Two Weeks Worth of Yuck...

So, when Shady Grove gave me the all the little paraphernalia paperwork about how to endure the dreaded Two-Week Wait before I take my pregnancy test, I sort of laughed.

Because really, I've done this four times before. 

I've already done this wait enough times to know how to handle it.

I know it stinks, but goes by quickly.  Sort of.

I obviously know lots and lots of women undergoing infertility treatments.  There are those who obsess and begin home testing (otherwise known as peeing on a stick or POAS) the day of their transfer...waiting to see negative so they know the hcg is out of their system and then POSITIVE to prove pregnancy success.

Others don't do daily tests, but will take a test or two a day or two before...you know, just to see.

Others don't at all.  They just wait.  Rather get the 'official' let-down phone call.

I'm sure one can guess where I fall, just by calling it the 'let-down' phone call.

(I know, I know...even though it's more often than not the official "Congratulations!" call, I still expect it to be the let-down call.)

Anyway, like I said, I have now done 5 transfers.  I only have tested before my beta twice.

Once, the morning of my transfer with our little Yellow Fish after Matthew.  Caveat?  I didn't look!  I covered the stick, did it, and then let it sit on the counter until I got home from the beta.  The drive was about four hours round trip and I didn't want to have to wait until that afternoon for results.

I was called before I even got home and told it was negative.

The other time I tested before the beta was with Trey's cycle, and really, that was because my nurse was worried about OHSS and thinking it was getting worse because I was pregnant.  She was right on all accounts, and I did NOT want to test before the beta.  My sweet friend Karie can attest to that too!!

So, anyway, what on earth made me test the other day?

I'm NOT that way.  I don't WANT to test early.  I always feel like for whatever reason, I'm supposed to WAIT!

But I didn't.  

7dp5dt, or seven days past a 5 day transfer, I tested.  In the afternoon.  With a cheapo dollar store test.  That expired a year ago.

It was negative.

I know, I know...it was early. (Though on this very same day with Trey's cycle, I had an hcg of 54...I know that was a twin implantation, but still...I was making hcg that day in the cycle.)

I know the tests have expiration dates for a reason.

I know that the dollar store tests do not have anywhere close to the sensitivity levels that the good ones (my fave is First Response—can detect hcg as low as 6!).

Still, that little lonely line was pretty depressing.

I feel pregnant.  I'm crampy.  I'm moody.  I'm hungry.  I'm not.  

But, as always, the curse of the very medicines I inject to hopefully help a pregnancy and maintain it is that they make one feel pregnant.

Success there.

Speaking of injections.  Those suckers hurt.  That is all about that.

So, anyway...I'm waiting.  I had my annual GYN appointment on Tuesday and I was a wreck. 

A friend asked when it ever got easier to hear that women are pregnant?  When the sting of jealousy goes away?  

I had to be honest and tell her it doesn't.

Infertility, like loss, changes who you are.  How you look at things.  How you look at what you have and what others have and how you try to balance your contentment.

It's not fair, but we all know life isn't.  On the way home from that appointment, as I was contemplating taking another test in a few days (beta is on Monday, July 9), John Waller's "While I'm Waiting," came on the radio.

I started to cry.

I'm waiting.

I'm hopeful.

It is painful.

But patiently, I'm waiting on you, Lord.