We what?

Oddly enough, it turns out that yes, we can most indeed simply shag and make a baby. I feel strangely embarrassed because all along I have been harping on how cruel this infertility shit is and tahdah! Pregnant!

Err, what?

Of course, having gone through seven IUIs and one IVF (SEVEN?! BLIMEY!), it is perfectly understandable that we were both a little cautious when faced with two lines on the stick.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me tell the tale properly, right from the very beginning.

Like most women, I found out that a bun had implanted itself in my oven when my period didn’t arrive. All week long, I had been crampy and weepy, signs that the Lady in Red was poised to appear, probably at the most inopportune moment (ie. when you are wearing light-coloured pants). And then she was late. But I didn’t think much of it because I had started taking traditional Chinese medicine and I knew that it had the ability to prolong my cycle. Plus, I kept feeling as if the period was due ANYTIME and let’s just say we weren’t exactly trying.

The one thing that gave it away – or should I say, two – was that my BOOBS were mighty uncomfortable. And I only ever had that feeling when I was on progesterone suppositories and even then, the discomfort faded away right before the period arrived. The feeling persisted and I was all, HMM.

So one week after Miss P was due, I peed onto a stick and almost immediately, THE SECOND LINE APPEARED.

I was stunned. Like, WTF!! stunned.

I stared at the pee stick for a bit before grabbing the packaging off from the bathroom counter and read the instructions at least five times. Yes, two lines. Yes, both control and test lines are there. Yes, two lines equals pregnant. Yes…pregnant?

AM PREGNANT?!

I rushed out of the bathroom and waved the stick at husband’s face, yelling, Know what this means? He was all, erm? Finally, he got it and went into the WTF!! STUNNED zone that I was in.

Being infertility veterans, we didn’t jump for joy or shed tears of ecstasy. All we could ask ourselves were Is this real? Are you sure? Should I pee again? (I didn’t, I ran out of pee and I don’t deliver on demand.) We need a blood test to be sure. Let’s see what the blood test tells us.

And so, we went back to our dear Dr Y (erm, we un-broke up with him) and had a blood test done. A second pee test done at his clinic showed that we were really, really pregnant.

Of course, Life likes to throw us a curveball in the form of unusually high level of HCG detected in my blood. At 14,000, I was more than double the normal amounts. And it could be due to so many things: a molar pregnancy, multiples (!!!), Down Syndrome, I was further along than we had thought or simply that my body is a hormone churning machine. It could be everything or nothing.

So no, we haven’t celebrated being pregnant yet. There’s still so much uncertainty and I just don’t know when the dust will clear. I don’t know when I can look down at my tummy and see a baby instead of a maybe. I can’t even think to myself, wow I am now five weeks along because I don’t know if this will turn out to be a viable pregnancy. I stroke my tummy and then I snatch my hand away. It’s almost as if not acknowledging the pregnancy would spare me from further pain should this pregnancy not work out. Call it my defensive mechanism kicking in, if you would.

And that’s the thing with infertility veterans. You can never rest easy, you can never truly be at ease until you have passed all the markers. And even then, I know that I will not relax until the baby has weaseled out of that narrow canal in my vajayjay and is in my arms, safe and healthy.