I'm Pregnant! . . . . . . Just Kidding!

My period is a day late.

Good news, right?

Unfortunately...not so much.

I'm on day 30 of my cycle, which has been thrown completely out of loop by the past three or so cycles on FSH. I'm guessing that my normally dependable and uneventful cycle has gone slightly beserk, but I have not been wanting to admit that...until, of course, this afternoon.

I'm sitting in my office thinking about how I am now a day late and am showing all the signs of PMS: crabby, bitchy and an attitude that reaks of barely contained fuckoffs for anyone who dares to look at me cross-wise. However, I am also thinking, what if? Maybe I'm pg and I'm not showing the typical signs. I am atypical, you know.

I realize then that I still have one of the clinic's HPT in my car, never used on the suggested date as AF always beat me to the punch. I run out to the parking lot at work, dig the little brown bag out of the center console and head back to my office stopping for a potty-break, glancing left and right to make sure no one has noticed my secret booty. Enclosed with the HPT is all the makings necessary to test "on the fly", as it were: a plastic specimen cup, a teeny-tiny plastic dropper and one HPT.

I do my thing and start the test. I couldn't find a web pix of the product the clinic gave me so I will try to describe it: it's about the size of a credit card and on the front are two square windows. One is large and contains the control line running horizontal. The other square is much smaller and is blank. As the pee moves across the litmus paper, it passes through the big box first and then the little one. I'm watching and notice that a faint, verticle blue line is appearing in the little box. I hold my breath. Could it be? Oh. my. god! Yes!

I dash out of the bathroom, go back outside and quickly called Jerry, hiding the test in the palm of my hand. "Hello?"

"Hey..." my voice cracks.

"What's the matter?" Jerry says in a tone that's more like, "What's the matter, now?" as I have been prone lately to jags of crying.

"Uh, nothing...I'm pregnant."

"You're kidding. How do you know? Are you sure?"

"I was late so I took the test that was in the car."

"You have been kinda' crabby lately..." he speculates more to himself than me.

"I'm so happy, Jerry! I need to call the clinic! They will probably want to see me right away in the a.m., don't you think?" I'm babbling.

"OK, but let's not tell anyone else right now."

"I've got to tell someone. Is it OK if I tell S.? I have to tell someone or I'll BUST!"

"Fine," he caves, "just S."

I run back inside the building and go right into S.'s office. I smugly toss the test onto her desk and wait for her response as she was on the phone. What's this? she mouths to me. It's a positive pregnancy test, I mouth back. "Hey, can I call you back?" she says to whoever was on the line and hangs up so quickly I'm sure they didn't have a chance to answer. I give her the update and she stares at the test.

"Isn't there supposed to be a plus sign?"

"Huh? No. Of course not. The little box with the vertical line? That's a positive...

...I think..."

*crickets chirping*

My little balloon of happiness is starting to deflate.

She asks me for the instructions, which I had thrown away in the bathroom trash-can, so I go to get them. I read them on the way back to her desk, prepared to tell her she's just trying to mess with my head.

FUCK!

I'm sure you had that figured out by now, right? That I was so wanting to be pregnant that I actually read a negative test as positive. What a knee-slapper! Oh, I kill me with the hysterics! Hahahahahaha. Ha. Ha. Jokes on me. I call Jerry again. He has caller ID.

"April Fools?" he asks, jokingly.

"How did you guess?"

I then apologize profusely, feeling stupid and childish for not being able to pull my head out of my ass and simply read a HPT. He doesn't say much, but I know he is crestfallen.

What did I learn from this? No, not how to read an HPT accurately. For those few precious minutes of joy...delirious and giddy joy...I knew that any thoughts I had been having about not going through with the ICSI because of the potential financial burden of paying for the procedure all up front would impose on us just doesn't matter. WE want to have another baby.

The next person who says to me, "You should be happy you have the one you have,"(what the hell does *the one you have* mean, anyway?) will be kicked squarely in the shins, PMS or no.