The waiting game

Two months doesn't seem like an incredibly long time, unless it's two months of waiting, in which case it can feel like an eternity.  After I had my D&C, I asked my OB the all important question - "when can we start trying again?"  He told me 2 months. 

As a whole, there is a lot of waiting in this trying to get preggo business.  First it was waiting to see if I actually was pregnant, waiting for my first doctor's appointment, waiting to see if we would actually get a heartbeat, waiting to see if I would miscarry naturally.  After the D&C, there was waiting for my first period, waiting to see if I would ovulate as usual, waiting for my next period....and now here we are. 

Dear Aunt Flo arrived yesterday.  My cycle seems to sticking at 30 days and I'm apparently cramp free.  [Hey, something good did come of this right?]  Of course, I spent the last 2 months just wishing we could hurry up and start trying again, and now that we can, I feel strangely unprepared - which is totally not the case considering I've been anticipating this every single day.  Having said that, I'm also very excited, although a little anxious.  Just thinking positive thoughts that it'll all go smoothly this time.  I'm still yearning to decorate the nursery, sew and knit sweet little outfits, go on play dates with my best friends' children...

So, how are we celebrating that we made it?  Sushi for dinner.  Might as well get it in while I can right?

Which is it?

I spent so much of my life on the pill that I was very curious how my body would react to being off birth control.  When I saw my doctor, she told me to call her in 6-8 weeks if I hadn't had my period - because either my cycle wasn't regulating yet (which it should be) or I'm pregnant.  I've heard many stories about people not getting their regular period the first month after going off the pill, so in my head this was bound to happen to me. 

Last night, I had some light cramps and discovered a little spotting.  In that I was quite sure that I hadn't ovulated yet, I figured that this might actually be ovulation.  While not everybody feels ovulation (a/k/a "mittelschmerz"), about 20% percentage of women do.  I have a close friend who told me that she could very distinctly feel it, but only on her left side.  Spotting can be a symptom of ovulation, while other symptoms also mirror menstruation, such as abdominal pain, headache, bloating and breast tenderness.  While looking up ovulation symptoms, for the umpteenth time, I also came across symptoms associated with implantation, which occurs when the egg burrows into the lining of the uterus.  Implantation and pregnancy symptoms can also be similar to menstrual symptoms and up to 30% of women have light spotting during early pregnancy. 

So, what's the take away from this?  Both ovulation and implantation can actually mimic menstruation in certain ways and the spotting I was experiencing could be one of several things.  Needless to say, I woke up this morning with my period. It occurred to me that if I were still on the pill, my period would have been due yesterday, so yay for having a nice regular cycle at least.  What I'm not as happy with is that my body decided to go the complete opposite from what I was expecting and has delivered a very heavy period (excuse the TMI).  This is one of the reasons I went on the pill in the first place (although I'm thankful for manageable cramping that hasn't involved copious amounts of OTC drugs so far).

Now that I have the first month and first cycle out of the unknown, looking forward to starting tracking everything all over again.  :)