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September 10, 2008

195 Days To Go

So…

My second cycle charting, I got a triphasic chart. All the message board ladies (no I was too scared to actually log on and join the conversations but I lurk) and even TCOYF – the real live software – was like, "Yo take a pregnancy test. It's highly likely you're pregnant."

I was out of control. So excited, I couldn't stand to be around myself. The days of my self-diagnosed "unexplained fertility" I found it rare to be happy and unfortunately, I am only comfortable when I'm most pessimistic. Sure enough, I tested for four days straight with the expensive digital pregnancy tests and they were all negative. I got my period soon after the negative fourth test and spent the morning bawling like an asshole in bed. Blubbering about some girl I'd just seen on Intervention that was addicted to heroin, still using, while she was pregnant as shit. I was mad at her! So irrationally mad at her. I felt bad a couple hours later, realizing how terribly jealous and disgusting my behavior had been considering she and the baby died from her addiction which is, honestly, a disease. And yes, you can beat it. But damn, sometimes you can't and I feel sad about that. So there was random, long-winded nonsensical crying and feeling sorry for myself.

My period finally ended. I visualized my egg eking its way out of my ovary, probably for like 10 minutes for every hour. Some book told me to visualize. I would wake up and go to bed thinking about what the hell could possibly be wrong with me. One night, after I already ovulated though, I dreamt about hostile cervical mucus. I didn't even know where that terminology came from and why that random celebrity (Pete Wentz) said it to me in my dreams. I must have read about it, but forgotten that I read about it. I was convinced that's what I had. I Googled and then bought the lube that remedies that issue so I'd have it for my next cycle. My husband, who is now more so on board with the seeking of answers as desperately as I am, was like, (laughing) "Yeah babe, you have evil cunt snot." I shot him a dirty look, and he was like, "No, but for real."

I went into charting my third cycle with half a black heart. I rolled my eyes when my alarm went off at 6 indicating it was time to take my temperature. I'd log on to my little TCOYF all late in the evening to record my numbers, not first thing in the morning. I'd forget which numbers I had. If my temperature was 96.69, I'd make a mental note that it was a nasty palindrome. But sometimes, they were off numbers and harder to remember like 97.31 and I'd say something like "Thirty-one today, alive and well. Miss Jones fired from Hot 97." But I'd still be all foggy by the time I had to put it in the computer.

I couldn't watch television. I purposefully avoided all TLC morning programming. A Baby Story. Bringing Home Baby (when you should have left that baby at the hospital if you plan on sleeping with him on the bed with all those damn pillows, ya assholes!) – all too much to take. Commercials, sitcoms. Everywhere, some lady was pregnant. I swear on my life that movie Knocked Up is always always on. Justin Beck is scared to even flip past it because at any moment, I could just unzip my face and elbow him in the ribs for no good reason.

I did really well at my job even though I was in no mood and so I was congratulated by really important people. Even though I shouldn't have, I drank wine with dinner.

Later in the week, my husband picked me up from work late and took me to the expensive sushi place on that side of town where most of the clientele acts all entitled and annoying. We go every now and again when the mood strikes. The food is that good. The people-watching is even better. Anyway, I had sake at dinner. And all kinds of raw shit.

I only had sex twice during my fertile period and not even on my ovulation day. He got brutalized for that shit. Enter Sybil. Wait, hold up. You don't want to have sex today? But today is the day though. "Justin Beck, I'm fucking ovulating today. Not tomorrow, not the next day. Not next week when you randomly 'feel up to it.' This is a team effort! I don't care that you been at work in the heat all day. Go fuck yourself then. Waste the babies. Go ahead! I hate your guts. Do you want to have Outback for dinner though, ya piece of shit!"

Actually, I only had sex four times in that 28-day cycle. Begrudgingly, at that. Umhmm, I was real stank.

The diary goes like this:

Entire cycle – all hope is lost.

June 26 I went in for an HSG test. They see if your ovaries are blocked. The test was painless even though I read on the Internet that it would be a nightmare. Doctor says I'm not blocked. I cried. You just want answers at this point. I almost would prefer something was wrong with me so I could try to fix it. I know that's irrational, but that's how you get to thinking.

Thursday July 10, 9 days past ovulation – I'm kinda mad at Justin Beck (still) for not wanting to get down on July 2, the day TCOYF told me I was going to ovulate. Plus, he had to go to California on business and decided to let me know mere days before. Not that it even matters, but let me try to go all about the country on two days' notice and let's see how well that goes over with him. Umhmm. I'm, again, irrationally upset about this. "It's not about the trip, freak. It's the double standard." He leaves in the morning for work at 6 a.m. and goes straight to the airport after work at 7 p.m. so I don't see him at all for the whole day. I feel really sad about it. Like, I shouldn't have been stank and please let the plane land successfully. I had all that shit going on. I caught up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while. Stayed out until 10 p.m. Look at her go!

