Well, not this time

At 14 days after ovulation, with nausea rising nicely and tender breasts, etc, I found a tiny smear of brownish mucus when I went to the loo at work, so, just to reassure myself, I bought a pregnancy test. Which, to my enormous surprise, was unambiguously negative.
But it was right, in final result if not in the fine detail; the pregnancy symptoms gently resolved over the next 36 hours, and now my period's started, on day 30 of the cycle, which is unheard-of, unprecedentedly late for me. So that alone, quite apart from the fact that I know I felt implantation and I know I was pregnant for those few days, is proof in my mind that I did conceive, but that this was one of those many pregnancies where something goes wrong during implantation.
Well, this is better than a miscarriage, better than not conceiving at all and hence worrying about ovulation, I suppose. I don't count this as my last chance, since it didn't even get as far as a positive pregnancy test, although of course I know my odds of a third child get worse with every month. And I can't try again this month, because John will be on the wrong side of the pond again at the critical time. Which may be a good thing, I suppose.
But I'm not quite ready to give up on this yet. 2006 was a grim year in lots of ways. Maybe 2007 will be better.

Back on the carousel

Well, here I am on Boxing Day. It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted: my mother broke her leg (a stress fracture just as a result of standing up, no fall or anything), spent two weeks in hospital with a brace on it, and has been staying with us, on a bed in our sitting room, ever since. There has been all the usual end of term and Christmas stuff. John has been to the US on business twice.

And, around the time that the Mizuko baby would have been born, I conceived again.

Yes, after all that agony deciding, and only slighly hampered by John being on the other side of the world for half the month, I got pregnant again on the first time of trying, which is quite shocking, really, with my 42nd birthday nearer than my 41st. This time, I've abjured alcohol and coffee altogether for two weeks prior to conceiving, and had cut down on them considerably before that, and I've been on folic acid for 6 weeks before conception. I was watching my cycle closely, and I know when I ovulated - I felt pain in my left ovary - and we had sex 2 days before that and about 6 hours after it. I felt implantation, too: I woke up in the middle of the night 6 days post ovulation with painful uterine crampings that lasted for two hours.
I've been suspicious I was pregnant since then, but increasingly sure for the last 2 or 3 days. My last period began on Dec 1st, which makes calculation easy. I ovulated on the 13th (day 13), wasn't sure what was happening by the 22nd/23rd, but was getting suspicious because my nipples were so tender - it's a different type of pain from my normal pre-menstrual general breast tenderness - and because I was having more uterine cramps. By Christmas Eve I was certain, because I was already feeling slight nausea and going off coffee, and by today there's no doubt at all - I felt really sick this morning, and I've had 2 hours insomnia in the middle of the night for each of the last three nights. Plus no period, of course - due today or yesterday.
So, here we are again. I feel almost embarrassed to conceive so easily, but of course I know that a positive pregnancy test (if only a virtual one, as I've not bothered to get a real one this time, what with Christmas and all) is in no way anything other than the slight opening of a door, and the promise of a messy and painful time at some stage in the next nine months, which might or might not end with a baby. But still, I can hope.
And it feels right that this conceptus began to exist around Mizuko's due date. The children asked to decorate the Mizuko tree with Christmas baubles - not my idea at all - and so the little tree, bare now for winter, is shining with golden baubles and red-ribboned bells, out on our messy leaf-clogged patio. If I were a New Age sort of person, which I only am sometimes (but I do have a moon phase calendar on my Google home page and a dreamcatcher on the rear view mirror of the car), then I would think I'd had a sign about this pregnancy, too: within 24 hours of ovulation, a little grey feather got caught in the blade of the car's windscreen wiper and stuck there in spite of several fast and frantic car journeys in disgusting weather. So I picked it off and kept it. Obviously most of me thinks this means nothing, but a tiny corner of my brain can't help but view it as some sort of goodwill sign from the cosmos or from Mizuko, sickening sentiment though this doubtless is.
Anyway. I've told John, who took the news more positively than I'd expected, given his reservations about the whole idea. So far, nobody else knows. I've done some Internet research (of course!) and found that you can have a private "viability scan" for about £100, at several places in the London area, so if I can't get one locally on the NHS, I think I shall do that in three or four weeks' time (if I'm still pregnant then), so that I can find out ASAP if I have a viable embryo or something worse. At least I could cut down what I worry about, then. Meanwhile, I shall cherish each symptom, try to stay as detached as possible in case of (probable) disappointment, and wait and see.
But one hurdle is crossed, for now, anyway.