testing...testing...

I don't know if Intended D is going to post anything today or if I am beating him to the punch. Last night after my pity party about being told by the nurse that I might not be able to go to Italy, I decided to buy some HPTs. I decided that if I test this morning and it's negative, I am going no matter what because duh... I'm not pregnant. So why would I rob myself of not being pregnant and also not getting to go on vacation. What a load of bullshit to not get to go...

Today is 8dp5dt. First thing this morning I tested. It started with just the standard single line which I was expecting so it was just confirmation of the deprivation that is my life...Then slowly this second line started to appear out of nowhere... really slowly and really faint but definitely visible. (I want to put in exclamation points here but it's just too soon. I'm scared to.) Upon seeing this second line start to appear, I was basically numb. My heartbeat didn't even accelerate as far as I could tell.
Here's what strange although probably not uncommon: I would almost say seeing that faint second line (that started turning slightly darker but was not solid yet...) caused ambivalence to surface more than anything else. Fear of being taken for a ride, of having a false positive, fear of having a happy moment taken away by a bad test or a decreasing beta. Or another miscarriage. Better to not have a happy moment at all? I didn't know what to feel.
Intended D was still half sleeping, aware I was testing and probably wishing I wasn't...
I was trying to think of how to tell him this unexpected, completely random, unbelievable and still unconfirmed outcome of the test. Back when we thought I was still fertile and we thought we were ordinary, when we started ttc, I had thought about how I would give him the news. Women get to be one step ahead of the man in this arena and I wanted to make it something special the way I'm sure most other women do... To annound our pregnancy to Intended D, I had prepared to surprise him with a copy of She's Having a Baby (a favorite movie of ours) and a baby rattle or spoon with a bow tied around it. (oh how cliche...) But infertility has robbed us of any spontaneity we could have ever hoped for. Even in our current situation I had daydreams that I've gotten good at suppressing.... I had imagined seeing a double line, calling out his name, to see him come running, I'd run to him and meet him halfway holding the sacred HPT between us, tears and laughter and he picks me up and whirls me around. Elation, excitment....
....nope.... I couldn't do it. I couldn't get excited about it and I couldn't get him excited about it.
One of the many natural emotions most adults who have children get to experience that we have been robbed of is the naivety of a positive pregnancy test. I know too much.

I walked around the corner to him still in bed and announced "Well, rather than saying it's negative, I'd say the results are inconclusive..."
judging from his response, his immediate upright posture and request to see the test, this was probably the best thing to prepare him that I could have said. Intended D is a scientist and I know how he thinks. His response was the best ever... He concurred that he, too, saw a faint line, and processed the implications of it. He said that this second line is definitely some thing different, because typically there is an abnormally white area next to the single colored line, just to rub in how so very negative the test result is.

We spent the morning in shock and disbelief, and for me, a pinch of denial. We took pictures of the positive because I don't know when I'll ever see that again and I want to savor it forever. The only other times I've ever seen a second line was my ill-fated pregnancy (with subsequent miscarriage) 4 years ago, and ovulation tests which I LOVED taking back during our IUI phase because I got to finally pass a test with a second line and see what success feels like!!! How pathetic is that? So I have two more sticks, which I will use over the next couple days, and if things are going well I'm sure I'll give some HPT company a boost in their share value by buying more HPTs so I can see more double lines... just to try purge years of dissapointing BFNs.

I am afraid of reacting just yet. I know it's still way too soon. But this is something. I'll definitely say that much. This is something.