When to Tell Your Boss

When should I tell my boss I'm pregnant? This is a great questions. It is one of the first things that popped into my head actually. How will being pregnant, and then being a mom, effect my work? What will this mean not only for my paycheck and our budget, but for my career, my livelihood. I love working. I have always been a worker since before I got my first 'real' job at 15. Before that I mowed the lawn, I refereed kids basketball and I helped with my dad's business. I soon found the satisfaction that comes with a long days work and I soon found the comfort in a reliable job and a steady paycheck.

I have worked at a local auto body shop for about five years. I really like my job. It is challenging and everyday brings something new. I deal with the customers. I enjoy helping people, and I am told I am a good communicator. It can actually be a very stressful job if you let it. People walk in our doors very upset after having a car accident. Sometimes they are bummed they messed up, sometimes they are pissed someone hit them and sometimes they are sore and disoriented after being hurt. Any which way, they need help and guidance through a difficult time and that is where I come in. What would they do without me?

Luckily, it's no secret that my boss is a family man. He has seven kids of his own and about a baker's dozen grand kids now too. Four of his employees are family, either biological or in laws. Most of the employees are married with kids. Everyone was happy when I got married and made sure I got the time off I needed for my wedding and honeymoon. But maternity leave? How long?

I couldn't wait to tell my boss, but I did. Well, not really. He was on a three week vacation so that helped because I couldn't tell him. I wasn't going to, but I did, tell him the first day he was back to work. He was very happy. I still don't know what it all means, besides the fact that I'll be off for a while in October if everything goes as planned. I'm starting to think that time off might actually be for about five years.

I don't see how we'd be able to afford daycare if I was to go right back to work. If money wasn't an issue, I still wouldn't want our baby to be raised by strangers. Not that I don't think there is anyone in the world that would be competent, but I would so much rather have that experience be our own. My husband and I have discussed him staying home more and working nights part time while I work my usual 9 or 10 hours, five days a week. Although it make some sense financially, we both have agreed we'd prefer more traditional gender roles. I like the idea of breastfeeding for instance, while Paul's boob's are just hairy and milk less.

I want to be a stay at home mom until my little bean grows into a kiddo and goes to school. I want to be around for every first. I will in turn be there for many crying fits, freakouts and tantrums. That is okay. I want to be a mother first. I will figure out how to fit work in after.

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

9 Weeks 3/14/12

Nine weeks. Here we go.
One more week until our first doctors appointment and we can't wait. It seems like it's been forever, the waiting, the wondering, everyday dragging on longer than the last. Really though, now that I'm just a week away, I realize how time is flying by like it always seems to do. I am really trying to enjoy the extra sleep I'm getting, because I'm so tired that I fall asleep at 7 o'clock. I'm trying to enjoy my many mini meals and all the free time I have to plan them. Instead of hating how sick I feel if I eat a normal sized meal. I have been trying to look at the positive side of everything, and there is always a positive side. Even the fact that I have to wake up to use the bathroom several times a night. I am enjoying remembering my strange and detailed dreams more. Things I miss out on when I sleep through the whole night.

This was not the case in the first few weeks. If I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I immediately thought about how I would NEVER get back to sleep. "Oh great, I'm up now. I'm never going to fall back to sleep. Oh, god. Only 3 more hours and I have to be up for work. I'm going to be such a zombie. Is every night going to be like this for the next eight months? Ah!"

I had to immediately put the brakes on that kind of negative thinking. Add worry, sleep deprivation and pessimism together and you have a equation for some imaginative horror stories. This is not okay. I'd be thinking myself into a frenzy, all from the comfort of my own bed next to my snoozing husband, completely unaware of my developing madness. Not cool. I am in control of this. So what do I do? Instead of panicking when I wake up. I try to think about the dream I was having. I don't look at the clock, I walk to the bathroom in the darkness careful to not trip over any sleeping pets and I immediately return to bed. I roll over so I'm not facing the clock, I smile and try to drift off by thinking about that same dream I was having. Sometimes I even go right back into the sequel.

