That bitch

I am, of course, referring to hope. After doing so well last month training myself not to hope to get pregnant (and as a result, only being kinda sad at not being pregnant, rather than kinda devastated), circumstances are conspiring to make me feel hopeful this month. This is bad.

It started on Tuesday, with the doctor's visit. I've already mentioned that this doctor makes me feel hopeful. Then on Wednesday, I learned that a friend of mine is pregnant again. We have kids the same age, and she's been trying for her third longer than I've been trying for my second. She had a miscarriage last summer (not this past one, the one before it), but announced that she was pregnant again the same week I revealed my own pregnancy in December. After I had my miscarriage, I clung to the fact that she, at least, was pregnant again and things seemed to be going well. I think I held my breath the entire day when I knew she had her 12-week appointment, only to exhale when she emailed that all was well. If she could go on to have a healthy pregnancy after a miscarriage, then so could I, right?

Three weeks later, she miscarried again.

As far as I know, this newest pregnancy was a surprise for her (she'd stopped trying for a while), and she is understandably not getting her hopes too far up. But the fact that she conceived again fills me with hope that I'm having a hard time stomping down. I'm praying with every fiber of my non-religious being that this pregnancy survives and she gets a healthy child.

Next, I bought a fertility microscope this week. For those not familiar with this little device, it's a tiny microscope that you use to see the crystallization patterns in your saliva. If you see "ferning," it means you're ovulating. It arrived two days ago, and this morning, I started to see ferning. So now I'm all excited that maybe this could be the month that everything works out.

Finally, last night, I had a dream that I was pregnant. Not that I would get pregnant this month, but that I actually tested and turned out to have gotten pregnant last month, despite the fact that I got my period. I actually took an HPT in the dream, and initially thought the two lines meant I'd accidentally peed on an ovulation predictor. The, for some reason, I went to England and went shopping. I was just shimmying into a fabulous black dress that actually made me look slim and sexy when M woke up. It was a fabulous dream, and the buoyant feeling it inspired has stayed with me all morning.

So here I am, full of hope. Luckily, I have at least two weeks to return to my normal, cranky, pessimistic self. And there's the prospect of new toys next month (the clomid) to take the sting out of not getting pregnant this month, when the inevitable happens.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In other news, M's weaning is going surprisingly well. Yesterday, she only nursed once. When she's awake, she seems to accept my "they're empty" explanation without fuss. Now I just have to figure out how to drop naptime nursing. I have a feeling that once that goes, the middle-of-the-night nurse will follow. But still, any and all suggestions are welcome.