my own inconvenient truths

Surfacing, but still scattered. I am trying to sweep pieces up with my bare hands, and keep having to pick out slivers that make me bleed, leave me bruised. But the month is passing.
I am the kind of bone tired that if I did not know me better, I would worry. I would say: anemia? virus? But I know it is just the weight of things. Time is passing, it will get better.

CD14 and no second line on the OPK yet.
At this point, my next cycle (see my cynicism?), my september cycle will fall exactly wrong for my plan to attend squam art workshops and my need to attend a conference, october will fall exactly wrong for my annual writing trip to maine with my dear friend Tammy...both fun things are already paid for, both are non-refundable.
Each day that slips by moves the whole schedule forward into the "damn it, will I be able to leave the art workshop for an insemination/ET or should I not even go? what the hell will I tell my boss about the conference? in october, will I be able to get ultrasounds and bloodwork in Bangor?
I do not like to think of this whole bullshit ride as one of convenience or inconvenience. It is what it is. It needs to happen. It is not predictable. But it impacts my job every time I need to be somewhere or cannot go somewhere, and this is exactly the wrong time to be saying "no" economically speaking. The un-fun conference is a command performance, I opted out, thought I was off the hook, but my boss opted me back in. To say no, to back out will be a big problem.
But, the biggest but, the but that drives all else: I cannot afford to skip cycles. I have, at most, 5 left.
I am now officially 42.5. I will play this out until I am 43 with my own eggs. I wish I could win the lottery and go farm eggs in Colorado until we know we have a handful or two of good ones to put back in. But instead we have to just take one cycle at a time, and make the most of each cycle while we can.
This cycle will result most possibly in an IUI these next few days if the surge ever happens. I do not even have a ghost of a second line on those sticks yet. And I never ovulate late-- often I ovulate early. Just going to show that the only thing I can count on in this journey is that whatever I would like, whatever would have been convenient (just this once), it sure as hell will be different than that.