HPTs

I haven't decided whether I will take home pregnancy tests this time. I remember what a roller coaster ride it was every other transfer.

I didn't keep as meticulous records of the first FET 2ww, but I remember it being negative pretty early on and not ever changing. It was obvious it didn't work. 

The second FET was right after a retrieval and when I tested it came out positive several times, but I think that was because I still had residual HCG in my system from the trigger shot. It's possible it was another chemical, because I remember calculating the days past the trigger shot being 17 days later and still showing a faint positive. According to Google, HCG only lasts in your system up to 14 days so I took it as a sign of working. However, beta came back at less than 1 so it clearly didn't work.

Then there was FET 3 where I started testing almost immediately. I think day 3 or 4. At first it was such a stark white it almost seemed like a negative white, if that's even a thing. But then the next day there was a faint line that you had to squint and then cross your eyes and hold it up to the light just so to see, but it was there. Then it got slightly darker every day after that, and I knew. I knew that something stuck. I knew it worked! But then around day 11 or 12 the line stopped getting darker. I shook it off saying that it was probably just diluted pee, or not FMU, or something else. I was in denial and not ready to accept the bad news. It was close enough to the beta that I was ok just waiting for the bloodwork instead of continuously testing. Sure enough beta came back positive, but low. The clinic likes to see above 100 as the first number but considers anything above a 50 to be positive; mine was just above 60. We tried to hold on to hope but by the second beta two days later it was over. It's still hard for me to go back to those posts. It hurts to relive those days. Hard to believe it was just this past summer.

So I'm hesitating about testing this time. I don't want to deal with it either way. How do you not test for two whole weeks?? Are there really women who hold out for the beta? At one point I was thinking of testing in the morning before the transfer just as a baseline. Is that obsessive? I'd say so. But what's the alternative? Not testing? Not thinking about it? Not knowing?? I don't know if I can do that. What's my motivation for not testing?

The clinic strongly advises not to test because of the chance of false positives or false negatives. But really, what difference does it make to them. They talk a big game but they're not the ones going through it - they have no idea what the stress is for someone to not know if their dreams are about to come true or if their world is about to crash in on them. 

It's a very fine line between utter joy and complete devastation. That line is pink and lives right next to the control line on a pee stick!

In other news, happy voting day! Regardless of who becomes our next president, American wins when this election is over.