A birthday party, a phone call and a spot of bother

Last weekend just zoomed right by. Sunday afternoon, we went to a first birthday party for the baby boy of one of dh's cousins (who was 39 when he was born and, rumour has it, conceived via IVF). His big brother will be will be 10 in April & is six months older than Katie would have been. I had just found out I was pg when I went to this cousin's baby shower, & can remember everyone congratulating me & asking me questions and telling me, "You're next!" Another cousin's baby (also a boy, thankfully) was born six months later, in April 1999, so I look at the two of them & gauge how big Katie would be now & the kind of things she would be doing. I can never help but see the two of them at family gatherings without seeing a little girl in the middle between them.

The party was at an indoor sports centre that had indoor soccer & floor hockey courts, so the kids had a blast, running around playing hockey -- not to mention the big kids, i.e., dh & all the guys! He said the next morning, "I never ached all over like this after playing hockey when I was 15." lol I wound up sitting & talking with SIL & the girl cousins/wives, who talked nonstop about... (guess!)... their kids!! It actually wasn't bad, so far as these events go. I was, of course, the only woman there without kids. (Actually not -- the cousin's unmarried & childless aunt on the other side of the family was there too, but I really don't know her.) There was one other baby there who will be 1 in March (also rumoured to be an IVF baby -- the parents were both 43 when she was born, after 10+ years of marriage). Most of the kids are getting older now -- several teenagers in the bunch, even -- so I didn't feel quite so envious when I heard stories about broken curfews and lost cellphones and fretting about why they're not interested in going to university and what they should do instead, etc., lol. To be honest, I'm finding lately that I'm not feeling so much angst at these events as boredom. Of course I have nothing much to contribute to the conversation.

I talked to my parents later that night. Their neighbours (a couple in their late 50s/early 60s) just learned they are going to be grandparents for the first time in May. My dad said they didn't sound too excited about it, & the wife had made a crack about how it was a good thing the kids don't live too close so they won't expect free babysitting all the time. It's the kind of throwaway remark that unthinking fertiles make all the time, but I still felt bad that my parents -- who would have loved to have been grandparents, & would have been fabulous ones -- had to be subjected to that.

Back in November, I wrote a post about having some midcycle spotting on day 17 of my cycle. I went on to have a normal period on schedule, and then another full, uneventful cycle. Yesterday was day 17 again and, voila! spotting again. Just a small amount of orange-red when I wiped myself that morning which, over the course of the day, tapered to a brownish stain and then into nothingness, just like the last time. I had been feeling some cramping on my left side the day before, & felt somewhat crampy all day yesterday -- I often have midcycle crampiness right around ovulation, but never spotting until now.

When it first happened back in November, I called my ob-gyn's office then & his secretary told me it was not unheard of (especially for 47-year-old women), but to call back if it happened again. So I called her yesterday on my cellphone during my break. She said she would talk to the dr & see whether he wanted me to come in for an ultrasound before my annual Pap/checkup in mid-March. No call today -- I will follow up tomorrow. I know it's very like perimenopause rearing its head (groan) -- at least, I hope that's what it is. Preferable to some of the alternatives.