Testing, Round 2

Sorry for the quietness yesterday. I was too afraid to test for fear of getting the same results, so I decided to wait at least until today. And then when I got home last night, I was so tired I wound up taking a nap for a couple hours, got up for dinner, and then went back to bed fairly soon after that.

I started having period-like aching and minor cramping that began yesterday afternoon and happened again this afternoon. And I started having a very, very tiny amount of light brown spotting today as well.

So, I decided I might as well face the inevitable when I got home from work tonight. I did the test, spent a couple minutes crying, and then began the obsessive watch for the second line.

And it was barely there. I mean, barely barely. At first I wasn't really sure, but then it got ever so slightly darker as a couple more minutes passed. Finally I was confident enough to call R and tell him to buy a different brand on the way home. (Preferably one that says "pregnant" or "not pregnant" so that we don't have to interpret.)

Then I couldn't wait any longer - I had to have someone else verify that I wasn't just imagining things. So I took the stick downstairs and made my 75-year-old mother sit right next to a lamp. At first she kept saying she didn't see a second line, but then she held it up under the lampshade, right next to the bulb, and as she kept turning her wrist to different angles, finally she saw it.

By this time, more than 10 minutes had passed, so I was afraid that maybe we were seeing a false positive. So I went into the garage to dig Monday's tests out of the bottom of the garbage can. (I didn't tell anyone but you guys that I took those - especially not R.) We examined both of those, and even after 2 days neither of them had a second line.

So I think it really is a second line.

However, now I'm concerned (I wouldn't be me if I wasn't concerned about something) that the line isn't dark enough to result in a beta of 50 by tomorrow. And I'm concerned about the period-like aching, cramping, and spotting.

But really, there's nothing I can do except wait and see what happens. And pray. Although I have to admit, for the last few years, it's been painful to pray. So any prayers you care to offer up on my behalf would be more than welcome, because I am seriously out of practice.

I will post again later if I do a second test tonight. (I didn't think ahead to collect anything in a cup, so after I called R and asked him to pick up more tests on his way home, it occurred to me that I will have to wait until my bladder fills again.)

I'm working from home tomorrow because I didn't want to be at the office when the call comes, so I will be able to log on and post once I get the call.