the fertility detective.

I feel like I've spent the last 48 hours playing Agony Vagina, PI. Gathering evidence for my case to prove that yes, there is indeed a bun in my oven.

Exhibit A: Woke up yesterday with greasy hair. It usually takes four days of no shampooing to get hair that greasy. It had only been two.

Exhibit B: During my shower, I lost like four strands of hair vs. the normal small, rodent-sized clump I typically clear out of the drain. This happened when I was pregnant with Nugget, too.

Exhibit C: While I was watching TV with Mr. Hope yesterday, my head in his lap, I passed out cold in an instant. In the middle of the day. When I woke up, I didn't even realize I'd been a sleep until the plot of the show didn't make any sense. Time I'd been dozing? 34 minutes.

Et cetera.

I managed to stay busy most of the day. Busy is good. Busy keeps me from obsessing over symptoms that may or may not be there.

And then last night, the BFF came over for dinner and we talked until 1:30 in the morning. We talked about EVERYTHING - work, life, her kids, the kid I hope I'll one day have. The subject of fertility came into the conversation so many times, in so many different ways. Like, we started talking about GMOs and if maybe they have anything to do with the uptick in infertility in recent decades. (My theory: it has more to do with chemicals, like the kind found in plastic.)

Side note: I fully believe that in the next 10 to 50 years, scientists will discover a way to help women like me - women with DOR - regrow an ovary with a whole crop of fresh eggs. Or something similar that has the same results. "I was just born a decade or two too soon," I told her.

After the umpteenth discussion about IF, I said, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. You've had to spend so much of the last four years hearing me talk about my vagina. It can't have been fun for you - me working my way through all of the stages of grief."

She laughed. Then she said, "It's more like I want you to be happy, so when you get good news and good things are happening, I'm happy, too, and when you get sad news or sad things are happening, I'm sad, too."

In the early days of my diagnosis, the BFF was one of the only people I wanted to talk to about what was happening, but she was also one of the people who managed to say the wrong thing 50% of the time. It hurt. It was never intentional on her part - I know this - but outside of my husband, this is the one person who I really needed to "get it." I needed her to be there for me in ways she wasn't able.

It took a lot of therapy on my part, and a little of me coaching her a bit - "When you say things like X, it makes me feel Y" - but eventually it all worked out. Now she's one of the biggest sources of support I have. And I'm so glad that I have her in my corner.

Anyway.

So I spent most of Saturday playing fertility detective. This morning I woke up after 6 hours of sleep (Mr. Hope snored me awake). I had to pee pretty badly, so I got out the cup and dipped the stick and nothing happened.

White.

I put the stick on the side of the sink and reminded myself that it was still really early, and that I had until 8dp5dt to start to panic. A minute went by. I looked at the stick again. Still white, but is there maybe a shadow developing?

I reminded myself that you're supposed to wait three minutes for a reason. Duh.

And then I saw it. It's so pale, only trained infertiles would recognize it. A second line with only a whisper of pink to it. Seriously, it gives new meaning to the term "super-faint positive."

But it's there.

Today, I am pregnant.

It's weird; I don't feel the unfettered joy I did the first time around. Maybe because this time, I know how a positive pee stick can end.

(Of course, it could be because I don't have photographic evidence yet. I took a pic but it looks more like a fuzzy gray shadow right now, even though in person it's clearly got a pink tint. P.S., I sent the pic to a woman in my FB group who transferred the day before I did and who got a BFP at 4dp5dt and she totally saw it. Infertiles, man. We've got eagle eyes for this shit.)

My goal for the next few days is to not freak out. To not obsess. I need to make my grocery list. Pull together the docs I need for the accountant. Work on the freelance project.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe.