But if you try sometimes, you just might find...

If we had to give up on having babies on our own timeline.... paradise is a good place to do that.

12 dpo: the usual teeny tiny spotting and a negative test. But hope remained. I was going to come back from paradise with two pink lines. The story was going to be good... "It was our last round of fertility meds! And it happened!!"
3am, 14 dpo: Couldn't sleep, peed on a stick with shaky hands and sleepy brain. "Is that a line??" Shook head, closed eyes, opened eyes. Asked brain to focus and stop making up lines. No, that's a piece of fuzz. That is a very negative stick. And there is copious bright red blood.

And so I sat down on the bathroom floor in paradise and grieved. I could have woken Rob up, but he was sleeping soundly and I grieve most efficiently and effectively sitting down on bathroom floors. 85% of my conversations with God happen in the shower. I cried. But this time I prayed nice prayers, not angry prayers. I pursed my lips and refused to once again ask, "Why not us???".  Instead, I asked God for help. I asked Mary for help. I asked for peace. Of course I asked for children, but primarily I asked for peace. 

And I felt it. A tiny glimmer of peace seeping into me. I sat on the cool tile and concentrated on that.

I threw away my three remaining pregnancy tests. Long ago, I threw away my birth control pills with gusto... quickly before I changed my mind. Flushed them down the toilet and hoped I was ready for babies. Now three unused pregnancy tests sit in a landfill in Florida. Infertility is not eco-friendly. But purging helps.

We're ok. I don't really want to talk about it right now. In blogland or in real life. We're moving on. We don't feel inclined to start the adoption process; we're not saving for the expensive drugs. And I don't expect it to magically happen because we're not trying anymore.

The Florida Keys are a little slice of heaven. Teal-blue, beautifully warm water, brightly colored fishes, hammocks strung up in the shade, palm trees, white sand... I'm lounging around all day in my bikini... makeup and real undergarments are so over rated... and I may return with some freckles and highlights. We've been sleeping in and having mimosas with freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast. We had two short oceanic adventures in our rented boat before learning that my macho, indestructible husband gets violently, miserably seasick... and that I'm a better boat captain than we'd have expected. This we both find kind of funny.

Yesterday evening we went snorkeling off the dock and chased fish for hours before flopping into lounge chairs and drip-drying in the sunset. We've been watching movies with mixed drinks every night. Today we're kayaking in the calm water of our inlet. Tomorrow we're traveling to Key West for the day... to visit a butterfly sanctuary and Ernest Hemmingway's six-toed cats.

So life is good. We have lots of love in our marriage, and plenty of other adventures in store, but I think this concludes our Ovulation Adventures. Or at least the ovulation adventures that we have any control over.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had it right...You can't always get what you want.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for helping me through this. Life is hard sometimes, but it's much easier with friends like you.