Big Fat Positive

I made the big Facebook announcement today - I'm pregnant! I didn't want to tell anybody until I made it through the first trimester so forgive me for keeping secrets! I still want to blog about my experiences thus far, though, so I have a record to maybe show my baby someday. I don't want to confuse anyone, though, so for the next few blogs I will use dates to show you the period of time I am currently writing about, ok?

OCTOBER 8, 2010 - 3 weeks, 6 days pregnant

After having a miscarriage I was determined not to let it happen again. They say what you don't know won't hurt you, right? So I told Brian that if my period was ever late, I wasn't going to take a home pregnancy test (HPT). That way there were only 2 outcomes; I would either get a really late "period" or an "OMG I just had a baby in my pants" moment. Like a double-edged milk chocolate Dove bar this was a winner either way in my whacked-out mind. Of course, in reality there are a LOT of other outcomes for a baby born to a smoking mom with no pre-natal care who likes sangria and hot tubs, eats bologna and cheese from the deli and cleans a litter box. So don't go looking at mental health facilities just yet, people. It might have sounded like a good idea at first but obviously I came to my senses.

On October 8th Brian bought a 3-pack of HPTs. It was the kind with 2 lines. One line means not pregnant, 2 lines means pregnant. I would have gotten a plus-sign test if I'd gone to the store but these ones were cheaper and I believe I've already made it pretty clear how my husband shops. My period wasn't even late at this point but Brian said since we had 3 of them we should take one right away. The earlier we find out the sooner we can change any bad habits around and the better off we'll all be. I didn't want to take it yet but he is so pushy sometimes and he usually ends up getting his way. If I refused to take the test I figured he would probably pull some hand-in-water trick on me while I was sleeping so I gave in.

We stood there staring at the test on the counter. We saw one line show up clear as day....then we sort of saw another line but it was so thin and so faint that I didn't buy it. He probably got this thing at the dollar store and it's malfunctioning. They say the best time to test is as soon as you wake up so we tried again the next morning and again the line was barely visible and could have been a figment of our imaginations. I tried to take a pic and the second line didn't even show up through the lens. I wasn't convinced. We took another one the next day. By this time my period was late but it didn't help that second line come in any darker. Brian said there's no way 3 out of 3 tests are screwed up and a faint line is still a line but I refused to accept it. Probably because I was too scared to accept it.

Next step = Digital. The digital tests actually spell out the words. Pregnant or Not Pregnant. In English. There is no possible way to misread a digital test. Why we didn't get this in the first place I don't know. But we took it and it said "Pregnant." I couldn't deny it any longer. I was pregnant again. But I wasn't crying tears of joy like last time. I wasn't jumping up and down like last time. I wasn't spreading the news and calling everyone I knew like last time. I just sat down and thought to myself Here we go again.

And Bad News

If you want to understand how we ended up in the awful place we're in now, you need to hear about all the things that went wrong with our plan and losing the baby was one of those things. Since this isn't a pregnancy or pregnancy loss blog I will spare you the details but I will say that it sucked!!!!! It hurt emotionally (the first time I ever saw my husband cry). It hurt physically (screaming like a wild animal? check). And just like everything else these days, it hurt us financially. I tried to go back to work too soon and hurt myself even worse and ended up missing 4 days of work during the busiest week of the season (Fourth of July!). Brian also missed some work. It was a crappy crappy time and even though I swore someone had placed a curse on me, I still thought things would get better.