7w1d-ish

Lesson # 1: Never send the hungry pregnant lady to the grocery store on the way home from work.

or, alternately:

Lesson # 1: Always send the hungry pregnant lady to the grocery store on the way home from work.

My cart was a model of contradiction:

• Thomas' English muffins (original style)
• Skim-milk mozzarella cheese
• Pizza Sauce
• Zucchini
• Cinnamon Life
• A handful of Lean Cuisine frozen lunches
• 1 box of frozen Stouffer's french bread pizza
• White Cheddar Cheez-Its (nom nom nom)
• Frozen Pink Lemonade
• Fit Pregnancy magazine

The Cheez-its, lemonade, and Cinammon Life were all busted open within minutes of arriving at home. The Fit Pregnancy magazine is still sitting in the wrapper hours later.

So, wait a second. I'm pregnant?! Way to bury the lede.

2.5 weeks ago, after a beautiful Saturday at Zuma beach, I peed on a stick. I was assuming a negative because of lots of personal medical reasons having to do with timing and medications, etc. But I peed on a stick anyway, because it's a thing that I did like every 3rd and 4th (and sometimes 5th) weekend of the month. (Hot tip from Kim: they sell pregnancy tests at the 99-cent store.)

So. I'm waiting for the shower to heat up, and lo, there was a second line. At the risk of incurring the wrath of Kim, I will admit to being surprised. (But go read Kim's blog to find out what REAL surprise is. Remind me to hook up a link once she knows I'm pregnant.) Surprised because I had been through an odyssey in the past 18 months of endometriosis surgery, medication that effectively put me into menopause (for ~10 months when it was supposed to only last 6 months), and subsequent drugs to attempt to kick start my body's natural rhythms. If I had gotten pregnant this cycle, it would mean that this was the first spontaneous ovulation that my body experienced in roughly 13 years.

Not surprised because yes we were trying. Trying to the point of basal metabolic thermometers and the like. So when the second line appeared, I called Bill in urgently from pruning our roses outside:

Me: I need you to look at something in the bathroom.

Him: What is it?

Me: Just, it's important.

Him: What's the matter

Me: Just come inside. ....[We walk to the bathroom.]... Do you see a second line?

Him: Huh. ... ... ... Is that a second line?

Me: I don't know. Is it? ... I took one a week ago. That line wasn't there last week. Maybe I threw it away too soon. Maybe I didn't wait long enough.

Him: I think that's a second line.

Me: Maybe I wasn't pregnant enough last week. Shit. I drank 2 glasses of wine last Sunday night at book club. [Later realized I also had 1 glass the night before that with some friends after seeing Inception. And ALSO 1 night before THAT at Shabbat dinner with Mike and Kim.]

Him: Huh. Do you feel pregnanty?

Me: I thought I was just PMS-bloaty. But these are bigger than PMS boobs. Can you run to Target and get the good kind? Get a 3-pack.

The more expensive kind confirmed it, and then the very next morning I left for a week-long business trip in Wisconsin. Can I tell you how frustrating it is to find out you are pregnant and then 12 hours later have to leave your husband for a WEEK? Anyway, I was traveling with 4 coworkers, one of whom is also pregnant and was very willing to chat it up about her pregnancy. Convenient! But also close-to-impossible for me not to be like, "and I'm pregnant TOO!!!!!! WEEEEEE!!!!" She and I flew back on Friday night on a separate flight from the other 3, and in all our chatting, I guess I was Captain Obvious because she made a comment to me that was more or less "I know your secret but I'm not outright asking."

So the next Monday (now 10 days after the home test), I went in for blood test 1 of 2 (to establish a baseline of the hormone level). Tuesday night there was some light spotting. Dr. Google told me not to worry if the spotting was light. Only be worried if I started cramping really badly (I wasn't cramping at all) or if it got heavier and/or red. Wednesday was supposed to be confirmatory blood test 2 of 2 (to make sure hormone levels are increasing rather than decreasing). When I went in, I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention the spotting. They were all, "We'll tell the doctor right away! DON'T. WORRY." Me: "Um, I'm...not?" I really wasn't. I had slept just fine the night before. I was just kind of hoping it would earn me an earlier ultrasound. It TOTALLY DID!

So I saw the teeny teeny tiny baby nubbin and the doctor pointed out the faint heart beat and made some measurements to find out how far along I was (at that point, 6w1d), and that is the story of how I found out I was pregnanty.

p.s. If you know us and you have magically found this blog without our telling you about it, please do NOT share this news with anyone. Including cryptic posts to our facebook pages. Including cryptic posts on YOUR blog or facebook page. (I'm looking at you, Shmeith Shmerman.) I'm only 7 weeks in. G-d willing, we will be telling people around mid-late September, at the end of the first trimester.