your order of fresh cortisol has arrived!

Oh yes, it has. It's a case of nerves, and it's getting worse. And I keep freaking out about the potentially lethal levels of cortisol in my blood. Lethal to the embies that is, I've survived it thus far in my life. I would like to take this opportunity to remind myself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale.

Only 2 more sleeps and it will be the day of my defense. It is at 10am EST on Wednesday. It started affecting my sleep last Thursday night, and it hasn't really let up. I couldn't fall asleep last night.

Sattva organized a dry run (mock defense) on Saturday with two other dear friends from grad school. Yes. Sattva gives me eggs, reads my dissertation and makes constructive comments, and organizes a mock defense for me. How does one even talk about gratitude when it's a few galaxies beyond that. Anywho, the dry run was extremely helpful. It helped me feel more confident about my presentation and about my topic and my work in general. They gave me useful feedback and I now feel much more ready to tackle this beast on Wednesday. I also really enjoyed the fact that my presentation launched us into a discussion of clinical issues for another hour and half. And by the end, we had changed theoretical models of psychopathology and re-written the DSM.

Any of you have ideas on how to disentangle symptoms of anxiety from symptoms of early pregnancy? I'm swimming in a soup of confusion on that subject, so thank jaw (that's Roccie's expression and it always makes me laugh) that it isn't the topic of my dissertation. Clearly, subjective feelings of anxiety are related to anxiety about Wednesday. No brainer. Feelings of nausea in the morning tip the scale on the side of early pregnancy symptom. I'm pretty much queasy at some point during the first hour after getting out of bed. It was pretty serious on Saturday morning, and then yesterday and today, I felt some waves of nausea, but they were short.

Last night, as I said earlier, I couldn't fall asleep. Initial insomnia is very much linked to performance anxiety for me. I remember having to take figure skating tests as a kid and not sleeping the night before. However, last night I wasn't just nervous, I also felt very hot. And this was part of the difficulty in falling asleep. I had to push Mr. A over to his side of the bed and remove most of the duvet off of my body. Finally, I had to get up and do crosswords. But while I was lying there, attempting to think calm thoughts, I felt some definite cramping in the region of my uterus. Nothing major, but I still could feel it and call it crampy. I definitely feel a heaviness in that region, and certainly pulling when I try to stretch my body.

List making is our friend at these times, so to recap, here are to date, noted symptoms of both anxiety and potential early pregnancy:

Signs of anxiety about Wednesday: subjective feelings of anxiety, trouble sleeping, lower GI upsets, obsessing about details, generalized jitters.

Signs of potential early pregnancy: nausea and queasiness in the morning, one noted instances of rise in body temperature, some mild cramping, heavy uterus, very very sore boobs (and they are looking bigger than normal), random weeping (not tearing, weeping) on Saturday night upon hearing the song 'that's what friends are for' by Dionne Warwick and friends (!).


Most of the items in the anxiety list could go in the PEP list, and most (but not all) items on the PEP list, could go in the anxiety list. As you can see, creating these lists was really helpful.

I'm doing pretty well overall, despite this last display of obsessional thinking. I am not driving myself too crazy about the results of the IVF. We'll have the beta on Saturday and test on Sunday. In the mean time, I am trying to enjoy the thought of being pregnant. This may be the only 2 weeks I ever believe this. One thing is for certain, I will not soon forget March 2011. And I'm happy to report that Mr. A is all better. So nice to see him back to his old self.

Keeping you in my thoughts, women. I'm particularly excited about Roccie's slam dunk BFP!! And about Bunny's baby ukulele. What a surprise! I am still feeling hopeful for Pumpkin who had a negative early hpt and is awaiting her beta this week. Hopeful for Foxy who is in the midst of the 2ww. Hopeful for Adele who awaits to cross the threshold to the second T.