No news is...just no news.

I have trouble temping at a regular time because I wake up early and can't go back to sleep easily.  And while you're supposed to take your BBT at the same time every morning, it's particularly important to take it before you move around and after at least 3 hours of interrupted sleep.

Well, if you have two partners whose alarms go off at 5 or so, sometimes you temp at 5, sometimes at 6 when the theme from Firefly plays, and sometimes--like this morning--at 4:30am because you're awake for no reason at all.

96.82

That's below my coverline, which is probably something like 97.1.  Which sounds like a smooth jazz station.

Anyway.

So, that's kind of not good because to cook up a baby you need sustained high heat.  (What, that isn't how baby science works?)  Maybe it would be more accurate to say, you need progesterone, which among other useful baby-making hormonal activities, raises your temperature.  I could have predicted the end of my first early-early pregnancy when I saw the drop in my temperature.  Once I started to bleed, this was followed by an even more precipitous drop.  It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Bart keeps replaying video of Lisa telling Ralph Wiggum she's not his girlfriend: "Look.  You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half."  Only, you know.  On a fertility graph.

But here's the confusing part.  If my temp is dropping like this, menstruation should come next.  But it's too early for me to bleed.  And I have no pms symptoms at all.  (Of course, the progesterone cream I'm taking can ease pms symptoms, so maybe they're just masked).  So it could be (1) just a weird temp (it's cold this morning), (2) a herald of an early period, or (3) an implantation dip.

Remember that one?  It's this little temp drop that happens about a week after ovulation for some people, but about twice as frequently among people who are pregnant.  So no implantation dip doesn't mean you're not pregnant, and having a dip doesn't mean you are, but it could.

This is just a teensy weensy bit frustrating.

I lay awake for probably an hour after temping.  Socks lay next to me.  He is beautiful.  And I mean empirically, incomparably, startlingly beautiful, and never more so than in sleep.  He and Mr. Fish sleep the sleep of the innocent: lips slightly puckered like little children, eyelashes fluttering every few heartbeats, chests rising slowly and evenly.  I flop and sprawl throughout the night.  Sometimes when the three of us sleep together, I'll get up partway through the night so as not to disturb them with my midnight swim routine.  Mr. Fish and I wake up all at once, but Socks goes through the seven ages of man every morning.  And while I prefer to let him wake slowly, only gaining language after an hour of waking and falling under again, I know I that if I need him, he wakes to full responsiveness.

So when I felt mild, but unmistakable, cramping this morning, I could have waked him.  But it's different now than the first time.  We each had our hearts broken so, the last time.  There was such giddy hope, even as we tried to stay grounded.  Mr. Fish is trying not to think about it much, until there's something clear to focus on.  I don't know about Socks.  Probably the same.

I feel lonely, though not alone.  I know they're both full of love and attention, as much as I need.  But it's something that inside of me only.  So instead of waking Socks and saying, I think maybe I've experiencing implantation, I just lay awake.  I can choose not to get them involved in the uncertainty and minutia, but I can't keep myself from being here, deep inside myself.  Right now I feel so still, so quiet.  Lonely, but not sad.  Just quiet.  I'm drifting, and I don't feel like I can connect with anyone, unless maybe I found someone else waiting to find out if their future was about to change or if the next weeks would be full of disappointment and waiting or if hope would be followed by loss, again.

I want to lie curled inside of another person who is waiting.  We would lie in bed all day and maybe not talk at all.  Just spoon each other and wait for news.

This morning is fine and cool.  My fingers are a little numb, typing clumsily.  Two of our three cats are curled into their tightest configurations, triangle heads tucked under fluffy tails.  My bed is something of a fantasy--lofted by multiple mattresses probably four feet above the ground, a canopy swathed on all four sides in sheer white fabric, shot through with sunlight. And in the time I've been drawing and writing, I've felt cramps two more times.

Either I'm bleeding early, or we are starting this hope-and-fear process again.  I will go to the doctor tomorrow and explain what I need.  I don't know what she'll say or do.  I'm afraid of not being understood.  I want to put her hand right here on my belly, above that place where the deep inside feelings originate.  I am doing something right now. Help me hold on this time.

I'll let you know.