Friday, February 25, 2011

back to planning

Throughout my life, I've made multiple attempts to maintain a diary.  "Keeping a diary" was a common trait amongst pop icons in the 80's, which meant I grew up believing that diaries were an essential part of life.  The process was always the same:
1) Over a school break, I would discover a new character that wrote her deepest, darkest secrets in a diary.  Said character would immediately feel better about life in general, as if putting pen to paper validated every unbalanced emotion she felt throughout the day.
2) As a gawky adolescent, I identified with the character.  I decided to emulate her behavior, in the hopes that I'll become less gawky and attract more friends and/or possible boyfriends.  I'd decide that the key to her success was the diary.
3) I'd beg mom to buy me a new diary.  Sometimes she acquiesced, and sometimes she didn't.  When she didn't, I would find a used notebook, tear out the school-work from the previous year, and save the leftover sheets for my inner-most thoughts and feelings.
4) The diary quickly filled up with mundane facts about my day ("ate breakfast, went to the beach, took a shower, went to bed").  After a few days of chronicalling the day-to-day operations of my household, I grew tired of the diary and gave up on the whole venture.

This process repeated itself at least once a year, usually over summer break, for about 5 years.  I stopped mid-way through high school, probably because I was too busy to read and/or had my licence.  Also, I may have developed an overinflated sense of self that comes with being an upperclassman in high school.

After college, I tried to start a journal again.  Although I no longer believed that diaries were the key to happiness, I still felt there was value to the process.  My first attempt was the year after I graduated from college, also known as "my first year on my own".  I was fairly good at maintaining that journal, mostly because I was filled with angst about two failed relationships.  Also, for some reason my roommate and I decided to live in a suburb with a "dry downtown", which really was an odd choice for two 20-somethings in the greater Boston area.  No neighborhood bar plus no cable TV/internet equals plenty of time to brood about lost loves from college.  When our lease ended, I moved to the City, and threw away my diary of loneliness.  

I've tried to restart the journaling process several times since then - namely, when I was grieving my mom while planning a wedding, and when we first started trying to get pregnant - with little success.  

Long story short, I'm bad at journaling, so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm bad at blogging.  

On the baby-making front, we saw a reproductive endocrinologist in January.  He ordered a series of cycle-day-3 tests.  Since I saw the doctor on CD-5, I had to wait a whole month to begin the diagnostic tests.  We had our tests mid-February, and we have a follow-up appointment with the RE on March 4th.  I expect to get my period shortly after March 4th, so hopefully we'll be able to start our protocol next cycle.  I plan to do a better job of updating my blog once the protocol starts.

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