It’s early in the morning. 5.30am to be precise. I have woken up feeling like today is a combination of exam day and christmas morning. Although probably more towards an exam day to be honest in terms of nerves and anxiety mixed with a tiny bit of positive anticipation.
And why? What on earth am I doing at that time of the morning?
Well, tomorrow is my ‘official test day’ (OTD – yes, of course it has an acronym, everything in the fertility world has a bloody acronym), when I will be going to have my blood drawn to see if the embryo transfer 8 days before has been successful. But, me being me, I’ve started a habit now of testing beforehand. Basically to enable me to come to terms with bad news before I hear it officially.
So, this morning, despite my best intentions (hah!) to wait, I’m going to pee on a stick (POAS – yes, yes, another one) and see…
Its the 29th December. I haven’t had a drink since transfer on the 22nd, including on Christmas day, and I started feeling a bit unwell on Christmas day which hasn’t gone away. Part of me thinks this is probably due to the excess sugar in the alcohol free wine I’ve been imbibing instead of yummy yummy real wine, but the small hopeful part of me that still exists in my head is interpreting this as potentially a positive sign. The hope gets less strong each time though so its very nearly overpowered by my practical pragmatism of ‘why would this one work when none of the others did’.
This is the 4th donor transfer in a year. The 1st from the new clinic. They have done more tests and put me on additional drugs, but, even so…
So, here I am. In the toilet. With an empty (clean!) nutella jar (otherwise I will undoubtedly miss the ruddy stick and the moment will be gone as morning pee is the strongest) to catch my pee in. Don’t let anyone tell you trying to get pregnant isn’t endless glamour….
Pee in jar. Dunk the stick for 15 seconds. Leave it horizontal and walk away trying not to give it the side eye as the liquid crawls across the indicator windows.
At one time I used the ones that would come up to say ‘Pregnant/Not pregnant’ but I found them depressing. The one I am using will provide exciting ambiguity (!!) as I squint at it trying to see if there is a 2nd line. Who doesn’t need that in the dim half light at 5.30 on a December morning?
Its time. Its time to go and have a look and start to deal with the emotions I know are hiding below the surface.
I squint.
Erm…
I squint again.
There definitely seems to be something, a cross. In the right place. Its pretty clear. I take a photo. Its not so clear on the photo but I send it to a friend anyway (she’ll be up, she has a 3month old) to see if I am going crazy. She sees it too!
Holy shit. Holy holy shit. I might actually be pregnant. I’ll be 3 weeks 5 days pregnant, but it still happened. Even if it doesn’t go all the way, this is the first time I’ve known it was even possible. The first true positive test. Ever.
So, now all I have to do is go to my blood test and get some good beta numbers tomorrow. Fertility really is a series of hurdles one after another.
To be continued….
Note: The beta test had good numbers but I still continued to pee on a stick daily for about the next week just to be sure…!