It’s coming to a close.  Tomorrow is 28 days.  And despite my very best, most intentional efforts to avoid thinking about baby making this entire cycle, I’m thinking about tomorrow.

I’m thinking about testing tomorrow.  I’m wondering if  I should just not test.  If I should wait until 30 days or 35 days or until Aunt Flo  just arrives on her own– but what if it doesn’t?  Will testing take away the anxiety or intensify it?

I should probably not test.  Because even if  I take a test, and it’s negative, I won’t really believe it in my heart of hearts until my period comes.  So honestly, it’s not worth the money to buy the test if it won’t actually relieve the anxiety. (Everyone loves a double negative!)

And I’ll be damned if I don’t have those stupid psychosomatic ‘symptoms’ too this cycle.  Like feeling fatigued in the middle of the day.  Or eating a lot of canned peaches when I never kept them in the house before.  And breaking out on my body which is something that isn’t normal for me.  I usually only have break outs on my face.  This cycle I’ve had break outs on my arms and even on my scalp.

I’m trying to remind myself how hard it would be if I actually were preggers with my difficult overtime work coming up in March.  I imagine how exhausted I would be getting into the office at 4 AM and staying until 7 PM that entire week if I were growing a baby.  And telling myself that I’m dodging a bullet.  That it’s actually a good thing to not be pregnant right now.  I’m not convincing myself, unfortunately.

I’m trying to coax myself into believing that it’s all just normal PMS symptoms.  Maybe this round is a little more intense than usual because my cycle has been dictated by fertility meds for the past few months.  Perhaps I’m not remembering how grouchy and irritable and chocolate-craving I naturally was in the week before my period back when I was unmedicated.

Though, I have to admit, this past month has been much less stressful with no doctor’s visits, transvaginal ultrasounds, blood work, injections, suppositories, etc.  It is only now that I’m close to the end of my cycle that I’m really starting to focus a lot of mental energy on this again.

And so, it’s on days like today that I like to listen to Kirtan.  Now I’m not a particularly spiritual person honestly- not a member of any religion or anything like that.  And I’m certainly not trying to bring people to a particular movement.  I’m just sharing a free web podcast that I enjoy listening to when I’m stressed out.

The New World Kirtan podcast updates weekly and is produced by Kitzie Stern “as a loving act of service to the Kirtan community.”  Often the podcasts will have a theme.  This particular podcast is the one I listen to over and over again because it really speaks to me during my struggle with infertility.  It’s entitled, Getting to Real.  Maybe it will speak to you too.

The voices are soothing even if you aren’t one to try to sing along.  It brings my heart rate down for sure.  And as a belly dancer, the instruments, beats and rhythms also appeal to me.  So I’ll be listening to this while I deliberate over testing or waiting.  Just in case you wanted to know.  😀