It seems like pregnancy will be a perfect time for me to practice my lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is where you become aware that you are asleep and dreaming, and then gain control of what happens next in that dream. If you've ever tried this and been successful, you know it can be a lot of fun. It can also be very therapeutic. So now, when I try to doze off after using the bathroom, I remind myself I'm going off to dreamland and I try to imagine something wonderful. More often than not, I drift off into a wonderful place.

Big Preggo Bummer

Morning sickness started. Like clockwork. Just as the article said, day one of the sixth week. Thursday, February 21st. Heartburn, indigestion, burp. I worked a nine hour day. I came home. I ate dinner. I regretted it. I sat up in bed groaning and burping and laughing at myself. I thought about throwing up. I didn't. I fell asleep.

I woke up Friday morning to try again. But today was different, I had big plans. Of course there was nine hours of work first, as usual. Fridays are usually tolerable, just the idea of the weekend alone is enough to get me through the day. Today was normal, but tiring. Breakfast didn't sit well, but by time I started to feel a little better I got hungry and that didn't feel very good either. I ate and started the cycle over again. About noon it felt like time for a nap, but I can't, I'm working and my car is not a comfortable sleeper. I survived the day and headed home at 5:00, all along I kept thinking about the plans I had tonight.

R. Stevie Moore is playing tonight at a small local bar downtown. Yes, THE Robert Steven Moore. Oh, you don't know who that is? Well, I do. It's only my favorite musician of all time. My all time favorite songwriter. My teen dream. My celebrity crush. A man I could swoon over, one look at him and the sound of his voice and I raise a hand to my forehead and faint. I had the pleasure of seeing him last year in Seattle, my husband and I. I fully enjoyed myself. I did have a 'moment' with Mr. Moore that I still cherish to this day. Before the show, standing near me. Eye contact, a tiny smile and a head nod, returned with the same. I'm sure he would remember me always. Pah!

So tonight, the home recording genius songwriter extraordinaire in my hometown. Not only but, my husband works at a popular local Italian restaurant and we are lucky enough to be good friends with the owner, Michael who is a long time fan of RSM. He was smart enough to find an email address for R. Stevie Moore and send him and invite to come enjoy his restaurant while he's in town. And so he did. I'm lying in bed after work feeling sorry for my sick ass before the show. I can barely lift my head off of the pillow when I realize, I'm not going anywhere. I'm nauseous and exhausted and I'm fucking pregnant! I can't just tough it out. I can't just start drinking to get through the fatigue like I might have a few years ago. I can barely move.

I sadly tell my husband I cannot go and I want him to go ahead without me when his phone rings. It's his boss, Michael, the owner of the restaurant. He's elated about the meal he just enjoyed with the very own R. Stevie Moore and he's excited about the show. In fact Mr. Moore and his band might even head over to Michael's after the show to listen to records and crash in his rec room and we're invited, Paul and I! My heart sinks, and somehow soars! I am so happy Michael is having a good night, his been a fan for years and years and ... Paul will get to meet him now, and maybe even spend time with him after the show! Wow, what a night to be pregnant and sick. The boys get to have all the fun. I used to just be one of the boys.

I wonder if it's somehow just psychological. Am I really sick? or do I just think I am because I'm pregnant. Am I sick because I'm too nervous in social situations and would rather stay home? On any other night I might say yes, but for Mr. Moore I would leave the house and brave the judgmental hipster streets of Bellingham. I am, in fact, a genuine bona-fide pregnant woman. I should get used to this. Now it's inside, but soon I'll be a mom and instead of being home sick I'll be home with the kid.

I am very happy that my husband could go and enjoy himself. At least one of us gets to experience this and bring home the story to tell. I just really wish I felt better so I could experience it first hand.

Did you hear about it, or experience it?

Did it happen with you, or without you?

