Shh! Don't tell anyone, but the whisky-sodden, foulmouthed, Silk Cut smoking, 30 something etc TTCers are hiding from babydust under a mound of wine bottles - come & join us!

[openerofjars]

And there we go...

Shiny, winy (but never whiny) new thread!

Come on in then, settle down and pass the gin. No baby dust, no huns and no fecking glue, just lethal combinations of dodgy duty free and the confidence to use the word PERIOD required.

Yes wino, tell consultant to sex and travel. We definitely need you!

I've had a stinker of a day. Maybe this much vaunted hormone crash has finally, well, crashed. Not helped by spending the morning with 3 of my mates who are all in various stages of fertilisation (including the one who's due on the same day I would have been). They were really careful not to be too preggers at me but of course it's inevitable that they talk about it a bit. Got home and spent the rest of the afternoon either sleeping (as I'm still monster tired after Monday) or crying. Ahhh, fuck it. Chinese takeaway and wine tonight.

So pass dem bubbles! In fact, I'll crack open a Lambrini to add to the festivities.

Once I'm back on my TTC journey () I think I'll adopt your approach, wino. It seemed to work last time at least! And it'll cost less - those piss gadgets are heinously pricey. And Dr F&J will I'm sure be only too happy to shag every 3 days, like the experts recommend!

It will be our time soon - I can feel it in me watter.

PS: the "our" in my last message applies to all of you lovely lasses on here. What was the motto - may our wombs be full of spunk? I'll drink to that. (Though not until I've stopped leaking, obviously.)

Evening all, how do? Scuse me if my typing is more than ordinarily shitty but I am typing this n my lovely new iPad2! Gloat gloat smug smug smug (sorry). On the bright side, I may be able to be a bit more relevant than normal as I can actually see more than the previous two posts.

So, here goes:

Wino and Fish, my lovelies, it is a fucker when all you can see and hear is baby related. I know I already have one spawn but even he is now started to ask if we can have a baby please. I have started to tell people, sadly and with my head slightly tilted, that we have been trying for ages but it doesn't seem to be happening for us. At least it shuts them up (even if it does mean that we are inevitably the subject of family pity and gossip).

We got told to stop going on forums and charting as well, not that I was temping but I was logging all my symptoms on some daft website and I can see that it might not have been all that helpful. But I do agree that they can have my Mumsnet when they prise it from my cold, dead iPad2.

Dsis is back home, thank goodness. She got out just as 4 Italian journalists were kidnapped. I am literally terrified that her job will kill her one day, though, especially as last time she went to Libya she interviewed Gadaffi. Thing is, she knows that as soon as she has a child, not that she's trying yet, that her career will DIE.

Kitchen news: all is complete apart from the tiling and painting. Result.

Oh, and my period got here today, on CD27. Meh. I suppose it would have been pretty fucking amazing had I got pregnant this month unless Someone has plans that involve the second coming happening to a knackered atheist in Yorkshire. Not likely? Shame. I quite like gold, but you can keep the Frankenstein [sic] and myrrh.

Anyway, off to sulk as there is no sugar or booze in the house. Virtual excessively huge cote du rhone, please!

Yay! The leaking has stopped! Now just need to wait for the ol' period to return. Feeling totally knackered (which may well be anaemia, according to my GP - plenty of steak and iron pills for me!) But feeling mentally better, for a given value of "better". jars, like you I already have one spawn, and while it's always possible that, notwithstanding my advancing years, I might get up the stick again, if I don't I am just going to be damn well grateful for what I've got. (I do wish that society in general wasn't so horrible about only children, though.)

Have started on the diet again though. Miscarriage-induced comfort eating has caused me to gain 8 lbs! Fuck. Is neat whisky less fattening than beer, pint for pint?

Yes. Unless you drink it in pints. I am in awe of your sensibleness (what? it's a word). A given value of better is a good way of describing it. I am grateful for spawn but but but but I want more, dammit. It's not that I wanted it "all", it just took forever to find a reasonably non rubbish man to breed with.

I have actual wine tonight: get on.

Mmmmmmmm, ...

The Jars household is off to France in a few days, so the stress levels round here are horrendous. We have never driven in Abroad before so didn't know about all the admin, plus DH forgot to do his car tax & insurance and had to go down to our local friendly DVLA this morning. In the process of trying to find his MOT certificate, he moved the passports and didn't tell me he'd done it. Cue tears and mutual recriminations until he found them again.

When they find me, I want the court to take into consideration the fact that the spawn will only communicate in Pirate at the momen (aharrrrrr!), the funny noises my car is now making and the dining room radiator blowing last night.

Hence the .

How are the rest of ye scurvy landlubbers?

Hi all!
I am soooo glad to see you are still here!
Firstly, many apologies to make: I used all you foul mouthed ladies for mega support a while back, and then just vanished without so much as a cheerio.

All the ttc-ing malarkey started to get too much and I was struggling a bit with it all so I had to swerve the conception boards for a while. Have honestly felt horribly guilty and have often wondered how you were all getting on.

