Hope is a bitch

For those of you who have been around the infertility blogosphere for awhile, remember the Hope Addict?

The Hope Addict is a pretty little thing that whispers in your ear and tells you things and makes you believe that something wonderful might be true, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Bitch is living in my house. And needs a good pummeling.



I am more of the “habituated trauma” type — I tend to believe that something shitty’s just ready to smack me in the face whenever good things start happening. I have evidence to support this view (although I conveniently ignore the evidence that does not). And have the last couple days ever given Hopey and Habituated a chance to tango.

Late last week, around my birthday, the possibility I may be pregnant entered my head. Remember that cute little scene from my birthday entry, with Maggie’s head on my stomach? Well, it was gently relocated there after she first placed it on my right breast and it felt like she’d punched me. Over the weekend, my period failed to show. After a wrestling match with one of my favorite bras just trying to jam my newly luscious rack into its cottony confines, I realized “something is going on here.”

Didn’t stop me from getting my drink on with some good friends Saturday, or having wine at my birthday dinner with my parents on Sunday. After all, been down this road countless times and have one baby to show for it, you know? Monday morning, though, when still no red tide cometh, I decided to use an ovualtion stick and test.

TWO! LINES! Wahoo!

Now, like a good little infertile, I didn’t believe the test, and headed out to Target to buy more. My eyes slid along the Liz Lange Maternity section, but a toddler serving me “tea” out of the pitcher I was buying proved a really good distraction.

The second test showed a light line, but a line, there, nonetheless. Of course I bought the two-pack (what, you think you’re dealing with some kind of amateur here?) and took that one this morning.

The line was even lighter, barely perceptible, really.

What does a normal person do in this situation? Beats the crap out of me. What I did… is probably not that. Upon discussion with Paul, I decided to call the doctor and get a blood test, which is the only real way to tell anything meaningful anyway. We’d discussed the possibility of stocking up on the dollar store tests, which are actually more sensitive, but dismissed it in favor of the doctor and actual medical knowledge, instead of reading a piece of plastic like it’s tea leaves.

However, when an unexpected detour on the way home sent me in the direction of the dollar store .…yep, $3 later I have three cassette tests in my possession. (if the Hope Addict were real she would SO be the shill for the pregnancy test industry. Slogan: “Come on, what’s one more?”)

I took test #3 after Maggie went down for her nap.

A line, but this one so insubstantial as to be barely so. With a much more sensitive test.


That sound you hear is the fat lady singing. And me giving the Hope Addict an ungentle escort off my property.


This sucks. I, we, want another baby. I let myself get gushy and stupid yesterday, thinking about sweet newborn feet and creased newborn necks and dragging out my maternity clothes as soon as vaguely appropriate. About getting to do this again, watching a remarkable personality grow and develop before my eyes.

I knew it was stupid, knew that a positive pregnancy test is miles away from having a baby in your arms. I knew the lighter test yesterday afternoon was a bad sign.

This happened before, you see, something no one but Paul knows. Last fall, I was having these same symptoms, but I put off testing much longer. The day we decided to finally bite the bullet and do it, I started feeling less and less pregnant — literally, noticing my symptoms disappear over the course of an afternoon. A fact confirmed by the stark black letters telling me “Not Pregnant” on the fancy digital test. I’m sure, had I tested as early as I did this time, the same thing would have happened.

If it had worked, that baby would be on its way any day now.

I mean, it IS possible that I got every bad test currently residing in the Metro Woodward Corridor, and is possible that the blood test comes back with nice high numbers. Luckily, the nurse who I’ll be talking to for my results tomorrow is my absolutely favorite one at the practice and maybe ever, and she may have some ideas as to why this ”chemical pregnancy” thing keeps happening. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle. I know this is so, so much easier with my precious Maggie upstairs sleeping, and I know worse things happen to better people all the time, and I know what I am losing here is a bit of hope and a ball of cells, not a baby.

But still.