I wish I knew...

I know I need to listen to my body, and I will get over this sad feeling I'm having right now, but... I am really beating the shit out of myself mentally for being a wussy. This is something I've done my whole life, but this might be the first ever time that I have a really good reason to baby myself. Ha, baby. That's it. I don't seem to be running the show anymore. There is something so small, so tiny and weak inside of me, pulling my strings like a puppet. When it's outside of me I promise to run the show again, but until then, I think I am at their mercy.Someone else is in the cockpit. My uterus is the cockpit and they haven't even formed hands yet and they're flipping switches, pulling leavers and pressing buttons.

I don't think I ever truley was just one of the boys, it was just an illusion. Growing up a tomboy and having mostly male friends, I learned to be tough and let jokes and insults roll off my back. It however, did not prepare me for morning sickness.

My husband did get to meet him. Yay! He texted me this photo while they were chatting before the show.

The More You Know

Knowledge is power? Or is knowledge a great reason for extreme anxiety? Well, I guess it depends on how you choose to use and store that knowledge. This thought stems from my recent purchase of the very well known book 'What to Expect When You're Expecting'. I did not realize how thorough it would be. Should I say T.M.I? Is there such a thing as TOO much information. For now, I have reasonable control over my emotions and thoughts and I've been keeping very optimistic. With every worrisome condition discussed in this book, they give you a dozen reasons why you still shouldn't fret about it.

I'm reading away, from cover to cover. I'm not sure if it's just intended to be a reference book but I don't think it can hurt. I can always go back and revisit chapters that may apply to me later in my pregnancy. Today is February 19th. It has been 14 days that I have known that I was pregnant from the home test I took on the sixth. Two weeks. Really? It has flown by but today seems to be crawling, as did everyday before it.

I called my doctor and made my first appointment. They didn't want to see me until March 21st. That is a whole month more away! I know it's for the best. I am only five an a half weeks along now. There is not much to tell me still. They could weigh me, take my blood pressure and test my urine to confirm I am preggo, but that won't do much good. I do have a scale, blood pressure monitor and a pee test here at home and I've used that pee test about five time by now. Every time it says that, yes, I am still pregnant.

On March 21st, I will be ten weeks along. The good book as I've taken to calling it, or 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' mentioned a whole smorgasbord of things they may or may not do at my first doctors visit. This leaves me with a ton of questions racing through my mind all day. Not worried questions, but excited ones! Will I have an ultrasound? How about a doppler? Will I be able to hear a heartbeat yet? Or am I too fat for that? When will my next appointment be after that? Will I cry when the doc looks in my basement in front of my husband? That's not cheating. That is also not a three way. Will he have a seat at the end of the bed and have an eagle eye view into my uterus too? Hell no! I will be sure he will be seated by my head. I don't know how he could ever think a sexy thought about me again after looking deep into my womb with the bright lights of a doctors office getting all science-y up in there.

With these questions running through, and doing laps around, my mind I have to remember that this is my body and I do have some control. I do have a say in things. I am running this show. Like the seating arrangement in the doctors office for instance, Paul can sit by my head and hold my hand so I don't have to look down at him peaking inside my body with his jaw dropped, high fiving the doctor. I can ask questions. I can tell them all how I feel. I will not be frozen in a dream state. To help this I will make a list of questions. But still, another month to wait!?!

I downloaded an app on my iPod Touch from Baby Center called My Pregnancy Today. Everyday it tells you a couple of facts about what's going on in there now. It also tells you how many days you have left until your due date. I did not notice this feature before. Today it says, "240 days to go!". Two. Hundred. and. Forty. 2-4-0. Holy mother! What? Why not just round up to a solid year to be safe?! Why have I never noticed how freakishly long a human is pregnant for? I've had friends that were pregnant and had babies. It seemed to pass by rather quickly. Maybe a sick day or two, then you eat a whole bunch and get a belly, then a baby shower and then the baby's here. I guess that feels a little different when everyday is a new adventure in your ever changing new body. My boobs are already getting huge. I projectile vomited into my hand while I was driving to work. I have to pee so much I was thinking of just moving my desk and telephone into the bathroom at work. From what I read things are just going to keep getting weirder. So I will decide to enjoy this wacky ride. After all, this is what I was meant to do, as an animal that is. Reproduce. Look ma, I'm doing it! No hands!