But I'm baaaaaaaack, if you'll have me!

And I have brought SERIOUS booze and a duty-free carton of virtual malboro lights to grease the wheels of your forgiveness.

I have decided to also channel any useless, unreliable dad I have encountered and buy each of you the wildly expensive and totally inappropriate gift to smooth over my absenteeism: Ta daaaaaah!

Am I in?

welcome (back) tante. Serious booze huh? Sounds good to me! And I'll have a pony please, satay'd if possible.

Jars, I've no excuse for not sprogging sooner. Been married to rather wonderful DH since I was 22. But I just felt I didn't want children (probably still resolving a few ishoos from my own childhood!) Now I've found that it's actually pretty cool, it may all be a weeny bit late. Still, faint heart never fucked a pig, as one of my old bosses used to say.

I love the sound of your spawn communicating only in Pirate. I guess now is not the time to tell him that Sept 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day? Damn yer eyes. And coincidentally, I drives* to work this morning listening to some Pirate Metal. It's hard to feel mournful when you're listening to thrashing guitars, accordions and a chorus line that goes "Keel-haul that filthy lad/ And we'll send him down to the depths below/ Make that bastard walk the plank/ With a bottle of rum and a yo ho ho!"

*no, not an uncharacteristic grammatical error. Because pirates only talks in the present tense, does pirates!

Thanks for the welcome (back), fish!
Have just been reading the whole thread (v productive day chez Tante) - man, you have had a shit time of it lately!

Therefore day-time cyber drinking is definitely excusable, if not downright obligatory. Am going to start with a big glass of cabernet sauvignon - do not need to pace myself if only virtually drinking - hurrah!

Well, an update is in order (or a general introduction, whatevs):
Back in the original posting days I had no cycle to speak of, PCOS, blah blah (soooo bored of it all!). However, all the mad efforts have paid off and I now have a 31 day cycle!!

So for the first couple of months I was DELIGHTED to be able to guess when my period was going to arrive and have a ridiculous pile of sanitary produce arranged artfully in the bathroom cupboard (had thought about getting it back-lit or fairylights or something, but the electrics foxed me).

Novelty well and truly fucking worn off now, though, I can tell ya. Am just entering the 2ww (went through a phase of even being excited to be able to identify a 2ww - scorns self) and for the first time in a long time have bought a pg test and hae circled the date the calender when I can test.

I think we all know how this is going to end but I shall ignore, ignore, ignore

Anyway, hope you are doing ok today - I prescribe a glass of this lurrrverly wine and a sambuca chaser. I am a doctor*, so I know whereof I speak.

*ok, so I am not actually a doctor. But, despite being shit at sciences and useless with blood, I always felt I should be.

Totally O/T - but triggered by something I've seen on other Conception threads (to which I don't post - that would be deviating from the One True Path!) Words of wisdom coming up, so please adopt the brace position....

If you do a PG test (one of the non-electronic ones), and you think you can see a line but it's sort of greyish, and only there if you tilt the stick while standing next to a window - it's NOT positive. It's an evaporation line over the cell where the hormone-detecting pigment is. A positive test line is the colour of the test stick i.e. pink or blue. It can be hairline-thin (mine were in the early days, both for the m/c and the live sprog), or even a bit broken. But it needs colour to be kosher.

I just see too many women getting their hopes up over something which doesn't exist, only to have them dashed when they retest later and get a negative. Some of them even convince themselves that they've had early miscarriages or chemical pregnancies (where the egg fertilises but doesn't implant), and then stress about carrying a pregnancy to term.

OK, as you were.

Gang!

Loong time - longer than intended. I'd done an epic post last Fri lunchtime (take that, work) but had some kind of senseless spasm, hit page back or something, and lost the whole bastarding thing. And I was so demoralised I didn't even post a two-liner and now its nearly a week. So, in summary:
Wino: Pregnant people EVERYwhere sympathy/empathy.

Jars: Scary plasterer sympathy/ongoing DIY empathy.

Desperate: Feeling precarious MH wise sympathy/empathy.
Fish: MC sympathy/empathy PLUS info: I hit the post-ERPC period jackpot 4 weeks, 2 days after op. But [helpful] I suggest you stockpile backlit sanitaryware, Tante style, because mine was truly something to behold. Lacklustre start, but DAMN, I did me some bleeding once I got going.

That was without reading back so apols for any omissions - you can safely assume there was sympathy. And/or empathy. Unless you are rara and loopy in which case there was also a "where the fuck are you"?!

Not much to report since. Wedding was good in end and SIL was fine (as were all the outlaws really). I did drink too much, I did not fall off shoes (took them off long before that risk arose) and I did dance badly to spandau ballet et al. Check, check, check.

Low point: blithely assuming last years dress (when I was both smoking and a -admittedly crap - triathlete, and thus rather skinnier) would still fit this year. Hum. It took me AND Mr j&b a frantic few minutes of hotel room stress trying to ease seriously unwilling zip up past my plump tender side bits that seemed to want to get stuck in it. But somehow we got it up and it stayed up and did not open itself despite the day-long strain. ResPECK to whoever makes Coasts' zips.

