Sunday, October 2, 2011

Waiting - the home pregnancy test addiction

Not even 2 weeks, only 12 days to wait for confirmation. If you haven't already figured it out, I'm a home pregnancy test sucker. Despite my good friends warning against it, I just can't help it. I must test.

Having a home pregnancy test addiction is expensive. I used up the last of my bulk online order during my first IVF cycle. In preparation for this cycle I bought a three pack of the cheapest I could find when doing the grocery shopping. I have well and truly given up on the expensive in flow tests, these days the pee in the cup and test do the job just fine, or to date they had.

I started home pregnancy testing 1 week after transfer. 1st test - negative after a few minutes. I immediately discard. I have a tiny bit of home pregnancy test discipline, in that if I do a test that is negative, I am capable of waiting 2 days to the next test.

Two days later, 2nd home pregnancy test - negative after a few minutes. Again I immediately discard.

Matt is going away for the week of the blood test and I was hoping that I would have a positive test that I could tell him about before he leaves. Unfortunately, given my 2 day rule, I'm not due for my next test until Tuesday, a day after he has gone. Matt has told me he'd rather not know and just wait for the blood test - I can't understand that, surely if you can know earlier, you'd want to know.

In a new home pregnancy low, I find myself hours later pulling the test out of the bin. To my surprise I find the test is now indicating positive. This of course does not make me happy. All the rules in testing say do not read a result that appears after 10 minutes (clearly this needs to explicitly be added to the instructions for all the crazy women who dig tests out of the bin). This is well after 10 minutes, but I immediately discarded after about 2 minutes, so did a line appear somewhere between 2 and 10 minutes?

Clearly I now have grounds to retest after just 1 day breaking my only home pregnancy test rule.

The next day I test after a couple of minutes there is still no line. Instead of immediately discarding I wait. I have a shower and start peering past the shower curtain every minute to see if a line is appearing. Eventually the test is in the shower with me, of course carefully held out of the way of the shower. I stare at the test. I think there is a line. It is faint, but faint is sill positive. I think it is positive, but I'm still uncertain.

Stupid three pack of cheap tests. Now I've used them all up and I still don't know if I'm pregnant. I decide not to tell Matt - just in case.

Another day before the blood test and I'm so nervous.

Last cycle I convinced myself I'd prefer to know before I went in for the blood test, or at least have an idea. I've learned this cycle that having the positive home pregnancy test doesn't make you feel better going in to your blood test. All it does it bring you to a new range of worries.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing your personal story! You are a brave soul & I wish you the best life has to offer!

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