You're a Fatty and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

**Clap**Clap**

I am fat. I am overweight. I am obese if you consider my BMI (fuck you BMI, you're stupid!)
I have struggled with my weight my whole. entire. life. More than my physical weight, I have struggled with the perception my size and with how that coincides with my worth. There was never a period of time in my life that I did not feel I needed to be dieting or exercising to change my body in some way. There has only been fleeting moments where I am happy in the now and forget about my hangups and short-comings. Some of those moments are when I give in to a big plate of food and just go for it.

I believe this to be the case with most women, regardless of size. We do not see ourselves as the rest of the world does. We can easily zoom in and enhance our least favorite features. If we think about it too hard, we can be reduced to a sobbing pile of mush. Getting dressed in the morning is often a source of tears and I end up leaving the house unsatisfied and knowing there is no better decision available.

I am tall, heavy and I carry most of my weight around my middle. Looking like a pregnant lady has been something I have been concerned about for a while now. I carry most of my weight in my gut, and if I don't dress myself accordingly I could enhance that and look like I'm six months along.

I remember working at a restaurant when I was about 21. One of my coworkers, a cute, bubbly big boobed shorty was wearing her apron tied just under her boobs. I would not have thought of her as fat at all. A customer asked her when she was due and she responded that she was not pregnant at all. She did have a cute little potbelly along with a nice set of knockers and a round behind. I was jealous of her curves and her style, as she dressed herself very well. She went into the back room crying. I thought that would be the worst thing, if someone was to ask me if I was pregnant. I had been steadily increasing in size since I started working there, the food was just so damn good! What if that happened to me? Pregnant was a bad word. I was young, unmarried, a minimum wage job and a really shitty boyfriend. Not to mention the drinking. Being pregnant would be devastating.

A day did not go by without concern for my ever expanding waistline. As I got older, that never got better. I even lost 55 lbs. with the weight watchers program when I was 25. I weighed less than I had in the sixth grade! I still thought I was 50 lbs or more from my goal and I knew I'd never make it. I met my husband after that weight loss. It lowly crept back up as I was happier than ever. Meeting Paul gave me a new comfort that I had never felt before. I didn't count my points or go to meetings, but I did choose healthy foods. The number on the scale went up anyway.

After Paul and I were married, I became much more worried that I could be mistaken for pregnant. People who knew me saw I had gained some weight, I was happy and I was newly wed. It would be easier than ever to come to that conclusion. While being pregnant wouldn't have been the end of the world now, I still didn't want people staring at my gut and wondering if I was. I struggled with my wardrobe every morning. Hide the belly, hide it! But don't hide it TOO well or they will THINK I'm TRYING to hide it! If I had a nickle for every time I place my hand on my lower belly, relaxed and pushed it out, turning sideways asking my husband 'does this make me look pregnant?' I would have, like, at least a dollar fifty! And then I would give that buck fiddy to my wonderful husband for surviving those oh-so-awkward encounters. I love him.

Now I AM pregnant. Being pregnant is good! I am a married 29 year old woman! I am not an unwed 14 year old girl blasting Tupac on my boombox in my parents basement and I applied brown eyeliner to my lips and fill in my freshly shaved eyebrows with that same pencil. It is very appropriate for me to be with child. I should not be ashamed, and I am not ashamed. However, I am only five weeks along and I am not ready to tell everybody yet. I have told my husband, my mother, and my best friend who is a mother herself but no one else. I want to wait until after my first doctors appointment to spread the happy news. I am especially concerned about my coworkers finding out. It will be a big deal for me to take a lot of time off and I want to be prepared before this information is let out.

