J's Days as an Only Child Are Numbered.

And due to end somewhere around mid to late April of 2011! 

Here's the onesie I picked up on my way home from work to tell C. I was 99% sure of a BFP, since I'd gotten a really, really faint line a couple days ago, so I thought this would be cute for when I got a definitely positive pee stick. Please excuse the messy counter around the shirt, this was taken in the bathroom right after J's bath.

The Shettles Method, and Fun with Numbers

If you've been reading a while, you may know that C's family makes boys. Pretty much exclusively. In an effort to produce the first girl in this generation of the family, we're trying the Shettles Method. We got a copy of How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby through paperbackswap (have I mentioned that they ROCK?! Also, if you sign up, please mention "ckolak" as your referrer. I'm not sure if I get any benefits from it, but I'd like to find out). Having read TCOYF, most of the book wasn't really new to me, but the methods for gender selection were. Anyway, we figured it would be worth a shot to try for a girl, since if we "fail" we'll get another boy, which we'd still be happy with. We've been planning on having 2 boys and then adopting 2 girls anyway. Anyway, HTCTSOYB just outlines the history of gender selection methods around the world, and how Dr. Shettles arrived at his conclusions, as well as scientific support for his methods. From a scientific standpoint, the book and it's claims are pretty sound. It is more detailed than this, but it boils down to having sex up to 3 days before ovulation (or maybe 2 days before) for a girl, and one day before through two days after ovulation for a boy (which held true for us when we had J).

I figured I'd see what I found by surfing around on Fertility Friend's chart gallery for "pregnant with girl" versus "pregnant with boy" charts. I found that out of the 232 charts that I examine(116 for girl, 116 for boy), most (92%) of the babies were conceived with sex 1 day before through 2 days after ovulation, regardless of gender. However, the percentages break down thus: 

116 girl charts:

103 conceived with sex between one day before to two days after ovulation (89%)

4 conceived with sex 4 days before ovulation (3%)

2 conceived with sex 3 days before ovulation (2%)

7 conceived with sex 2 days before ovulation (6%)

116 boy charts:

111 conceived with sex between one day before to two days after ovulation (96%)

1 conceived with sex 4 days before ovulation (0.08%)

1 conceived with sex 3 days before ovulation (0.08%)

3 conceived with sex 2 days before ovulation (2.6%)

More girls were conceived by sex several days before ovulation, such that:

of 5 total babies conceived by sex 4 days before O, 4 were girls (80%)

of 3 total conceived by sex 3 days before O, 2 were girls (66.6%)

of 10 total conceived by sex 2 days before O, 7 were girls (70%)

Also, of the total babies conceived by sex the day before to a couple days after (214 of 232): 48% were girls, and 52% were boys.

Interesting, huh?

I realize the numbers were very low for charts listing sex 2, 3, and 4 days before O, mostly because those I looked at included a lot of charts where sex was had every day for a week including the days before and after ovulation, so there's no way to tell which of those times really "took" so to speak. 

It looks like O date was CD14 after all. On to cycle 2.

Optimism

I looked very closely at my chart. If I tell FF to analyze it using the FAM, I get an ovulation day of CD 14, which is what I had been going off of, and my chart is triphasic, I appear to be at 13DPO, and it looks like this:

If, however, I change the settings to "Advanced" analysis, which takes all factors into account (I think), I get an ovulation day of CD 17, which puts me at 10DPO today. Considering that I had made a note on CD17 that I had so much EWCM I was doubting my ovulation date, I'm really thinking this may be the correct O date, even though I didn't feel a darn thing. This is the chart with that interpretation. (I also dropped that random high temp, but only because it gave me pretty solid crosshairs vs dotted ones.)

I am suddenly feeling much more optimistic about this cycle. Considering that I apparently started testing at 6DPO (which I thought was 9 at the time), no wonder I've only gotten BFNs. 

Whining.

BFN this morning. 13 DPO. I got the BFP with J on 13 DPO. I *know* that in theory I could still be pregnant. That we could have been successful. That my cramps and perfect triphasic chart might actually mean something. My only other triphasic chart was when I was pregnant with J. But the fact is that I have gotten 5 negative tests. I know, testing early is not necessarily a good idea. I figured the odds were in my favor of getting a positive. Apparently not. I'm not giving up til I have to, but I'm not holding out any hope either. I just need to stay away from Fertility Friend's chart gallery and be realistic.

I had a couple of spots on the white shirt I wanted to wear today. Couldn't find the Tide pen thingy, so I diluted some bleach and applied it directly. 20 minutes later I had 2 LAVENDAR spots on my white shirt. Discovered as I was buckling my seatbelt in the car. What the fuck. Had to change my shirt.

Driving in to work, I came to an all-way stop. A bicyclist kept on going, didn't slow down and didn't look. Apparently he missed the memo that he's supposed to follow traffic laws too. Asshole. I honked at him, he gave me a dirty look, and kept on going. I found myself hoping he gets hit, and realized that is a horrible, horrible thing to wish on anyone, and amended my hope to be that he runs a stop sign in front of a cop. Or hits a cop.

I feel down and hormonal and awful. I just need to deal with it. It's pretty damn unlikely that we'd have been successful the 1st cycle anyway. There's only a 20% chance of someone my age getting knocked up in a given cycle (when everything is perfect), and it took us 4 cycles with J, so why shouldn't it take at least that many for the next kid.

Dammit. It's only 9:15.

ETA: I made a mistake at work this week. I thought that something we were supposed to ship on 7/20 was supposed to ship 8/20. As soon as I realized it, I set about trying to ship the stuff yesterday, just one day late. Well, I didn't have time to finish before I had to leave in order for C to get to work in time. So I called the person to whom we shipped the stuff, made sure it was okay with her that I ship on Monday because I didn't have time to finish sorting everything out, and it was totally fine with her. Emailed my boss this morning just to keep him in the loop. He sends me an email about how he doesn't understand why things like this keep happening because I am "not busy." Um, what? I've never missed a shipment date before. I get it. I am not putting 110% into this job, but I MAKE MISTAKES. I'm fucking human, people.

Fuck I'm hormonal today. I just want to sit in the corner and cry.

Probably Meaningless

Smells:

Pickles
Onions (with an afterstink of tuna salad)
Earl Grey tea

Tastes:
vanilla/chocolate froyo
cream cheese flavored frosting

Have you tried the random? I hear it's good.

My back hurts. Sciatica. For 2 days now. Just because yesterday I wanted to take the dogs and The Boy for a nice long walk after a long hiatus. We did do 1.7 miles, but OW. We made it for 15 minutes today before my sciatica started stabbing me in the ass.

I don't know WTF is up with my chart this month. Well, I know WTF I hope is up with it, but I don't know that's what it is, because apparently I pee on things too soon. *sigh* Seriously, impatient here.

I've felt "letdown" reflexes twice in the past few days (if you've never breastfed, this will make no sense to you). Apparently that can be a sign of pregnancy, and as I haven't felt that in over 6 months (it's now been a year since J was weaned), I'm inclined to over hope. Oy.

What else...hmm. I've been really thirsty, but that may have more to do with the fact that we're in the middle of July in Colorado than anything else.

I'm so damn bloated I look pregnant. It's getting on my nerves and I am running out of shirts that hide the pudge. I guess I have to do some laundry.

I spent a good chunk of time going through the chart gallery on FF the other day, looking at triphasic charts (which mine is). From my research, it appears that between 2/3 and 3/4 of triphasic charts were pregnancy charts.