Common Terms Used For TTCer's (those trying to concieve)

There are a couple of people I have invited to my blog who aren't nessecarily TTC'ers but trusted friends who I feel comfortable sharing my journey with. I have been asked a couple of times what some of the abbreviations that I commonly use are.

I am going to think of anything I can that is commonly used in this journey. If anyone has anything to add that I might have missed, let me know! Or any corrections, please let me know that too! As I write this, I will warn that I am not a doctor, and my knowledge is strictly from my own experience and self research.

TTC; Trying to conceive

AF; Aunt Flo, the evil witch known as our period that shows up always at the worst times. Of course there are times when she is welcome, usually when we want to start a new or begin our TTC adventures once more.

BD; Baby dance, sex.

AI; Artifical insemination, can be used with fresh or frozen donor sperm, or hubby's sperm if adequate.

NI; Natural insemination. To make a baby the old-fashioned way usually with a known donor. Must use your very best judgement when doing this!

LP; The length of time between your ovulation and period. Mine is most all of the time 14 days.

Cervix; The door to the uterus. Looks like a doughtnut. Sometimes opened, usually right before or during ovulation, or closed during other times of the month. It looks like a smiley face once you have given birth before!

CP; Cervical position. Pretty self explainatory, the position your cervix is in! To AI with frozen sperm, you want to do it when your cervix is soft and up high, open and spewing.

CM; Cervical mucus. Not a subject for the faint hearted but it's the mucus that comes out of you different times of the month. Sometimes it's dry, sometimes has the consistency of rubber cement, alfredo sauce (Olive Garden tonight, anyone?)lotion, or eggwhites. Or sometimes it can be watery.

EWCM; Eggwhite cervical mucus. The Great Grandaddy and most coveted of them all! That is the mucus that you get right before, during, and right after ovulation.

DP; Dear partner.

DH; Dear husband.

BFP; Positive pregnancy test, two lovely lines! (What I am hoping to find in around three weeks or so..:)

BFN; Negative, lonely, one liner pregnancy test. The kind that will tear your heart out when actively TTC..:(

HPT; Home pregnancy test.

OPK; Ovulation prediction kit. Good to use when ttc. Couldn't imagine life without them!

TWW; Two week wait. The two weeks after ovulation, until your period of BFP! Perhaps the most nerve wracking time that there is! I hate mine with a passion. Thats the time when you read every little thing into it being a possible pregnancy, or a bust. I wish I could hybernate during mine and have someone wake me up when it is over!

'O'; Back in the good old days, pre TTC,it would be that sought after feeling you would hope to get in lovemaking.
Now it's just ovulation.....

I will repeat myself again, I do not claim to be a medical expert so if you have any doubts or concerns about any of the mentioned, please consult your doctor! Remember too, we are all different, with different bodies, different cycles, and different places in our lives.
*********************************************************************************
Now that I have the technicalities out of the way, it's time to share my thoughts and feelings and try to untense a bit. I have one week, and one day before I meet our known donor and attempt to get pregnant. I have loved e-mailing him and talking to him on the phone. He seems such the sweet genuine man. From the photos I have seen he has a ruggedly handsome look about him, much like dh's look. He has an adorable two year old daugther from a donation he selflessly gave to a couple wanting a baby. I have talked to a few known donors and we just never seemed to make too much of a connection.
There are those who are alot closer than 'Steve' is, but I will not settle. I took the advice of many of you and went with my gut feeling. Ladies, always do that. Please. A couple of years ago my dh and I tried with what we thought was a trusted friend of ours. Even though I knew him, everything in my heart was telling me it was wrong. I will not get into the logistics of the whole experience but there was the potential for alot of hurt and heartbreak if a pregnancy would have resulted. I have a friend too who is going through a bad experience with a known donor as well and you know who you are. Please know, I keep you and your child both in my thoughts and prayers everyday. As women, we were given an incredible extra sense, almost, known as instinct. I have been guilty of not using it many times, no more though!
I am kind of nervous I guess. The last bfn was a very tough one. It hurt me both financially and emotionally even more so. This will sound a little crazy but the early miscarriage seemed to hurt just a little less. At least I knew the egg and sperm met, and I was still capable of becoming pregnant. I guess with the bfns, I always wonder if there is something wrong in my body. So many of you told me the last cycle that God is waiting to give me the baby I was supposed to have. Ladies, I will admit, I did not like hearing it a bit, LOL. Dammit, I wanted to be pregnant and I wanted it yesterday! I can now make some sense of it. maybe we were meant for this particular donor, like the one we had with Korinne. There are so many similarties between Tony and Korinne that I have many times been asked, are you SURE she is not Tony's? No, not in the biological sense but in every other sense, YES! As closely matched in personaility and looks that Tony and Steve are, maybe it is meant to be, and was not meant to be with our thin hazel-eyed donor we used last cycle. In the meantime, I know I have to relax and not stress so much about the possibility of it not working.

Anyone want to tell me how? Lol!