The Good News Is...

I feel like crap.

How is that good news, you ask? Well, I suppose I've been working on my optimism as of late, and that's how I try to remind myself that my feeling like crap is a sign that the baby's doing well.

What baby, you ask? The one that decided to take up dwelling in my uterus so quickly after losing one just weeks before.

Yes. That's the good news. It's amazing news, really, considering it took us so long to get pregnant with #3. Or is this one technically #3? Do you number the pregnancies or do you number the viable fetuses (fetii?). Either way - we were ready to continue as soon as possible, and "possible" turned out to be not even a month later.

I hadn't had my period for 8 weeks after the miscarriage. And the doctor had told me it would take UP to 6 weeks. So - without trying to get my hopes up TOO high, I bought a 3-test First Response box. This is where it gets complicated. Well, not really. But here's where I made it complicated.

So, if you're NOT pregnant, it should look like this:

And if you are pregnant, it should look like this:
For those of you who've never had to read one of these before, what that means is that the FIRST line measures your HcG, a hormone that rises at an exponential rate when a woman is pregnant. If that line exists at all, it means that hormone is present in your body, i.e., pregnant. (at least, this is how I understand it...). Either way, that second line means you peed on it, pregnant or not.

So, I took the test, and just stared at it, pretty much without blinking. Well, this is what I saw:
Soooooooo.... I'm pregnant but apparently non-existent.

I then deduced that the manufacturer accidentally put the strip in upside-down/backwards and showed it to Dave. "I'm not pregnant," I tell him. "My period's just riding in slowly on the short, yellow bus, I guess."

A week later, I started to feel ridiculously tired and somewhat nauseous. I thought, "Hmmm. I already have two tests in my bathroom, what can it hurt?" So I took another test, and set it down on the toilet tank to go deal with my children. When I came back, I saw this:
I could hardly see that 2nd line, but it was definitely there. As I stood there looking at it, David was walking up the stairs toward me. He'd just gotten home from work. I handed him the pee stick.

"You took another one? Why?"

"Look at it," I told him.

"It says you're not pregnant again."

"No. It says I am."

"But the other one looked liked this."

"No it didn't."

"Yes it did."

"Where is it?!"

"In the trash."

I made the poor guy retrieve it. And he was right. It had that 2nd line, it was just so faint I hadn't noticed it. But since I hadn't had a period since the miscarriage, and possibly due to having gone through a miscarriage, I was still laden with doubt.

"Maybe I should go buy another test to make sure this box isn't defective," I mentioned.

"Aren't those expensive?"

"Unfortunately. Unless..."

"Unless, what?"

"YOU pee on the last one! Then we'll be able to compare it and know for sure!"

He declined.

HOWEVER - most likely for the sake of economical wisdom, as well as due to my pushy and sometimes dominating cajoling - he used the last one the next morning. And, sure enough, he was DEFINITELY not pregnant. (I took a picture of his test next to mine - he made me swear not to post it. I guess he's embarrassed for the world to see his pee. /shrug).

Since we didn't know my due date and I'd had a (VERY) recent miscarriage, and a new blood test was showing my progesterone as dangerously low, I became "high-risk."

Now, a little over a month later, after 4 blood tests, an obnoxious prescription for increasing progesterone, my losing 10 pounds due to nausea, and two ultrasounds, I'm proud to announce baby Nutter #3:

Ultrasound taken to determine my due date. 7 1/2 weeks pregnant. Due Date: March 16th, 2012.

Ultrasound taken two weeks later, 9 1/2 weeks pregnant, to keep an eye on the baby's heartbeat after I started progesterone medication.

And today I went for a "normal" check-up. Baby's good. Heartbeat's good. We watched it do some somersaults (hence, why I have no picture. It wouldn't sit still). Progesterone is good. We are finally in that "safety zone" where the medical world goes from calling it an embryo and now it's a "fetus" and we can now share the news with the world. YAY us!