I work at an auto body shop with 20 men. There is one other woman that works in accounts payable and she is probably in her sixty's. I think all the guys at work are smart enough to know you NEVER ask if a lady if she is prego unless you want someone sobbing and wiping mascara all over your shoulder, or maybe even plucking your eyes out and shoving them down your throat. Most of them are married, and most of them have children of their own. However, several of them have just had new babies and one guy's wife is currently pregnant again, so they all have babies on the brain for sure. I am asked once and a while when I plan to have kids and I never know how to answer that question.

The new thought that comes to mind when I'm worrying about my physical appearance, is my future child and how that will effect them. My mother struggled with her weight and self image. She tried to do everything she could to help me avoid the same fate, but instead I've just repeated her behavior. Swing dieting and negative self talk. A year from now if I ask my husband 'Hey, does this make me look fat?' there will be a tiny set of ears listening. They will hear me complain when I step on the scale, they will see my disappointment when I look in the mirror and they will soak it all up and store it inside of them. The new goal in place is not a number on the scale or a dress size, it is simply accepting my physical self as it is at any given time. That does not mean I give up trying to be healthy or find nice clothes. It just means that I will refuse to talk down to myself and find disappointment in who I am today. Easier said than done, but I have 8 months to practice before my little sponge arrives.

My Uterus IS Magic 2

So here we are. It is now Monday February 11th. Three days after I had expected my period and five days since my first positive home pregnancy test (HPT). I woke up at about 4:45am. I waited in bed, pretending I was still asleep, for my alarm clock to go off. It rang at 5:30 and I shot out of bed on my way to the bathroom. One more test, just to make sure.

The last five days or so I have been feeling... strange. Well, stranger than usual. I have been drooling. Okay, not actually drooling out of my mouth, but excessive saliva for sure. I've been swallowing, sucking it back and wiping the corners of my mouth constantly. The back of my tongue tastes like it's made out of pocket change, metallic dirt. My metal mouth and over active saliva thing is weird, but wait there's more!

Then there is my nose. I can smell in stereo! Standing in the Walgreen store without looking I knew there was chocolate to might right, buttered popcorn to my left and perfume and make up one isle over to my right. I looked around and I was right. If I was a wimpy girl with a sensitive tummy, I'm sure I'd be barfing my guts out constantly.

I am not nauseous exactly, but I have symptoms of nausea. Mouth watering, bad taste and add a gross annoying smell and that's a perfect combo pack for barfing. I have also had heartburn, or agita as my Italian-American family calls it. It's not quite fire, but it just feels like my food won't let me swallow it and it would rather just hang out in my esophagus. Not the most comfortable thing. It seems worse in the evening.

I am tired. T - I - R - E - D. I am up early because I've been falling asleep before eight o'clock.

So, with all of that plus a positive home pregnancy test, one would think I would have come to terms with the fact that I was pregnant. Well but, maybe I'm wrong. I don't want to get all excited just to find out I'm the one freak in the universe that produces that pregnancy hormone that home tests check for without being preggers. Better make sure. So test, and test again. Better buy a different brand. Better check online to see what the most reliable test is. What are some symptoms Google, while I'm on here? Better yet, can I just pee on the iPhone and it will tell me? It's smart, not only should it tell me if I'm pregnant, it should tell me the gender of the baby and the due date. While you're at it, Siri? What should I name my baby? No dice, iPhone fail.

So, four positive HPT's later and an array of symptoms, I have accepted yes indeed I am pregnant. We are excited. My husband is adorable. I called my doctor and made my first appointment for March 21st. I will be about 10 weeks then, I know it will be so different. It's hard to believe how fast this little bit of caviar is growing. What next?

