It's here.

I didn't really get my hopes up this cycle. I kept telling myself that we wouldn't get pregnant this time. I felt confirmed in my decision when just as I was ovulating, Ross had excruciating tooth pain (bad enough to prevent him from sleeping for two nights) and had to go on Vicodin to control the pain. That put a damper on baby-making plans, to say the least. Still, our timing was good enough to give us a chance. But my gut told me that this was not our month. When my temperature dropped yesterday, I told Ross that we were out. I ordered a caffeinated cappucino at breakfast and gulped it down. I planned a cheese and wine tasting for us for Monday night.

But my period never arrived yesterday. My temperature levelled out this morning. 16 days past ovulation, when usually I don't last past 14 days. If my period didn't arrive tomorrow, I would have to consider myself pregnant and go in for a blood test if the home pregnancy tests were still negative. Last month, my hopes would have been sky high. This month, I slammed those steel doors around the hope center of my heart and repeated to myself and Ross, "The tests are negative. My period will come by tomorrow at the latest." And I made myself a pot of strong caffeinated (and expensive) new tea.

Ross left for work. Fifteen minutes later, the dreaded moment arrived.

You'd think with all of this mental and emotional preparation for disappointment that I would be ok. I'm not. I still sat and sobbed for thirty minutes. All I could think was that Rebecca is dead and I should be one month from giving birth to her now. She's gone. And I'm not pregnant. And she's gone.

We've started the tests. I had the diabetes test yesterday, which made me so woozy that I was trembling from head to foot and thought I would faint. I even broke into a sweat. But I'm not sure if it was the glucose water I had to drink or the six vials of blood they had to take for the glucose test and also for the obligatory STD tests. Either way, not fun. I go for my day 2 hormone tests tomorrow morning at 7:30am. I'm going to try to schedule my HSG for next weekend so I don't have to miss work. I've heard it can be a pretty painful procedure. Vicodin is my friend. And then I have to go get twelve more vials drawn for immunological and blood clotting tests.

We've got two more shots at conceiving at home before we give up and start trying to conceive in a hospital with a medical team around us. Good times.

I know there are women who have been at this much longer than I have who are much more upbeat and faith-filled and positive. I'm just not one of them. This whole thing hurts like hell, and I don't feel like pretending that it doesn't. But I promise that one of these days when I'm in a good mood, I'll remember to post.

I'm off to make a pork pot roast and to learn how to tolerate brussel sprouts (for the babymaking effort). And tomorrow night I'm going to drink as much expensive wine and champagne as our get-pregnant-quick-US-economy-meltdown budget will allow.