This two week wait is absolutely killing me. And I blame hope. On the two previous times we’ve made it to transfer we’ve been warned in advance that things weren’t looking so good, so we went into transfer and the two week wait totally prepared for things not to work. This time however we’ve got a good chance, with decent quality (and multiple) embryos, and that’s sparked that bitch they call hope in me again. I feel like there’s so much riding on this that if it doesn’t work I don’t know what we’ll do. Well, I suppose I do, we’ll save up some money and head back to San Diego to give it another shot with some of our frosties.
So it’s Tuesday and my second day back at work. I thought being back at work might actually help with the two week wait as I’d have something to distract me, but in fact it’s made it worse. I don’t want to be there, I can’t concentrate, I can’t focus. Monday wasn’t so bad, everyone came over to chat and catch up on our trip, so the day was somewhat light-hearted, although I may not have got as much work done as I should have. The hours still dragged though and I was left thinking that this was going to be the longest week of my entire life.
And then Tuesday rolls round and things get worse (is that possible?!?). I’ve hardly slept, due in part to jet-lag and in a larger part to worrying, so I start the day at less-than-optimal. Hubby’s not feeling great either, we’re just both so stressed about this not working. He’s worrying about work also and has a mini-meltdown in the car on the way into the office, which isn’t helped by me losing the plot and getting angry at him. I feel bad about it but I’m barely holding myself together, I just don’t have the capacity to hold him together too. It’s ok, we make up over hot drinks in the café not long after we get to work, but we’re both obviously at our wits end already and it’s only 5 days after transfer….there’s still a week to go until our test day!
I struggle through the morning, it’s like each second takes a full hour to tick by. I’m so close to tears I can barely talk to anyone and even tell one of the girls I work with it’s better to pretend I’m not there today. I honestly think I’m going crazy. I don’t know how people do this! I don’t know how I can keep this up for another week! Luckily my colleagues and bosses are really understanding and are supportive in my wobbliest day so far.
By 11am I can’t take it any more and, after a whinge on Twitter followed by further encouragement to test from one of the girls there, I decide to do just that. It’s still early enough that I can write off a negative result as “too early” and if it’s positive then it will hopefully ease my anxiety a little. I’d been researching online last night and there have been plenty of people who have had a positive result at 5 days past 6 day transfer (5dp6dt) so it’s not out of the question.
I grab my bag and wander out of the office without talking to anyone. There’s a pharmacy just down the road so I walked quickly down there, praying that no one would see me and put two & two together. I was hoping the pharmacy would have early test kits, thinking that these would have a better response what with me being so early in my two week wait. They didn’t, but after agonising for a while over which test to choose I grabbed a Clear Blue and headed to the counter. I’m sure the salesperson thought I was hoping for a negative result, he gave me that kind of quiet sorrowful look that people sometimes give young mothers (not that I’m young but I do still get ID’d occasionally). I made sure to pay with my personal credit card so that if the result was negative I wouldn’t have to divulge my moment of weakness to my hubby….not that he’d mind but I guess I didn’t want him to feel down if the result wasn’t what we’re hoping for.
Back to the work loos and I’m fumbling the test as I try to unwrap it, ever so conscious of the other person in the cubicles. What must they be thinking! I’m nervous as I pee on the little white stick and nearly forget to start the timer on my phone to time the two minutes. I watch anxiously, praying for a quick positive result….it doesn’t come.
What does come is a very slow fading in of a very faint second line to form a +. It seems so light I don’t dare hope that it’s a positive result. I think it is but I’m not totally sure. I snap a quick photo of it, tuck it into my bag with all it’s packaging and head back to my desk (stopping in a quiet room on the way to snap another couple of pics).
When I get back to my desk there’s a message from my husband, asking if I want to go for a walk to clear my head and hopefully make us both feel better about the day. “Sure” I say (I know exactly what I can do to make him feel better!). We meet at the main stairwell and wander off to the park near to our work. It feels good to get some fresh air but my legs are shaking as we head down the small hill to the park. I’m still not believing this could even be remotely real.
We sit down on one of the benches just inside the park and chit-chat about this and that trying to brighten the day. I last about a minute before I pull a little black box out of my bag and tell my hubby I have a present for him which will hopefully make him feel a bit better. He has no clue what I’m about to drop on him.
Now this little black box comes with a story. Four years ago, in our first month of trying to conceive and sooooo sure it would happen just like that, I bought a little newborn baby onesie and wrapped it up in a box ready to give to my husband as I announced we were pregnant. Well, that little black box has sat in my cupboard at work for all of the last four years, surviving both a role change AND an office move, waiting waiting waiting for the chance to come out and surprise him, and today it got that chance.
He slowly unwrapped the box and pulled out the little suit. He turned to me with a confused look on his face. “I caved and tested,” I said “and it came up with a faint positive.” I wish so much that I could’ve captured the look on his face as his confusion turned to absolute delight before he grabbed my face and gave me possibly the most excited kiss he ever has (ok, maybe not really the most excited kiss ever, but it was pretty amazing. TMI?).
I pulled out the test to show him (knowing that it was past the 10 minute time limit, but given the test looked the same as just after I’d tested I figured it was ok). “There’s a definite line there” he comments, and we’re both buzzing. We sit and chat and exclaim a few minutes longer, try to capture some better photos of the test to prove it’s real, then head back to the office. Shit, I think, I now have to get through the rest of the day without telling anyone.
The anxiety eases a fair bit, I’m a little euphoric with the idea that for the first time ever I may have just got a BFP on a pregnancy test, but then, as the minutes creep by the unease builds again. What if I did the test wrong? What if that’s not actually a second line on the test? What if it’s a positive but it disappears over the next few days? I’m nervous again. I’m going to have to test tomorrow, and every day between now and my official test day (OTD).
I make it through the remainder of the day, actually managing to concentrate on some more menial tasks I have to do, and buy a couple more pregnancy tests (First Response brand this time) from the supermarket on our way home in order to test for the next two consecutive days. Hubs thinks I’m a little nuts as I ask him whether we shouldn’t grab one more and retest today just to make sure, and puts his foot down, “NO”. Well we’re barely inside the door to our house when he’s changed his mind…..admittedly I bought it up, but he agreed! We retest and this time there’s no mistaking it. There’s a very clear and well-defined second line. OMG, we’re pregnant.
Waiting For Bumble 