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

The first day of my last period was January 10th, 2013. It's always like clockwork. Mostly because I've been on the pill for about 9 years. I chemically force my menstruation cycle to preform as expected. Yay Science! I stopped taking the pill the end of this last November. My husband and I both knew we thought we wanted to think about, maybe talking about having kids someday. We discussed that when we were still dating.

My husband is a softy. A big, burly, bearded, grizzly looking softy. No doubt he would be an amazing father. To find ourselves in this position is strange for both of us. Paul and I were not the most conventional adolescents. We both were rebellious kids who walked to our own beats. Dubstep anyone?

Paul was a drummer. He ran away from home when he was 14 or 15. He dropped out of school and got a job. Did I mention he already had a full beard? He did. I've seen photographic proof. His friends a few years older than him could ask him to go to the store and buy cigarettes and beer because he looked like a forty year old with his manly whiskers. He had good parents but he still rebelled and went out in search of something more. I, myself hung out at school a little longer than Paul had, I did make a high school cameo. I didn't drop out until after my sophomore year but had spotty attendance through the first two years. I even tried to go back to school my senior year to a small private school with no avail. I had my first job at Burger King just before my sixteenth birthday. It wasn't that I wasn't smart enough, but I couldn't stand the social bullshit that went along with school. Work I understood. They pay me, I perform to the best of my ability and at the end of my shift I leave. Easy.

Both Paul and I may have had more of a anarchistic 'punk rock' lifestyle. I wore a mohawk and had a pierced lip. I'm also guilty of not showering often. Don't even think about me shaving my armpits. My favorite pastime was intimidating strangers and making snarky jokes. Paul was in bands, spent time at bars and listened to metal. We did not know each other yet, and that is probably for the best. If you would have asked either of us if we would ever plan to get married we would have laughed at you. I might have actually spit in your face. The idea of having kids was really quite laughable.

Fortunately what makes us good people is one very important quality: we are thoughtful, self-reflective people. As we grew up, we changed. We still enjoyed weird violent movies, strange music and dark humor but we didn't allow us to get locked into something without broadening our horizons. We both always let life surprise us. And I'm glad we did.

Paul and I had our first date in May of 2009. We met at a local park and sat on a bench and talked. Then I realized four hours had gone by, I though that maybe I liked this guy. Although he looked like a young ZZ Top fan with his reddish brown beard nearly to his belly button, and his straight brown hair even longer. What I saw was kindness in his gentle blue eyes and a man that could make me laugh. We shared a strong work ethic, a strong sense of family and a wicked sick sense of humor. We soon fell in love.

When we moved in together we found out how much in common we actually had. We had so many of the same movies. Weird, rare horror movies dubbed on VHS. Sometimes we'd have four copies of the same movie because we both had multiple. I joked that I didn't want to combine our movies unless we were going to get married, that was serious stuff. I had no idea how soon he would ask me to marry him. He proposed May of 2010, a year to the day after our first date.

We were married August 6th, 2011. We had a tiny ceremony in my maternal grandmother's back yard. My family hosted and cooked, as they love to do, we are Italian after all. Talk of children came up now and then. It was always hypothetical talk. How would you handle that? Would you let a kid watch this movie? How did your parents handle that? We shared stories, good and bad, of our childhoods. We talked a lot. We would observe and compare people and their children. We were really on the same page on so many levels. Children would always be a good idea, someday.

Both of us are big fans of Mike Judge , we've seen the movie Idiocracy many times. In that film an average man is cryogenically frozen for hundreds of years only to awaken to a world where he is now by far the most intelligent man. The human race as digressed to a bunch of Jerry Springer watching, junk food eating trash. It discussed how smart, thoughtful people are more likely to hold off on having children until it's 'the right time'. Which may never actually come. and the rest of humanity is just screwing and knocking bitches up and spittin' out the babies to grow up to the ripe age of 15 and repeat the process. Thus creating this new, much less intelligent society.
This you tube video is a grainy version of the scene I am referring to.


