The downside of trying to conceive

I have debated about continuing to post about my trying to conceive 'saga' now that I've made my blog public and some of my family and friends read it, mainly because I didn't want to be known as the women who has TROUBLE conceiving if I end up having a miscarriage in the future or can't conceive without fertility drug help. But I've decided that I've let you in this far so I might as well continue.

That being said, letting YOU in is completely different then posting about it on Facebook where high school classmates, coworkers and acquaintances are also reading. I feel its none of their business and I would rather not receive shallow comments of encouragement or sympathy. I will not be alerting facebook until I'm far along into my second trimester, perhaps even longer if the people I tell can hold back from congratulating me on my Facebook wall. Personally I would NEVER talk about someones pregnancy on their public wall unless its in response to their own status about it. Just because you know, doesn't mean they wanted everyone else to know....that is what private messages are for.

I am aware of the fact that I haven't really been trying that long. That I was able to conceive the second month after we started and that my miscarriage happened so early it is considered 'normal' by the medical standards so my doctor doesn't see why I shouldn't be able to conceive naturally within the next few months. It just feels like forever because of my three month hiatus from my period. Not to mention time slows down when you are counting it in weeks & days; 14-16 days from period to ovulation, 14 days from ovulation to period and when you can take a pregnancy test (if you are like me and can't wait until you are actually 'late').

This month I treated the second week after my period as an entire ovulation week since I'm not sure whether I'm going back to the 32 day cycle I was on or the average 28 day cycles. Since we conceived easily the first time I didn't stress about having sex every night and doing all the other old wives tales, nor do I bother with charting my temperature. Having sex every other night is good enough for me, if it happens it happens - although that sounds a little more laid back then I ACTUALLY am when it comes to me finding out and taking pregnancy tests, which brings us to my mini crazy episode I experienced this month.

Based on my calculations I shouldn't have taken an early detection test until this Saturday at the earliest, unfortunately my wanting NEEDING to know over road any common sense I pulled out a test on the Thursday. No surprise when it showed up NEGATIVE, so I threw it in the garbage immediately rather then wait the allotted 3 minutes. I started to second guess myself and 2 hours later pulled it out of the garbage to take a second look. Surprisingly the test appeared to have a faint line making the minus into a plus. "OMG!!" screams through my head, "my husband has super sperm" is the second thought. I figure the faint line is because its REALLY early so I plan to retest the next day, I bought a four pack from Costco so I was all set. Friday comes along and I retest but this time it stays NEGATIVE.

Okay, I tell myself, the other test (a Shopper's Drug Mart brand) must have been MORE sensitive then this Clear Blue one and I'll wait to retest on Saturday. (Now I realize that I should have stopped the retests and waited until I was ACTUALLY late but I told you already...I NEED to know!). Saturday and Sunday (yes that's right Sunday too) tests came back negative as well. So I'm now completely convinced that Clear Blue sucks and its the sticks fault. In fact when my sister (who is one of the only people I told) asks I tell her that the tests didn't work. She responds back, you mean they were negative, and I say yes, they didn't work. (Note how this is the only option in my opinion, not that I might actually NOT be pregnant).

So its now Monday and I decide that I'm giving myself ONE more shot, I go to Shoppers and pick up a test that is the same brand that gave me the faint + and take the test when I get to work. At this point, even if my period is on Friday I am only 4 days early so something should show up if I'm pregnant. I also tell myself that I'm being ridiculous and that this is it. I am not wasting another test until I am a few days late if this one comes up negative. It did and now I need to realize that the first one was the faulty one not the rest.

I googled false positive results and one of the main causes is when a women 'second guesses' and pulls the test out of the garbage hours later. The test is now invalid and may give weird results. Good to know that I'm not the only crazy women digging through garbage to have that second look though!

So here's hoping that I either get my period this week or I actually am pregnant and the hormone levels are still to low because I really don't want to have to keep taking hormones to cause my menstrual cycle to work.