Good morning ladies!
How are you guys doing? Here, the cold temperature switched to snow! A very lovely day to make an expedition downtown and wait 2-3 hours to get a passeport!

I haven't left and I'm already looking forward to be back, lol! I keep thinking about the nice dinner I'll prepare (thanks Sassy for the recipes!) and the merry fire that I will lit before my husband comes back home! *sigh*
Other than that, nothing new on my side!
Rachel: I was really sad to read about your embies... that wait was really a killer for you and it's really to bad it ended in such a painful disappointment. I feel for you, and I really hope that life will provide you with a way to fulfill your dream. *hugs*
Cinny, really do the pros and cons before doing an HPT... at the very beginning of my cycle I, too, thought I would soften the blow by doing an HPT. After looking at what happened for a majority of women here who tried that, and after talking to my pharmacist, I decided not to do it. Your chances of getting a false negative are very high at this point, even the morning of your blood test. If you get a positive, that's amazing and reliable. But if you get a negative, then what? You'll know it's not reliable, so you'll constantly sway between sadness, disappointment, hope, disbelief, anger... From what I've seen here, it will only make you more confused, and that doesn't soften the blow at all, it will only make you even more impatient and stressed to have that more reliable blood test. My two cents.
Shantala Awwwwww sweetie! SO great to have news! I'm sorry to hear that you have bad AF pain... have you called the clinic and asked about it? I'm sure it's only an unpleasant side effect of the meds. They're taking control of your body and natural cycle after all, so your body is bound to rebuff a little bit at times. I'm glad you took some time off and I hope you will get better soon. Stimming is coming! yaaaay! I'm so glad your DH is getting better! I'm sure his darling has something to do in it!
As for my PMA... you know, it's all a matter of preparation and will and
letting go. You can always appraise situations in many ways. You can view the 2ww as the two weeks from hell or you can view them as the end of a cycle, the letting go part, the part where you no longer have to multiply trips to the clinic, take tons of meds, be monitored to see how you are responding, and so on. To me, it was a relief. I had the impression to go back to a more normal life, even if my life has changed because I can't exercise the way I want, do flamenco, eat or drink certain things... and make love to my sweetheart.
When I treat anxiety, I teach my patients to look at their worries in two ways. If they are worrying about a current problem they have no control over (e.g., I'm bleeding and my pregnancy test is only in two days), or about a problem that might be there in the future but isn't there yet (e.g., my pregnancy test might be negative), I tell them to work on the way they think to change their emotions. Are their thoughts biased? Could there be alternative thoughts that produce more positive emotions? Are they dramatizing? Doing black and white thinking? Are they making conclusions based on unreliable facts or no facts at all? Are they generalizing? And so on.
If the problem is there, tangible, then I teach them a problem solving technique. The point is, and please my dearest, write that down somewhere, it will really help,
worrying has NEVER, EVER, solved any problem or prevented any event from happening. Worrying becomes a habit and a pathological one in some cases because it gives these people the
illusion that they have control over things that are, in fact, not in their control or very little.
Avoiding your worries systematically is not the solution. Your fears will always keep coming or get worse if you avoid them. Face your real fears, ask yourself what's the worst that could happen and face that fact. Face the fact that it's still not there and that worrying about it won't impact the chances of it happening whatsoever. Solve the problems you can solve and let go of the control you can't have. You'll live a much happier life.
So see, my calm PMA is not that complicated to achieve. I'm not perfect and I worry sometimes, but I address my worries the way I just described. And I've benefited a lot from all the reactions, decisions, attitudes I've seen here. I've observed the women on the forum a great deal and saw very well what awaited me down the road if I followed certain examples (sometimes good things, sometimes not so good things). I suggest you do the same and prepare yourself accordingly. I'm convinced you'll be just fine. We'll all be there to support you through this; you're not alone sweetie.
Sorry for the long rant, but your comment tapped right into my specialty...
Take care ladies, gotta run! Have fun and have a great day!
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
Sophie