Current Obsessions with Peeing on a Stick

So, I've never exactly had to touch a door handle four times before I've opened it (though I do have to handwash maniacally in winter), or had to check to make sure the stove was off 10.5 times before I've gone out, but I am dangerously prone to what some may call compulsions. Alchohol? Nope - big, fat blabbermouth (big surprise). Pot? Nope - makes me even more paranoid. Cigarettes? Very soothing and would smoke a pack - make that ten - a day if it wasn't so darn bad for me. Gambling? Kirk and I once went into a casino and found it so abject we walked right back out again (although the Silas Marner/Gollum in me does drool a bit at the possibilities), so nope. No, no, none of those straightforward "there is help out there" addictions for me; my crack is the HPT, otherwise known as the home pregnancy test.

A bit of background: when I was pregnant with my ectopic, I knew I was pregnant due to the same hyper-active gag reflex I had when pregnant with Anja, which often caused me to throw-up on the street at the same time I was attempting to scoop always runny dog poop into a bag (if you were walking down the sidewalk, which would be better to step in - a pile of dog poop, or a half-scraped up pile of dog diahrrea followed by, when you would least expect it, a pile of barf? I digress). So, off I went to the drugstore to by an HPT, which, when used, came out negative. And yet I was still gaggy. The fact that I had an impending surgery to remove a wayward (ie outside of uterus IUD), made the situation a bit more critical. The fact that I hadn't had a period since before I had Anja made the situation a bit more confusing. So, I bought one more test. Then one more. Then one more. All negative, yet I was convinced I was pregnant. Then I had a few days of bleeding, but still had a niggle in my brain, so bought another test, which came back positive. The question then became: did I already miscarry? Should the surgery go ahead? And on and on, with the result being emergency surgery to remove rupturing ectopic and offending IUD (the emerg doc actually asked me if the extra-uterine IUD was intentional). Anyway, a case in point that sometimes HPT's might be behind the times a bit and sometimes your body knows better.

However, given that Anja was a one shot deal and that I hadn't even had a period for two years before the ectopic, I had always thought I could get pregnant at the drop of a hat. So, when Kirk and I realized this spring that finances/my work were perfectly timed to have another baby, I thought it would be no problem. Indeed, that first month I even felt gaggy and headachy and tired (ignoring completely the fact I started a new medication to control above handwashing habit). So, I bought a pee-stick, thrilled to know that you could now test 5 whole days early. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. (anyone counting the dollar signs, yet?). Then period. Test again, because, after all, my ectopic didn't register until after the bleeding. Three months of nothing nothing nothing period nothing nothing nothing. Then overjoyed, pregnant, then miscarriage and not knowing things weren't right and then losing all faith in my ability to know things about my body. Then now.

Things about my relationships with HPT's I, with hesitation, admit: I don't read the test strictly in the ten minute window. In fact, I can look at it for hours, at every possible angle (under bright lights, held up to the window, upside down, etc), which means, of course, that I am doing the possibly gross thing of man-handling something I peed all over days ago. The only thing that makes this more embarrassing is that Anja, of course, more times than not accompanies me to the washroom and narrates all.

What's even more shameful is a) thinking you really have to start varying the stores you buy HPT's from so people don't think you are a complete freak and b) hiding them from your knows-your-obsessed-and-freakish husband.

And who needs internet porn when you can spend hours comparing your pregnancy tests to pictures of ones taken at various DPO (that's days past ovulation to you innocents) by people you do not know and will never meet?

Sigh. And did I mention the money? Did I also mention we do not have the money for me to be doing this (though I am in charge of the books and can hide it nicely - a little out of the food budget won't be missed, will it?)

I also remember clearly stating, to several people, that I could not keep doing this to myself post-miscarriage this summer. And this week, here I was again, feeling gaggy, refusing to admit that maybe the cat litter just needs cleaning more often (but I can't do it, after all, I might be pregnant), and tired, ignoring the fact that I had a doozy of a cold this week.

Then reading tonight on the completely-100% reliable - scientifically accurate - internet that some women have had negative HPT's and bloodtests and had ultrasounds that showed little babies and heartbeats... well, maybe it could happen? Right? Kirk poo-pooed the idea in his very rational way, but he also told me I was not pregnant with ectopic when I was and that, statistically, even if I got another IUD the puncture of uterus leading to ectopic pregnancy scenario was unlikely to happen again. Don't worry, I'm not calling the doctor. I'm not that crazy. Yet.

What is it about wanting to be pregnant that's making me crazy? How do people who try for years cope? What's the deal with annoyingly fertile couples with 6 kids? What's the deal with people who don't even want kids and wind up with them anyway?

I think part of it this month must be the post-miscarriage panic and sheer pissed-off anger coming back. I am furious. Spittingly rageful. As in could rip the packaging off a 5 days early First Response Pregnancy test with my teeth, pee on it, then throw it against the wall. Would this give me two pink lines?



ps. So much for my blog promoting world peace. I will get there, I promise! As soon as I can stop looking at that beautiful sylph in the mirror-pool.