On Friday, July 8, 2011 - 5 weeks

V and I, and my sister's family headed to my parent's home in Michigan for a little family vacay.  I still couldn't tell my parents because it was sooo early still.  I was only 5 weeks pregnant and we wanted to wait until our first OB appointment to spill the beans.

So, exhausted as I was - pretty much constantly - we headed home.  Which was actually perfect because there is nothing to do in Michigan except for lounge around and golf.

We shot 9 holes this day and I kicked ass.  Serious ass.  I remember being so paranoid about straining myself and having a sore back that I just relaxed and took it easy and I played the best round I've ever played.  Every shot flew and with distance too!  That ruled.

We drove back to New York in my dad's old Pathfinder (thanks dad!!) when the weekend was over.  We stayed in Cleveland for the night, and stopped by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the morning.

  

About a week after we got home, I took another test.  Just to make sure!  And this time I used a pricier one instead of those internet cheapies.

On Friday, July 1, 2011 - Big, Fat, Positive

We celebrated my father-in-law's 60th birthday this evening.  It was a typical Russian affair (read: crazy party!).  My sister and her husband came and we ate and ate and ate and danced and sweated and partied the night away. 

 Except, that for probably the first time in my life since I was 13, I partied without drinking.

Because...

This was the day I got my first definitive positive pregnancy test.  I say "definitive"  because the day before when I took it, it was SO faint that when I showed it to V, he thought I was crazy -- or seeing things.

Which can totally happen.

After waiting 8 months to see a second line, you kind of will second lines to appear.  And when I saw this one, at 10 DPO, I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was especially surprising because the previous month, we only DTD twice during that, ehem...juicy week.  Gross!  That sounds terrible.  But whatever, you know what I mean.

Here's what happened:

On Friday, May 13, we adopted this adorable little guy, a birthday present from V to me.  We named him Monty Barksdale (shoutout: The Wire), and he is the current love of my life, next to V.  But let me be honest since this is my place to tell the whole truth.  Sometimes, sometimes Monty takes the #1 spot.  Look at this face, how could he not?

This was the first time I laid eyes on Monty at Animal Haven, a shelter in NoHo.

I couldn't believe he wasn't snatched up immediately, especially since they had him displayed in the front window to lure people in.  After I met him, I sent an email to V with the title "I Fell in Love."  I made him meet me at the shelter at the end of the work day, and as V hesitated, I turned on some waterworks, and bam.  Monty was mine!  Happy Birthday to ME!

After we got Monty, I stopped tracking everything.  For several months prior, I had been temping and charting and eating lots of grapefruit and pepitas and taking maca supplements.  And suddenly, I had this little guy to nurture so I stopped paying such close attention to all the ins and outs of my cycle.  Also, he was waking me up every morning at a different time making it impossible to temp accurately.

The good thing is that I knew around what day I should ovulate because after months of temping, I did figure out that my cycle is very regular.  Thank God for that. 

Fast forward a little bit....June 19th I had a positive OPK (first time using that) so we did the deed with a little bit of preseed (first time using that too!).  That day and the day after.  That's it.

And the rest is BFP history!