High Point: Wedding cake made entirely of pies. No sponge or whatever. Just tiers and tiers of proper, golden, savoury pies with two little icing people on top. I kid you not.

Ahem. Pirates don't use apostrophes proper, neither. Ahaaar.

aaah, thank god for the normality of this thread!! I was wondering where all the normal women were!

babyglue - i thought that was a word for spunk.....

jewels - sorry to hear your news. some drinks and smokes for you tonight.

we are starting trying for baby this month. Think i'm just gonna have sex every other day and keep fingers crossed. Thought it was a dead cert this way but apparently only 25% - low odds eh??

jewels, that's cuz I is an educated pirate. Ye scurvy swab. But thankee for the sanitary supplies tip. D'ye think I should use these, me hearty? pzrservices.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/17/blackbeard_tampons.jpg

Sorry harris, what was that you were saying about normal?

Welcome anyway. Here's a tanker of grog for ye.

oooooo aarrrrrrrrrr

Yeah wino, you sound more like a member of The Wurzels! All together now: Oi've gaart a brand-noo comboine 'aarvester......

harris, good luck with the baby-trying. Every 2 days huh? Sounds like you have more stamina than I and Mr F&J do! (Though I must admit I thought it was every 3 days for optimum quality of the little wrigglers?)

jewels, I love the idea of a pie wedding cake. Makes me want to get married again just so that I can have one. In other pie news, I have discovered a proper pie shop which sells something enigmatically called a "fudge tart". Imagine a lovely, deep, squidgy, toffee-flavoured egg custard tart. With chocolate sprinkles. Am-a-ZING.

Heh. definitely pirate tampons, for everyone.

Welcome harris. Thanks for the drinks and schmokes and stuff. I will graciously accept but my MC is soooo last season you really needn't have. I've perioded since and everything. Tis all about the fish on that score.

We may have misled you with the semblance of normality though. Despite having only done iiiiit once this month at a time anywhere near what I fondly hope was ovulation, and thinking I was oh so not bothered, I am now finding myself 2WW POAS 12DPO BFN WTFing like a fully paid-up acronym-using babyduster. I'll be smileying next, you mark my words.

Afternoon all!
Jeeez I am sooooo hungover today! Went mental on the cocktails last night and am urghhhhh today. Not even dressed yet. Have unexplained bruises and everything.

But That. Is. It. I am officially stopping drinking entirely to see if it makes a difference to the old baby-making malarkey. I am honestly going to struggle though (although not today - bleuuurrrgh just varminted and everything)

I am loving the pirate-talk, btw! Remember thinking a joke about pirates saying the alphabet (p, q, ARRRRRRRRR!) was the funniest thing ever when I was about 6.

Still makes me laugh now, actually

Hope you all feel much better than me today...

But tante, it takes ages for pirates to say the alphabet...

...they spend so long at C.

Hehehe.

Alright you lily-livered poltroons, I'm off back to me ship*. Have good weekends, all.

*Actually true, landlubbers - I live life on the canal in hackney ocean wave.

Aharrrr! Shiver me timbers, it's Tante!

Eww, sloppy seconds!

Ok, look, I haven't got long: I'll be on a cross-channel ferry in 2 hours. I'll bring you back some duty-free.

Happy Birthday to meeeee! 38 (fuck, how did that happen) and feeling rather chilled. A day in town with a few mates, lunch at Italian, punting, then home for steak, chips, shiraz and Star Trek DVD. Top banana!

Happy birthweekend fish! Tis also mr j&b's - we will raise a glass to you too.

Maybe I smell a bit funny

Hello shipmates! Aaaaaarrrrr, avast, splice the mainbrace and get up by the futtock shrouds.

Er, where was I?

Ah yes. Hope you all had a good weekend. I managed to score with Him Indoors (well, it was my birthday!) Which is good persikologically, as the ERPC did leave me feeling a little like a lab specimen. (Same as when I gave birth first time round. Knowing that so many total strangers have been peering intently, and worse, up my growler makes me feel deeply unsexy. Nearly spat out my drink when I read on another MN thread about a mum worrying she'd got fertilised after shagging 4 weeks post birth. Fucking hell - I still wasn't sitting right at that stage!)

So onwards! How are you lot doing today?

Hey socks how goes it with you?

My contribution to thread this week will mostly be being sad both that I'm not pregged and that I'm slightly nutser about the fact than I had consciously realised. Turns out that in my head I have been secretly converting bog standard PMS to the undeniable symptoms of the terrifyingly fertile. I keep peeing on sticks and then being taken aback that they keep being resolutely negative.

Had lots of friends over on Sat for bbq and drinking and two of my closest friends who don't know each that well (different parts of life - one school, one work) were talking about what a magical moment their scans had been, when the heartbeat had just been so immediate and overwhelming. And I didn't want them not to share that, or to be all awkward and sorry for me, but I did want one of them just to put an arm round me during that conversation and just acknowledge that my scan hadn't been that.