update

Well, we're cruising along here at KD's. I'm going to leave tomorrow and then there will be nothing to do but cross fingers for two weeks. I seem to have returned to my "this isn't going to work" attitude of a week or two ago, which sounds kind of depressing, but I think it's okay. Better to feel that way and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. I should qualify that: It's not that I just think it's NOT going to work, but I feel very connected to the reality that we have a 20% chance of it working. Last time, I thought I had my head wrapped around that, but the negative tests showed me just how much I was blissfully - and inappropriately - optimistic.

I think our timing is good, despite several pitfalls in the biological surveillance I've been conducting. Due to being sick and traveling between time zones, my AM temps are less than useless so my charting is no help. I learned last time around to supplement my fertility monitor with ovulation predictor kits (OPKs) and I had not one, but TWO defective tests in the past 24 hours: one OPK and one monitor test strip. (You can tell they are defective when no control line shows up.) TMI factoid: You don't get a second chance to pee on a stick; not in the same time window. By the time you've realized a test stick isn't working, it's, well, too late to do one again. All you can do is start drinking water and wait a few hours. So... first defective OPK was yesterday evening, then defective monitor stick this morning at 6ish. I was positive I'd get a peak reading this morning, but since my monitor had no input, it just held me at high. (I realize this is probably Greek to most of you - stop reading when your eyes start blurring.) The good news is I did an OPK at 9am and it showed a major surge. Surges mean you should ovulate within the next 12-36 hours. *Sigh of relief* This means (A) the insems we've done so far have a decent chance of working on their own, and (B) tonight's "business meeting" will be especially well timed. Had I been able to see the whole picture up front, I would have skipped the meeting last night to give KD a night off and let him... well... generate additional power point slide animation (our new analogy for this trip), but oh well. The hardest part of all this is that the picture only becomes clear in the rear view mirror. If the OPK last night had showed I wasn't surging yet, we could have waited, but I didn't have that to go on at the time.

This time has been a lot easier for me emotionally. It's been a non-event, really. I had a split-second of "OMG!" during the first meeting of the trip, but it vanished as quickly as it came. As always, I'm totally in awe of KD and his wife and how wonderful they are about all of this. I am not your typical house guest by any stretch of the imagination.

Soooo, there's the scoop. Here's hoping the holiday season makes the next two weeks go faster than my last waiting period!