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Friday, September 22, 2006
Maybe it's a testament to how good a job I'd been doing with the whole one-step-at-a-time philosophy. But when we told the family, it never even occurred to us that the family would then proceed to tell other folks. I was still so nervous; it had only been a little over a week. The night before my second beta, worry writhed its way in a dance marathon through my brain before I finally nodded off to a restless sleep, sometime past 3 in the morning, four hours of watching the numbers on my bedside clock advance ever more slowly forward. I panicked when something was weird. (What was that twinge?!?) I angsted when I didn't feel anything at all. (Why aren't I nauseous?) I couldn't bring myself to say the words "I'm" and "pregnant" together out loud, for fear that doing so might chase the good news away. So when we turned up at the boy's cousin's wedding, I was in no way prepared. Congratulations! We heard the great news! We're so excited for you! As we made the rounds with aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins, the well-wishers just kept on coming, a crush of squeals and hugs and big wide grins. And this was so sweet, and so lovely, that everyone was so obviously thrilled for us. But I? Was totally. Freaked. Out. Everyone knows! I whispered to the boy. Everyone knows! The boy hugged me closer as we made our way to the next beaming set of relatives. I took a deep breath, put on my smile, got ready for another round of well-meaning congrats. How are you feeling? Everyone wanted to know. And the first few times, all I could do was smile and nod and shrug my shoulders, say, We're so happy, so excited, it's wonderful. Which is true. But the thing is, that's only part of it. When it's taken all this to get to this still-precarious point, it's hard to suddenly stop worrying; experience has taught you too well that bad things can and do happen, most of all when you let your guard down. I'm not sure most of the boy's family fully gets this; they've always struck me as preternaturally fertile, new babies popping up here and there and everywhere. They're fortunate, and I don't begrudge them this fecundity. But when they ask me how I'm feeling, I'm not sure they have a clue just how loaded a question this is. So when the boy's cousin J's wife threw her own well wishes our way, I wasn't expecting her to pause to add: Oh no, was that all right? Is this too much? Are you okay? And as it turned out, that was all I really needed; acknowledgment that I might be nervous, permission to let my crazy nagging worries out. No, no, I told her truthfully, We're so excited. But yeah, it's hard. And it is, but maybe that's not such a bad thing either. Because with every test that comes back with good numbers assuring me that everything actually is progressing exactly the way it should, I'm more aware than ever: I'm so, so lucky. Life can be amazing and lovely and good. . .
# posted by y @ 1:22 PM
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I'd debated it back-and-forth for days. Was I going to wait it out till the official Friday morning blood test or cheat with the pee stick? Twelve days isn't that long to wait, I kept telling myself; twelve days of being able to keep hoping, I knew, might be all I would get. But the more I thought about it and the longer each day seemed to get, the louder that pee stick sang its siren call. Every other step of this trying-to-get-pregnant process had involved so many other people; this one thing, I reasoned, was the one thing I could do all by myself.
So Tuesday afternoon, day 9 for those of us keeping track, I snuck out to the drugstore. Looked both ways out of the corners of my eyes, grabbed a pink hpt box, brought it up to the cash register feeling all furtive. Back home, though, I tucked it deep deep into the underwear drawer out of sight. I was still waffling; hope is a good thing; and no matter how many times I told myself it might still be too early to tell, I knew a big fat negative was going to be crushing, no way around it, no rationalizing would help. Tuesday night went by, and I said nothing about those pee sticks to the boy. I didn't know if I was ready; I wasn't sure what I'd do.
But Wednesday morning I wake up early for the first time since the progesterone shots began. (It's a cruel cruel trick: the progesterone makes me sleep terribly, but when I'm awake I'm just dead tired zonked-out.) The sun is low. The house is quiet. I have to pee.
In a rare brave moment, I pull the pink box out from my drawer, shuffle over to the bathroom. (No looking back now, kids.) Cold hands, jittery heart: I sit on the toilet tearing open the foil, popping off the pink cap, holding the white tip down. Let it go, let it go, let the bladder go: five-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, one-one-thousand. Done.
In the end, it doesn't even take the three minutes the box insert tells me to expect. Two lines. Two strong pink lines. And this, the handy key printed on the stick itself told me, is good.
You're so sneaky! the boy faux-chides when I show him not long after. Sneaky girl! I love you so much!
And from now until test day, the two of us have the best secret in the world. By the time the nurse rings up Friday afternoon with the good news -- test positive! hCG numbers great! -- the secret's out; it's no longer just ours alone. But still, the confirmation is good. And while the next few weeks there'll be more tests and more waiting and more hoping that things just keep going the way they're supposed to go, for now, at least, I guess it's official. I'm, um, pregnant.
# posted by y @ 2:19 PM
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