wtf, wondfo?

I had this plan that I was only going to use my FRERs every other day. I had two in reserve and a digital in the linen closet. If I took the digi on beta day (Wednesday), I'd have just enough.

Only, my Wondfo this morning was so pale, it looked negative. I started to feel panicky. Why wasn't it getting any darker? Sure, the Wondfos had been light all along; three days past trigger, when I should have still had a minimum of 6,000 mIUs of hCG still in me, they were still pretty light.

But what if?

What if I was literally pregnant for a single day?

I dipped the FRER.

The second line started to come up immediately. Within two minutes, it was darker than yesterday's. Better yet, it continued to darken.

I'm still pregnant. Here, see for yourself.

Do you see that Wondfo? Do you blame me for getting panicky? Wondfo, I think it's time I quit you.

I'M STILL PREGNANT!

The fact that it got so much darker today makes me feel like this is actually happening. Yesterday I was in a little bit of a daze. I walked around the house, carrying the test with me from room to room. (That's normal, right?) I'd keep looking at it from different angles, holding it up to the light, hoping (praying, wishing) that this baby (babies?) would stick around for the whole nine months.

Yesterday, I texted pictures of the tests to four people: my two best friends in the whole world and two of my closest sisters in infertility. My two infertiles saw the line immediately. The BFF was like, "Very faint but I see it too!" (I'm apparently training her to have an infertile's eye.)

And then there was Gumbo. She didn't text back right away, and then I got busy with work and wasn't even thinking about it. Around 10:30 I got this text:

I'm so sorry, I'm actually confused and angry. I thought this time for sure. Could it be too early?

I was like, "It's positive!" I sent her a zoomed in picture. She texted back:

What?!!!! It doesn't show up in pic! Are you home?!!! I've been so sad!!!

Then, a few exchanges later:

I still can't see it I'm jumping out of my skin I'm coming over

So she did. To be fair, she showed me the picture on her phone and you really can't see anything. Not even a whisper.

Now the hard part is going to be NOT shouting this off the rooftops. There are so many people who've been there for me and cheering me on. Can I tell them? Should I? It's still SO early. But Glam Coworker, who's still out on maternity leave, told me the day after she got a positive pregnancy test. There are a few family members and close friends who knew I was cycling. Should I tell them?

And then I think: the more people I tell now, the more people I'd have to tell if something goes wrong.

I don't like thinking about something going wrong.

But I did have this talk with Mr. Hope, who was under some delusion that the beta test was the last hurdle to clear. I was like, "Um, that's like the third lowest run on a very long ladder." He was all, "Say what now?"

I told him that the bottom run was making it to retrieval. Making it to transfer was the next. (In previous versions of this lesson, I've also included egg fertilizing and egg growing day to day as rungs, too, but I was trying to simplify here.) After beta, I informed him, was second beta and likely third beta. After third beta it was ultrasound, and then heartbeat ultrasound, and so on and so forth.

His poor face. He looked like a puppy I'd kicked.

"I have to tell you," he said later, "I'm a little scared."

"That's pretty normal," I assured him.

Even so, I need to be careful. I don't want to let anxiety rob me of this happiness. I'm pregnant. I AM WITH CHILD. And, to be perfectly honest, I've been getting pinching cramps in two entirely different places - low on the right, higher up on the left. There is a possibility that we're looking at twins here.

One step at a time, Agony. One step at a time.