I am not a tester. This partly has to do with the fact that I am cheap and pregnancy tests are not. It also has to do with the fact that I hate seeing those tests come up negative. When I was temping religiously, I pretty much knew if my period was on its way. The low temps combined with sometimes four or five days of spotting (something none of my doctors find at all odd ...) was all the writing on the wall I needed. So far, I have not been wrong.
I wish I could remember exactly how I felt the time I was pregnant for those few days. That would help me, especially now that I have not been temping. Over the weekend I started to really think (I mean really, really think) that I could be pregnant. The main things that were leading me to this conclusion were that my weird ovarian pain never subsided after ovulation, I started feeling periodic little pully twinges in my abdomen, I didn't have my usual run of multiple days of spotting, and, the really logical reason, it's my birthday on Thursday and finally getting pregnant would be the best gift ever. Especially if it ended up with me holding a little baby.
Late Friday night, I had some spotting just before bed. It was 7 DPO, so, basically, right on target for my period showing up five or six days hence. Then, oddly, I didn't have anymore spotting all weekend long, and I started to get hopeful. I didn't mention my great white hope to George because I have done that so many times before only to issue the bad news later on. So I kept my hopes, along with the fact that I'd had any spotting at all, to myself and day by day I started to get excited. This morning I had some more spotting, though. My hopes were pretty much dashed, and I told George the situation. On the way in to work, I consulted my past charts hoping they would show me that even though I had a couple days of spotting, it was different that all those other months, and I might just be pregnant after all. The charts didn't give me any hope.
All these things did not lead me to throwing in the towel on this cycle, though. As I sat at work I pondered the possibility that I just might be pregnant after all. I came up with the idea of going out to buy a pregnancy test at CVS (something I have never done before), just to make sure. After mulling it over for an hour, I decided that I had to; I felt like I was being led to do this which, in turn, meant that the results just might come out in my favor. So I went out and spent $20 on two fancy digital tests (I bought the ad line on the packaging that said I could get a positive result five days before my period is due hook, line, and sinker), went back to work and read the instructions so that I wouldn't make any mistakes in the execution. I walked down the hallway to the bathroom telling myself over and over again, "I expect it to be negative. Don't get depressed when that's the result." There I was in the bathroom (thankfully, it is not a multiple stall bathroom) looking at that stupid little hourglass and willing it to say what I wanted. Well, it didn't listen ... Not Pregnant ... that's what I saw. Despite the fact that it's easier to read, I think it's actually worse seeing the negative result in the digital form rather than just the lonely little pink line. You can't squint your eyes and try to make it say something it's not. You can't bring it to the window to get a better look. There's no question at all.
So I put the test back in the wrapper and threw it out in the bathroom trash. There went all my ideas of surprising George with it when I got home. There went the fun back and forth we would have when he would inevitably say, "Why did you test? You were pretty sure you weren't pregnant this morning." And I would respond, "I just had a hunch," like all good mothers do. There I went, back to work.
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