Getting Good News?

I'm pregnant. As of today, 5 weeks.

I chose not to take any home pregnancy tests following my embryo transfer on August 2nd, as I felt personally victimized by those annoying little sticks in the past. I'm not the kind of person to overuse the word "triggered," or "traumatized," but those two words pretty well encapsulate my opinion on Clear Blue and First Response. Those stark white tests laughed at me and made me feel worthless. So I decided to wait until my beta blood test on August 11th. I would enjoy Schrodinger's' pregnancy until the last moment.

My blood was drawn at 8:30 and they informed me that the results would be in at 1:30. In the meantime, I was going back to work, so we told them to call my husband instead. If I got bad news at work, I really didn't want to crawl under my desk and sob for the remaining hour of my shift. If the news was good, I don't think I could sit and do work like the best news of my life hadn't just been given to me. So instead, I sat vibrating in front of my computer wishing that my job tasks were a bit more distracting.

Meanwhile, my husband actually got the call at noon. I had strictly advised him not to call me, because if I knew he'd call with good news, then I'd despair if he waited until my shift was over to give me the news. I told him to keep a blank face when he picked me up from work, to not come into the building. I didn't want to make guesses before he actually told me for himself what the results were. He waited an agonizing two hours before I got in the car that afternoon and he could finally tell me. I was pregnant!

When he told me this, of course I smiled and teared up. I kept saying, "are you serious?" or "really?" I truly couldn't believe it. After three years of nothing but bad news and negative tests and regular cycles, it was nearly impossible to shift my view to a positive, optimistic one. The prospect of being pregnant was pretty far from my perspective of reality. It sounded fake.

When I got home, I fished an expired digital test out of my bottom drawer and used it, just so I could see it for myself, just in case there had been some kind of mistake. For the first time in three years of trying, I had a confirmation that my dreams were one major step closer to coming true. The Clear Blue test declared me pregnant. I looked at the letters in the results screen and felt like finally, I had the last laugh.

I called my parents, my brother, the in-laws, my best friend, and told them the news, since they'd all been hoping and praying for me. My brother sobbed. It was funny that he cried more than I did, but I was still struggling to accept that I really was pregnant. I still felt like the rug would be pulled out from under me at any moment. Happy, but scared. Excited, but nervous. Regardless of my reservations, we spent the entire weekend celebrating.

On Monday the 15th, I went back for a second beta test to make sure the numbers were increasing. And they were! The result was even higher than what they were looking for. I was still pregnant. I wouldn't say that I felt relieved to hear the numbers, but things were getting a little more real.

Every twinge and cramp still scares me, but I'm trying to realize that this pregnancy, at this point, is just like any other. I have no reason to expect things to go wrong. The odds of taking home a baby are higher than not. Being cautious about my happiness and excitement won't help the baby stay any safer or healthier. I can enjoy each day for what it is. I am pregnant today, and for today, that's enough!