Let’s be honest. Sometimes the “two” week wait between ovulation and when your period is due is more like one and a half weeks because the suspense is killing us. Whether you’re hoping to be pregnant or really hoping you’re not pregnant, from the moment you realize you could be pregnant, every minute of every day until you can take a pregnancy test ticks by like a sluggish snail on a lazy day.
I usually rationalize that the minimum 10 days post ovulation is plenty of time for my over-achieving hoped-for embryo to have implanted and begun producing a higher than average amount of hcg to be detected by a cheap pregnancy test (because if I use a fancy, expensive test five times a day every day until my period comes, I might have to get a part time job to cover the cost). It’s especially easy to convince myself I’ll get a positive extra early when I’ve been experiencing multiple pregnancy symptoms.
So I take the test and impatiently wait the three minutes, usually taking cheat peaks now and then, and when I don’t see a line visible to the average naked eye, I hold the test up to the light, tilting it different angles, viewing it from above, beneath, and beside the test, and finally, aha! There it is, a second line! Oh wait … I blinked and can’t locate the line anymore. So I repeat the whole angling process all over again until I’m sure I see a line once again.
Eventually, I go about my day knowing the test qualifies as a negative result but periodically checking back to see if the invisible line has darkened to something visible. At the end of the day, I manage to throw the test in the trash, admitting I probably imagined the second line. But tomorrow I will have a darker line!
Every time I’ve become convinced I’m pregnant, I get very little sleep due to my excitement and all the plans I must make for who to tell when and how. So of course I’m tired the next day and might be crabby if I wasn’t so excited about being pregnant – which would be confirmed with a second line on the test today, I’m sure.
Once again, I take the test and impatiently wait for that second, faint line to appear. It should be darker today and easier to see without all the angling and squinting. When there is still no obvious line after three minutes, I complete my usual thorough inspection and determine the invisible line is JUST slightly darker today … Maybe. If I could see it. But I blinked and lost it again.
Frustrated with the inaccuracy of my tests, I make a Wal-Mart run and purchase a different (but still cheap) kind of tests and try again. No line. Not even with all my tilting techniques. Suddenly depressed from disappointment and lack of sleep, I leave the tests on the bathroom counter, hoping when I check them again later, the line will have appeared. I go about my day trying to figure out if it’s possible I could have imagined all my pregnancy symptoms. I inevitably end up browsing forums online trying to find other women with the same pregnancy symptoms who also could not get a positive test.
By the time I’ve spent an hour reading other women’s stories of finally getting a positive with the third test they tried, I decide pregnancy tests are finicky and I will get my positive tomorrow. The next morning comes and, four pregnancy tests into my day, I finally feel myself accepting that I might not be pregnant. Eventually, I fully accept this and struggle to feel as emotionally balanced as I did before thinking I was pregnant.
When you’re hoping to be pregnant, once you think you are, it’s very difficult to accept that you’re not, and it can be discouraging to think about having to go through that whole roller coaster again in a few weeks. The thing that makes this especially difficult is the fact that you can have strong pregnancy symptoms during and after ovulation until your period because of the hormones that are released when you ovulate, regardless of whether or not you conceive.
The lesson I’ve learned from going through this multiple times is to never think your pregnant until you get that positive test. However, my emotions find it a very difficult lesson to put into practice, and I always end up on the same roller coaster. So apparently the emotional side of me has learned absolutely nothing. The logical side of me, however, has learned a very important lesson the hard way: Never tell someone you’re pregnant until you get a positive test, no matter how severe your “pregnancy” symptoms are.
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