Operation Counter-Intelligence

I talked to my parents last night. I don't get to talk to them all that often because they're about twice as busy as M and I are. My mom (aka Ms. I-will-guess-your-every secret-just-by-the-rate-of-your-breathing) has apparently... wait, a little background is needed... M and I are headed to her parents' house for Mother's Day, along with KD, his wife, M's cousin from overseas, and now, my parents. My parents asked a couple of weeks ago if there was any way to merge the trip they were planning to take "sometime this spring" to the city M's parents live in with our visit there in May. M and I decided it would be too much of an imposition on the weekend M's mom is planning and we said no without even mentioning the idea to M's parents. This weekend, M's mom called and, lo and behold, she thinks it would be simply lovely to invite my parents down for Mother's Day weekend! I guess M and I were wrong. Furthermore, M's mom called my parents and said she wouldn't entertain the idea of my parents staying in a hotel, so we'll all be under one roof like one big happy family all weekend. Oh, and M's mom is planning a big BBQ for all their friends to see the kiddos while they're in town. Back to my original story...

So my mom (recall the nickname), has apparently decided this is a big set up for M and I to announce a pregnancy. I guess she thinks we've somehow masterminded the whole thing and then removed ourselves from the middle to cover our tracks. She also has apparently told this theory to my father (aka Mr. No-topic-of-conversation-is-off-limits). Last night on the phone, he made some comment about how we're all going to be there and won't it be fun and are M and I going to have a big announcement? *crickets* My heart stopped beating for a minute.

M and I had been giggling and bubbling all weekend about what a cool opportunity that weekend would be to announce a pregnancy. Mother's Day for our moms, big BBQ for everyone else... perfect. Now we just have to get pregnant. :-) My dad completely took the wind out of my sails. It wouldn't be such a big deal, but we're jumping through so many freakin' hoops to preserve the big surprise announcement, it just really sucked to hear that our exciting plan du jour is being anticipated. Also, how weird was it that he would say that?? If he *didn't* think we were pregnant (or would be by then), then the comment is even weirder and less appropriate than I thought, and if he *did* think we were pregnant (or would be by then) and we were going to all this trouble to plan a big surprise announcement, why in the freaking world would you try to spoil that by asking about it early?? Geez.

It's my own fault. Back when I was young and stupid (last spring) I had several excited conversations with my mom about how close M and I were getting to TTC and how I was pretty sure we'd have good news to share by the end of the year. At that time I was operating under 2 incorrect assumptions: (1) that we would be open about our TTC process when it started, and (2) that it wouldn't take any time at all. Shortly therafter I started to realize that perhaps we would want to keep the process a secret so that we could have the big "surprise, we're pregnant!" moment and I stopped talking about it. I know for a fact the last conversation I had with my mom about it was on Mother's Day last year. I now realize this lack of updates has led my mom to assume that we are infact trying, and since I know my mom has NO IDEA how long TTC can take or how hard it is the way we're doing it, of course she would assume we are pregnant already. This brings us to operation counter intelligence:

I need an alternative story to feed my mom so she'll believe she's off target in her assumptions. The current frontrunners are (a) M just can't fathom it until she's finished with school, or at least until her schedule settles down a bit (totally plausible, and M is okay with being the scapegoat) and/or (b) we still haven't met our target balance in our savings account, but it's okay because we're excited about getting all of our debt paid off. Eventually we'll be able to start putting money in the savings account. (My mom knows the target balance we set last year so if she thinks we haven't even started yet, that'll buy us plenty of time. It was pretty ambitious.) Also, my dad gave me the perfect conversation starter to work the excuse in without it looking fishy. I can just tell my mom that my dad made some weird comment and we can only assume it means he thinks we're pregnant but that's completely impossible because x, y, and z. Or, I guess we could just give up on all the secrecy and use that weekend to come clean with our parents about the fact that we're TTC. I dunno. In the meantime, anyone have any other suggestions for throwing my mom off the scent?

In other, but related news, we may miss the window this cycle altogether, and in a totally unpredictable and frustrating way: I may ovulate before KD even gets here! Argh! It would only make sense, right? Last month I'm 5 days late, this month I'll be 4 days early. Of course! >:-[

We may still be okay. My monitor only went to high this morning. The peak reading usually comes within 1-2 days after the first high, and ovulation usually comes 1-2 days after that, so while it's possible I could O tomorrow or Wednesday, Thursday or Friday is more likely. There are some other signs that make me think we're going to be on the early end of those calculations, though. Unfortunately, based on KD's travel schedule, I really need to hold off until Saturday to O in order to maximize our chances. *sigh* How annoying is that? Oh well, I'm trying to stay focused on the goal of just getting the cryobank situation worked out this month. That is priority number one.

One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.