Must pee on stick.

After looking at stark white pregnancy tests month after month for just shy of a year, we finally got the miracle we had been hoping and praying for last week: a second line. I remember when we first started TTC, I used to think that maybe if only I could find a better or more sensitive pregnancy test, I could will that second line to appear. With each passing cycle, I would think that positive pregnancy tests were something that clearly happened to other people. Eventually, I came to believe I would never see a second line. Still, every month, I would habitually enter my POAS craze near the end of every cycle. I couldn't help myself. I was an addict. An addict who likes pain and heartache and blank white test windows.

This month, 11 dpIUI happened to be our wedding anniversary. Like the masochistic moron that I am, I decided that there was no better way to kick off our anniversary celebration than to POAS and get the requisite BFN. With that out of the way, I spent the rest of the day sulking. We had NINE freaking follicles (3-4 of which were mature, we weren't going for an Octomom thing here), I triggered with hCG at just the right time, and the timing of our IUI was perfect--if I couldn't get pregnant with that, I am completely helpless, I thought. In fact, I was feeling so despondent I seriously considered asking Y if we could push off our anniversary dinner. In the end, I sucked it up and we went out and had a wonderful evening during which I drank WAY too much wine for a pregnant woman (but how could I have known? :)

As soon as we left the restaurant and started walking back to the car I started to feel terrible. I was crampy, sweaty, clammy, and to be fully honest, either about to vomit or get the runs--which one was unclear. As I lay scrunched up in fetal position in bed on the eve of our anniversary I was feeling pretty full of self-pity. "I have a stomach virus and killer PMS," I thought. Awesome. The next day I felt no better.

The following morning, when I was still feeling like crap and AF had stayed away, I could resist no longer. MUST PEE ON STICK. Too bad I was donating my last FRER from my "American" stash to the cause and would have none left for later. The test generated a true curiosity: a faint faint hint of a faint faint hint of a second line barely visible to the human eye. Y confirmed that he saw what I saw, he also confirmed that as far as he was concerned it was a 100% completely positively negative pregnancy test.
Can you see it? Probably not unless you use your imagination.

The next day, 14dpIUI, AF had still not shown and my temp was still high. This was just getting curioser and curioser to a seasoned TTC sleuth like myself. Out of stock of FRERs but not defeated, I peed on the most sensitive and expensive Israeli stick I could find, the "Yes or No Professional" test. Behold, there was a very faint but undeniably present second line. I had imagined this moment so long--I can't say I reacted quite as dramatically as I had envisioned it. My hands got all shaky holding the pee stick and I said in a high-pitched voice, as if I was posing a sensitive and uncomfortable question, "Y, I think I'm pregnant?" My naysayer husband even agreed it was true, this was a positive pregnancy test.
That's a bit more like it. I think this picture makes it look lighter than it was:-/

Next, I headed to the fertility clinic, where I had my first beta drawn to confirm the pregnancy and an ultrasound to make sure my ovaries weren't overstimulated from the fertility drugs. My first beta came back on the lower side of normal for 14dpIUI at 42. Tomorrow, I head back for my second beta--the indication that things are going well will be to see a clear doubling pattern every 48 hours. Today, I am 4 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Based on the date of my IUI, our EDD is 6/30/11. Baby G is just the size of a poppy seed! Still, lots of action and growing is going on. The amniotic cavity and the placenta are forming. Baby G is transforming from a miraculous little ball of cells (the blastocyst) to an embryo with three different layers that will soon start differentiating into organs.

I have been so wracked with fear. Just to have reached this point feels like a miracle, after many months of waiting and hoping and praying. Despite my fears, I am trying to be positive. I believe in my heart that this will be our sticky, healthy, take-home baby, and for now that faith will have to be enough. Today-17 dpIUI - 'pregnant' popped up quickly (POAS note: got
a CBE digital 2-pack in America only for the purpose of seeing
'pregnant' appear once I already knew I was pregnant:)