Friday July 11, 10 days past ovulation – I take a pregnancy test just to see if I should guilty about having that drink three days before. Nope. One pink line. Cool life. I hate everyone.

Saturday July 12, 11 days past ovulation – Justin gets home at 6 in the morning. Takes a shower, gets in bed with me for exactly five minutes of cuddling and he heads right back out to work. He's printing one billion shirts for a major chain department store that sells anything from guns to ovulation predictor kits (at a good price, might I add). I take another pregnancy test. Knowing it will be negative, I turn on the shower and get ready for work. I live my life and come back to the test a full 10 hours later. Yeah, you're only supposed to look at it within the first 10 minutes but a negative is a negative so whatever. Sure enough, 10 hours later it is negative.

Sunday July 13, 12 days past ovulation – At 6 in the morning, I take my temperature. Still high. Small output of joy. Small. I take a test. I leave it alone while I pack for The Hamptons. I'm leaving for a personal day. Without Justin. He doesn't believe in personal days. He has to work Monday and that's that. This is monumental shit for me. I never take days off. I do not plan vacations. I don't even much show up late. I don't do half days. I have insane guilt issues when it comes to shirking work responsibilities so I just don't do it. I had perfect attendance all my life. Yes, even senior year of both high school and college. I was an asshole. Didn't know then that it doesn't matter. At all. I'm meeting Bossman at his house out there in the evening and we plan to eat, tan, watch Flipping Out and drive around looking at celebrity homes the following Monday. Then Tuesday, it's back to work for me.

So I'm packing for my little vacation. Justin is still sleeping now. He should be. It's only 7 in the morning. At 7:30, I look at the test as I am cleaning up the bathroom countertop.

Bitch?

Wait a goddamn minute.

Ladies is pimps too?

Yooooo!

That's a line. It's faint as hell, but it's a line.

On top of the clean counter, I dump out the trash to find yesterday's test to see if I missed a faint line. There was a pink dot. Tiny. The human eye that is not TTC couldn't see that shit. And an evaporation line. Like the white test line that would turn pink if you were pregnant was clear and the test itself was white. Like a white on white striped duvet cover. I'd never seen that before. I compared the two side by side. Pink dot with evaporation line on 11 DPO and faint pink line on 12 DPO. I can't believe it.

I shake Justin awake. Holding the 12DPO test in my free hand very gently.

"Babe, do you see a line! Do you see it?"

He replies, "No." And he rolls over all sleepy.

But you didn't even open your eyes, fool!

This is unacceptable.

I turn the lights on bright as they can go. And open a window. Super light shines through the room.

"Babe, sit up. For real. I'm not messing around. I know last month and the month before, and the month before, I said I was eating for two and I just knew I was pregnant and it was a false alarm, but for real. I see a line this time!"

He sits up and looks at it and says, "It's a small line. Relax."

He doesn't read the books. He doesn't know that there is no such thing, really, as a false positive. Only false negatives. He doesn't know because he doesn't read the books, I tell you! He says it's the astigmatism, but whatever.

He then goes on to say that the test is unreliable because I bought them online for 60 cents a piece from Canada. I had to buy my shit in bulk because last cycle, I was saving all my negative pregnancy tests and ovulation sticks. And then, in a burst of common sense, I realized that was bad chi up in here and I threw all that shit out. By accident, I had thrown out the digital ovulation predictor thing that cost me $40. So I had to scale back on my budget for expensive brand name pregnancy tests and I found these cheap ones online. The dollar store up the street was out of the cheap ones with the only Spanish instructions. And yes, I had bought them all in the previous two cycles.

He then says, "Let me take a test. It'll probably be positive."

Laughing, I said, "You're an asshole."

He gets up from bed and rifles through my underwear drawer where I keep all pregnancy related paraphernalia and he takes a test out. I follow behind him into the bathroom and I pull out a paper cup – the same famous NY coffee cups I used for coffee service at my wedding. I liked peeing in them. It made me feel closer to Justin somehow because every morning that I saw the cup, I thought of my wedding day. It's like using my rabbi's business card as my bookmark for TCOYF. Just little reminders.

He pees in the cup. We're married. I watch all this go down and he hands me his sample.

I perform the test and within moments it is negative.

"I'm not pregnant," he says, still sleepy leaning on the countertop with his eyes half open.

And I say, "But dude! I AM!"

