The Story

Forty-eight hours later now, and it still doesn't seem real, but being as I still haven't woken up and I have peed on another stick (positive again), I'm thinking it must be. Amazing.

Well, here's what happened: I'd been feeling sick for several days, but E had been in the hospital (croup gone haywire -- at home and fully recovered now) so I assumed it was stress. It seemed, though, that with each passing day I felt a bit worse instead of a bit better. Even more bizarre, food had started to taste and smell kind of odd. By Wednesday, I found myself on cycle day 43 and feeling queasy pretty much all the time. Now, the cycle day 43 business didn't seem overly important at the time. Ever since I weened P & E, my cycles have been insane, and it was not unusual for me to go 40 days or more between periods. Nonetheless, my long cycle was in the back of my mind Wednesday night when G and I got in bed. I said, "G, I've been feeling sick for days. All food makes me nauseous. The only time I ever remember feeling this way is when I was pregnant with P & E. Do you think I could be pregnant?" G replied, "Well, anything's possible, I guess. It's not like we've been trying to prevent."

That's true, we hadn't been. But that's because, two years ago after seeing my HSG films, Oz the fertility doctor had told us my chances of conceiving naturally were pretty remote. Much more recently (ten days ago!) at my annual exam, my OBGYN had told me that if you require IVF to conceive the first time, odds are very good you will require it to conceive again. If we decided at some point that we were ready to try for another baby, she told me, just give her a call and she'd send us straight back to Oz, pronto.

Which is why, Wednesday night, I was quite unconcerned when I asked G to stop and buy me an hpt on his way home from work the following day. I'd take one, I told him, just for shits and giggles. When I told a friend that I planned to test, I assured her that the odds of it being positive were, in my estimate, probably around .000001%. I think I compared the likelihood of it being positive to that of achieving world peace, or the Cubs winning the World Series.

Anyway, Thursday evening rolled around, and G showed up after work with the hpt. I didn't take it right away; it just wasn't on my radar that anything significant might come of it. It was my 29th birthday, and I was more concerned with fielding happy birthday calls and bemoaning the fact that this would be the last birthday I'd honestly admit to than I was with peeing on any sticks. But finally, around 8:00 p.m., I felt like I could go, and the test was sitting right there. I decided it was time.

The test line showed up immediately. In fact, it showed up before the control line. As I watched, I was thinking, "Huh. I thought the control line was on the other side. I must not have used this brand before." But then, after another 15 or 20 seconds, the control line began to darken, also. It was immediately apparent that I was seeing two lines. I ran out of the bathroom without even pulling my pants up and started yelling for G. I told him I needed him to get the instructions out for me (I hadn't been able to get the box all the way open and had only managed to pry open a hole big enough to slide one test through). He looked at the test and said, "Honey, there are two lines. What could you have done wrong? You peed on it, that's all there is to it. OMG. Are you kidding me? You're pregnant! I TOLD YOU MY BOYS COULD SWIM!"

And so they can. First prenatal appointment is still a month away (WTF?) so I'll be counting on all five of you who read this blog to keep me sane until then.