We had been married for over a year and we were happy and in love. We didn't make a lot of money, we live in a 1 bedroom house that's only six hundred square feet and we could think of a million things that could be a little bit better if we waited to have kids. I could lose a little weight, my blood pressure is too high, we need to make more money, buy a house, get a better car... In reality, there will never be a perfect time. Like my husband has always said, there is no convenient time to have a baby or change a tire. It's just something that happens. In one you have a new tire on your truck, the other you have a new addition to the family that will grow with you. I should just go off of birth control and we will see what happens.

So we scheduled a doctors appointment. We discussed what would happen and I stopped taking the pill and replaced that with a prenatal vitamin instead. Everything else, was pretty normal. The first month I was off the pill was strange. I had cramps and felt tired and moody the whole month. I thought I had a never ending phantom period or I was already pregnant. It was nothing and by month two I was feeling better than usual. I really didn't think that we could get pregnant anytime soon. I had been on the pill for over nine years. I thought we'd be looking at another year or two.

My Uterus is Magic 1

Saturday, January 26th was my 29th birthday. I was driving home from work the Friday before and I felt a twinge of pain in my lower abdomen on the right side. It felt like cramps but went away quickly and I forgot about it. We had a fun weekend that ended with both of us catching the cold that was going around and laying low for the next week. Go to work, sleep and repeat.

On Sunday, February 3rd I got cramps. Light but pretty standard. I thought I was getting my period early, it shouldn't be until next Saturday. This was only the third cycle since I stopped taking the pill so I was still getting used to the new normal. Later that night I noticed I was spotting which confirmed my belief that Aunt Flo had arrived early. The next morning all of that was gone like it had never happened. I shrugged it off.

On Wednesday, I started to wonder where Flo had actually gone? It was 5:30 in the morning. I opened the cabinet in my bathroom and pulled out a Clear Blue Early Response at home pregnancy test. I had bought a box a few weeks before just to keep around. I really thought it would be a great way to remind myself no, you are not pregnant, when I started to worry. Now I was wondering, so I thought it would be an easy way to put that thought to rest for another month. I had read about implantation cramps and bleeding, and I wondered if a little seed had planted itself in my uterus and caused the cramping last Sunday. I peed on a stick, put the cap back on and brushed my teeth while I was waiting the three minute to read the test.

I read the HPT packaging and insert in full when I bought it. The test explains, of course, how to use. It also explains how it works and how to read it. The home test will show a positive result by testing the amount of pregnancy hormone in your urine. It's called human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG. This hormone starts being produced immediately after implantation but can take a few days to register on a test. The HPT shows 98% accuracy if taken on the first day of your expected period. You can take it before but each day before it decreases in it's accuracy. Something like 68% accurate three days before your missed period.

The thing to really remember is you cannot get a false positive on an at home pregnancy test. You may get a negative result, but still be pregnant. It just means you don't have enough of that hCG hormone for the test to read yet. However, if you get a positive read, you are pregnant and that is a fact. No matter how faint that second line is, you've got a seed a-planted.


So there I was, with an eight dollar piece of plastic covered in my own urine. Three minutes had gone by and I looked at the test. There was a strong horizontal blue line and an ever so faint second vertical line, making a plus sign in the result window. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I should have washed my hands, I probably peed on them. There was a line. It was there, but so faint. Could I actually be imagining the line? Was it really there? I took a picture, because as we all know, it would last longer. For me to look at again, and again, and again and again...

I went back to our bedroom where my husband was still asleep. I rested in beside him on the bed in the dim room. He started to stir as I whispered to him, "Honey, my uterus is magic. Something's a-stir in my underbelly. It sparkles so." A meek smile spread across his face with his eyes still closed.

First Day of Last Period: January 10th, 2013
Ovulation: January 25th (fifteen days after start of last period)
add some good old fashioned intercourse and you have fertilization! Ooh, sexy.
Implantation: February 3rd (nine days after ovulation)
Positive HPT: February 6th (3 days after implantation, 3 days before period was due)