Day 5 of THE cycle.. or just a cycle

When you're tracking, you have a lot of opportunity to anticipate your period.  Friday was easy: I got fussy when I cooked dinner (an undelicious dish of salmon, asparagus, and whole-wheat noodles) and reminded Heather that I was due to start any day now.  Lo, Saturday morning, I was greeted with red, just in time to update the fertility monitor and to inspire profound self-doubt.

If this "pre-mester" of preparing my body is really important, than is trying to get pregnant after only a month of following its tenets going to be enough?  How many flaxseeds, or acupuncture sessions, does it take to make a difference?  Should I wait another month?  Or should I just go for it?  Heather, impressed that I've maintained self-control for over a week, is ready to make the move.

And, to be honest, there's a part of me that's still pretty cocky: I'm barely thirty, my cycle runs like clockwork, and that one time at the IVF clinic they saw a bunch of follicles.  Golden, right?  Except that I'm not convinced that anyone is golden.  Our previous experience demonstrated how little you know in advance about someone's fertility: outward signs might be great, and even a huge number of tests might look great, but sometimes there are other, buried issues that catch you off-guard.

Nonetheless, I'm doing my visualizations.  I'm imagining the follicles growing.  My uterine lining is developing into a thick, warm home for embryos.  Heather and I have picked a donor, and this is happening in a week.