Last week, I was pregnant. It didn’t stick, which I feel I need to mention right away so no one jumps to congratulate me only to feel bad about it later. I’m not pregnant now. I was pregnant, now I am not.
I had such a great reveal story, too. We’ve been trying for a long time now, almost a year, and after another month of negative tests at the end of August I decided to just give up until October. October marked 12 months of no babies, so my doctors would finally talk to me about fertility testing. With E’s crazy work hours the chance of getting pregnant without charting and calendars and schedules were almost zero…but that didn’t stop me from bringing a couple cheap pregnant tests to Atlanta just in case I was late. Even though I wasn’t trying my brain has been automatically keeping track of the days and….maybe…?
On Sunday morning, just before breakfast at the Type-A conference, I peed on a stick. I stared at it for 30 seconds but only got one line. Of course I only got one line. I’m doomed to only get one line forever. I set it on the counter and left. When my roommate Miranda and I came back up to the room a while later I picked it up to throw it away (because ew, what was I thinking?!)…and there was a second line. TWO LINES. I screamed “Miranda!!!” and threw the door open and she was standing there smiling at me.
“I know!” she said. “I saw!”
“But there was one line! There was only one line this morning!” I said.
“Right before we went downstairs, I saw it and though ‘Hey, that an HCG test, not an ovulation test’! I didn’t want to say anything!” Miranda said.
“Aaaaahhhhhh! You saw! You didn’t tell me! Oh my god! Two lines! But we gave up – I’ve been trying for so long, we gave up!” I rambled and laughed and cried and she hugged me and I was so so happy.
My roommate knew I was pregnant before I did. I called E and informed him he was actually the THIRD person to find out, but not to feel bad since I was the second.
Isn’t that a cute story? My own mini 2-hour version of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. I couldn’t stop myself from telling a few friends (and a few strangers) right away, but promised myself I’d wait a respectable amount of time to announce it officially, since the books tell you to wait. Now I know why people wait.
On Monday I got another positive at home, with a fancy digital test. I took a picture of it, just to prove to myself it was real. On Thursday morning I wasn’t feeling particularly pregnant – which is pretty normal, it happened with both of the kids – so I peed on another stick to reassure myself.
One line.
I tried the digital test. Not pregnant. I started to worry, but with no symptoms one way or another I couldn’t do anything. I called the doctor to ask if they could confirm, but the office on base won’t even test you until 2 weeks after your period is due, so I had another 8 days before I could go in. I asked Dr. Google, I asked my Facebook chat friends, but no one had a magic crystal ball that could tell me anything. So I waited and crossed all my crossables and prayed and wished and tried to lie as still as possible, as if just NOT MOVING could make this pregnancy stick.
It didn’t work. It unstuck, and now I am back where I was at the end of August, with one line on the test. I don’t feel like I lost a baby – at not even 5 weeks I think it’s only considered a chemical pregnancy and I didn’t have enough time to absorb the news, let alone get attached. It wasn’t a baby, it was the promise of a baby. Or may the suggestion of a baby, since no one is promised anything, especially by their own bodies. I didn’t pin any pregnancy reveal ideas or make any lists or imagine nursery themes or browse Etsy for cute hats or think of clever ways to put it on the blog. There wasn’t any time. I haven’t lost a pregnancy before, and I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel, but it’s mostly just kind of disappointed. I was really looking forward to being pregnant. Those 4 positive days have thrown my hormones and emotions totally out of whack though. All I really want is a couple of hours of alone time to lie in bed and feel sorry for myself and eat a pint of ice cream, but I haven’t had the chance. E is stuck at work close to 100 hours a week – that’s not a typo or an exaggeration – so he barely even knows what’s happening and can’t be here to talk or help or keep things together. He’s under so much stress already dumping all of this on him seems completely unfair.
And as if that disappointment wasn’t enough, I have a slightly horrifying, extremely personal medical thing that flared up again the second I got a positive test and by Saturday was almost unbearable. I’ll spare you the details but it involves a scalpel and stitches in a very sensitive (not thoroughly numbed) area and possibly major surgery in a few weeks, which I don’t know how I’m going to schedule since E can’t even get out of work to watch the kids for my urgent appointment, let alone something that’s not considered an emergency. Throw in the government shutdown and the threat we might not get paid (and the reality that the reenlistment bonus installment E gets each October is nowhere to be found) and I’m sort of stressed out. All of THAT on top of the non-pregnancy means I feel like everything sucks right now. I wish I’d never taken that test. I never would have known and the status quo of no baby never would have changed.
It’s all just…shitty. It’s shitty. I feel shitty.
