suddenly no indication of my baby project beyond taking my temp in the morning and remembering to take my prenatal vitamin (which I remembered only about half the time). Add to that the intensity of the NYC office and 3 day-long meetings, and this side of my life truly disappeared.

I’ll put this wish out to the universe: I aspire to adjust my work to include less travel and stress and more flexibility and creativity, while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle in the city. Let’s see what happens!

And let’s hope they turn off the seat belt sign before I explode!