and the anxiety sets in...

First, obligatory pee stick update: still pregnant.

That's a beautiful line, right? 

According to this handy-dandy IVF due date calculator, I am currently three weeks and six days pregnant, with an expected due date of August 16, 2015.

So this is my new morning routine. I get up around 5:45 (why? Why so early) and pee into my little plastic cup. I dip the Wondfo for shits and giggles. I dip the FRER. Love that the line comes up instantly. Count minutes until I can compare it to the previous day's test (is it getting darker? I hope it's getting darker. That looks darker, right?). When stick is sufficiently darkened (but still in the acceptable window), I launch into my daily photo shoot: all of the sticks together, today's by itself, today's with yesterday, and a few Wondfo comparison shots.

That yellowing from the 6DP5DT test is rather unsightly, isn't it?

I am clearly not well.

My cold rages on and last night I coughed so hard and so long I was afraid that I would cough the embryos out. Earlier, when I ventured out of the house with Mr. Hope to accompany him to his doctor's appointment, my jeans felt a little snug and this made the pressure above my groin more prominent. There was pinching on the right side and some on the left, but by night I couldn't feel the pinching and this scared me. Every time I went to the bathroom (which was often, because every coughing fit I almost peed my pants) I expected to see blood.

I said to Mr. Hope, "I'm just afraid it's all going to end any second now."

There are a lot of women in the IF community who've experienced one or more early losses. I mean, even women who haven't battled IF have miscarriages all of the time, especially when they're my age. So there is a part of me that's almost expecting this to be our fate.

And then there's this other part of me that was like, "Oh, shit, I should probably start scouting OBs," and ended up pinning a schedule of classes at a local birthing center. I was particularly interested in one about eating/exercising in pregnancy that's happening in January. I wanted to register - there were only 9 spots left - but then thought that if I did I'd be jinxing things. I came thisclose to calling and asking about their refund policy: "I totally want to sign up for this class but I'm barely pregnant and terrified that I'll end up unpregnant any second now. Can I defer my enrollment if I miscarry?"

Jinxing is on my mind a LOT now. Like, this cold makes it difficult for me to want to cook anything. But eating out is fraught with peril. DOES THAT HAVE FLOUR IN IT? IF I EAT THE FLOUR, WILL I LOSE THIS PREGNANCY? Early on, I made a proclamation that if I was pregnant, I wouldn't eat chocolate during the first trimester. Then I said, "Hell, if I get pregnant, I'll happily give up chocolate the entire pregnancy!" So now I feel like this is a binding agreement with the universe, and that if I have any chocolate whatsoever, I'm putting this pregnancy in danger.

Like I said: NOT WELL.

Also, I'm like three days pregnant (by pee stick time) and already I've screwed up twice. Mr. Hope served me a mug of Mint Melange tea that had lemon grass in it. I thought he'd given me peppermint and didn't realize until I got to the end that it wasn't that. I knew I wasn't supposed to have the Mint Melange but couldn't remember why. Turns out lemon grass can be used to induce abortions. HE UNWITTINGLY GAVE ME ABORTION TEA. Worse, I drank it.

Now I'm afraid to drink any tea, though I've read on multiple reputable sites that peppermint tea is likely safe. Rooibos is supposed to be great for pregnancy, but I haven't been able to find any in the store. I think I'm going to order some on Amazon just to put my mind at ease. In the meantime, I'm drinking hot lemon water with a little honey mixed in. That makes me nervous, too, because I've been considering honey as sugar. Am I breaking my healthy eating pact by ingesting honey? Or do I get a pass because it's supposed to be great for coughs?

Speaking of: I'd read that I could take Mucinex for a cold. But it turns out, Mucinex is guaifenesin, which is a Cat C for pregnancy (basically, probably not good, though some sites say it's fine after the first trimester). I think I took it like four times before finding this out. What I can take is Delsym (dextromethorphan), which is alcohol-free. So I bought that yesterday when I was picking up extra Wondfos and a two pack of the Clear Blue Digitals that read the number of weeks pregnant on them (I only have a FRER digi and it doesn't read weeks). Haven't taken a digi yet, though I probably will tomorrow.

I still have FIVE days until my beta test. I thought about calling yesterday to see if they'd give it to me earlier, since Sunday will be the equivalent of 14 DPO and a normal time to get a beta. Even Monday would've been an improvement. But I decided against it. If I'm meant to stay pregnant, that's going to happen no matter when I get my beta.

There are so many thoughts swirling around in my brain right now. The only thing keeping me sane is knowing that my brand of crazy is universal for women who've gotten pregnant after struggling with infertility for years.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C

What I really need right now is SLEEP. I haven't been getting more than 5-6 hours a night, and I'm typically a 7-8 hours a night kind of girl. I'm exhausted but I don't stay asleep, and the minute I wake up in the morning I'm all pee sticks and iPhone.

This will get a little bit easier at some point, won't it? I keep thinking that I can just hang on until the end of the first trimester (assuming we're lucky enough to make it that far) that maybe - maybe - I could relax just a little. Like it will be that moment in Say Anything, when a London-bound Lloyd Dobbler tells Diane Court that most accidents happen during the first few minutes of a flight, and if she can just wait for the fasten seat belt sign to ding off, they'll be in the all-clear.

My "ding" can't come soon enough.