He says, "Take another test and let's compare."

I don't think I have any more pee in me but I push at my stomach (scientifically) and make pee appear magically. A tiny bit.

I perform another test.

Faint line.

I put the tests in my purse. To keep them close to my heart for the whole day. I'm living on a mother fucking prayer for the whole day.

I drive out to The Hamptons that evening. I can't even concentrate. I get lost 5 times. It's one highway, one road and then turn left. Not that serious, but I get lost. I stop to get gas, right behind Matt Lauer who looks like he as the whooping cough. He looked rough as shit. I wanted to tell him to Google our names together so that my Britney blog would show up, but I refrained. He didn't have socks on. Again.

You're not supposed to tell people until 12 weeks.

But I rush into the driveway and pull the tests out of my purse. Bossman greets me and is like, "No!"

He hugs me. And he's like, "No! This isn't even real!"

I'm like, "Dude, I'm telling you!"

He starts saying my daughter's name to me. "Oh my God! ____! ____!" You can't tell your baby names, you know.

We agree not to talk about it for the whole night or the following Monday. We're suspicious and superstitious, supersonic and shit.

We ate grilled monk fish and grilled vegetables for dinner. We lounged around on art furniture and we "not" talked about it by looking at each other with raised eyebrows, hands on mouths and then changing the subject even though words were never spoken.

Monday morning I woke up and took my temp. High (the temp) as hell.

ANOTHER POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST!

I run to Bossman's room and put the test on his bed. He shoots up out of bed and is like, "HOLY SHIT!"

And then, "Wait. Did you just pee on that? Get that off my sheets girl."

We laughed. But it's a dark ass line. Like, for real for real.

It's six in the morning. I call Justin. He tells me to relax, not to jump around and to just relax.

"Let's not get excited," he says. He explains he doesn't want me to be upset, God forbid something happens blah blah blah. Let's relax and wait until your period is missing for a whole month.

A WHOLE MONTH?

I'm like, BITCH (said it in my DMX voice). I can't believe this.

It's happening. I am so pregnant. It's my turn. Could you ever believe it? I am so thankful that my husband's health was okay, that I was okay! Mentally not so much, but we all knew that from Jump Street. And for some reason, I think this baby knew damn well that my mother-in-law would be very upset if I had gotten pregnant in the two years that I wasn't on the pill all not yet married to Justin. How could a baby show so much respect in its non-existence?

I wrote all of the above 12 weeks ago. I could not wait for the day that I got to yell it from the Internet mountain tops and share the news with you! I am three months and one day pregnant today. I am sick as a dog and yet happy as a clam.

I throw up daily (and nightly). Vomiting is a state of perpetual being, actually. I have the worst migraines you could ever imagine. I am constipated. I am seasick non-stop. I gag just pronouncing the word "vomit." I cannot get comfortable at all. I produce more saliva than Cujo. I am craving burnt pancakes. My face is fat as fuck, Real World fat. My rings don't fit. I started showing at 6 weeks. Yeah, yeah people say that's impossible but at a mere 6 weeks there was no denying there was a mother fucking snake on this mother fucking plane. Every little old sunbathing lady I encountered on my vacation in Aruba (yes, I took one) two weeks ago with my in-laws could not believe I wasn't even out of my first trimester and everybody thinks it's twins up in here. It ain't. It's one big ass baby in my little body. Trust me, I have already cried some about how big Justin Beck's head is. He was probably a big-headed ass baby and I get spasms in my lady parts just thinking about the pain that will exist in this dojo.

Even having said all that, this is the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. Just think, 36 years ago today, my mother, yes The Adorable Mercy was pregnant for the first time in her life. My baby is due March 25, 2009. My sister was born March 22, 1972.

I get my second sonogram Friday. The baby will look way more baby-ish although at only 8 weeks I clearly saw a head and arms and feet – she (I really think it's a girl) wasn't a blob. All the other pregnant ladies I know said their babies at 8 weeks were hard to make out and did not look like little babies. Yes, I'm dead seriously saying my baby is photogenic already! I'm talking crazy, all proud and mom-like. Don't worry – my hair is still long for now. I am so excited it's just plain stupid. If I could kiss my belly, I would.

And finally, Justin Beck is fixing to by my baby daddy. I've always wanted so badly to say that. Thank you so much for all your congrats and mazel tovs. Much appreciated.

P.S. Justin Beck would like you to know that all along he knew his boys could swim and that it was, in fact, me with my "dusty pipes." Hmph. (Small voice: I think it was the HSG that pushed things along too actually, but I will never admit that to him).

Posted by melissah at September 10, 2008 04:16 PM