This is a little bit absurd

OK, it's day 14, still a high temperature. This is really, I think I really am, I believe I am with hard evidence pregnant. However, there is the pesky detail of that negative pregnancy test. Why did I even take it? I took it to use them up. Well it turns out that my sister used two of them from her box, because there is only one left as I found out when she told me I should take another one at the end of the week, so I went to get one to put in my bathroom. So there is only one left and I don't want to use her last pregnancy test so she has to buy more when she thinks that she is pregnant in 2 weeks. She confessed to me (you didn't know you'd be getting confessions of 2 hypopregniacs in this blog today, did you? It's like a 2 for 1 deal!) that it was actually the second box of 4 tests that she has purchased since her baby was born 15 months ago. She defended herself by protesting that only two were taken before she started ovulating again.

So there goes my justification of using the test just to help my sister use them up! She was doing just fine on her own. Stupid pregnancy test.

So here is the second absurdity--I dug my pregnancy test out of the garbage to look at it again today. I know this is pregnancy test cardinal sin #1. "Thou Shalt Not Interpret Results After 10 Minutes." But on my positive pregnancy test that I took when I really was pregnant, I told you the line was so faint I missed it the first time. But eventually we saw the very, very faint pink line, which was very much darker and more distinct the next day. Well, on this test, as my husband and I examined the little window, both of us concluded that we didn't see a line, but he said he did see what looked like "a faint shadow indicating where a line would show if there was one." After he mentioned it, I looked again and holding it at just the right angle, I could sort of see what he meant. So I looked at the test again today and the "faint shadow" is now a definite shadow, and it definitely has a pink tinge.

Also, as I got out my sister's pregnancy tests, I pored over the box and insert, reading the instructions, which I hadn't done just before taking it because the box wasn't in my bathroom and I thought I remembered them alright. Turns out these ones are actually a "rapid result" pregnancy test, which means I was supposed to read it after 1 minute and never after 10 minutes, but I waited 10 minutes before looking at it the first time. (I have to make myself wait for some things to prove that I can.) So does that mean it was invalid from the start? Also, it is not an early result test, so I was actually taking it on the very first day that it could show a result, which even they said might be too early to be accurate. Also, it says that it is "99% Accurate!*" with a footnote disclaiming that it is only that accurate at detecting typical hormone levels. So if I have atypical hormone levels, as evidenced by my so very faint line the first pregnancy, then the test doesn't even claim to be 99% accurate for me. So, this is practically proof that it is wrong, except for the fact that now it shows a positive to my illegal next-day reinterpretation, which of course must be accurate, because it confirms what I knew all along.

OK, this is what bugs me. I have just spent half an hour searching the internet for something that will tell me why one should not read results after 10 minutes. They (every pregnancy test company's web site) all say that it should not be read after X number of minutes, that you shouldn't even look at it. Just throw it away. Step a way from the trash can. Hey! No! Get your hand out of there. Put it back. Put it back in the trash. This is for your own good! But no one tells you why! One site did say it was for "chemical reasons." What? Are they suddenly poisonous? No one said it was because a negative test could spontaneously turn positive. Some people speaking anecdotally claimed that could happen, but the test companies will never tell you so. So I will go blithely along believing my body, not this defective test whose makers won't even tell me why.

This is the last absurdity--That I finally start this blog I have been planning, and my very first cycle I get pregnant. Because I am. Really.

I did it, and it didn't help!

OK, today is day 13 high temp. This really should mean I am pregnant. I have never had a luteal phase last more than 12 days (except when I was pregnant. Is your entire pregnancy considered a luteal phase?). Once I had a high temp on day 13, but menstruation had started on day 12, and I'd actually had a little bit of spotting on day 11, my temp just didnt go down until day 14. So I have never been here before without being pregnant.
I'm pretty sure I must be pregnant, but then I had to go and break all my rules, even the one I made just last night in anticipation of this situation when I said I am not allowed to take a pregnancy test today. I took one. It was wrong.

This is my justification. I always have one. My sister, also a suffering hypopregniac, bought a whole box of, like, 4 pregnancy tests. Not a one has been used yet, or maybe just one, but they all expire in 2 months. So they have to be used up. If I waited until I knew for positive that I was pregnant, I wouldn't need to take one. But if I take one now, when I just know, but don't know for positive, then it could tell me for positive and I could tell everyone that I am pregnant. But the pregnancy test was wrong and said I wasn't pregnant. So I'm back to just knowing.

OK, I know that pregnancy tests don't usually give false negatives, but they can. And just because technically every negative I've ever had so far has been true, even if I believed it was false at the time, that doesn't mean that this one isn't false. Because I AM AT MY 13TH DAY OF A HIGH TEMPERATURE!!! And I had to go and ruin it by taking a test that said negative. If I didn't take the test, i would have absolutely no reason to believe I was not pregnant and every reason to believe that I was. I have real, hard evidence of high temperatures, but I had to go and break every rule again and mess things up especially my own mind. *sigh*

OK, here is another justification for not believing the test: When I was actually pregnant, I took a test at about day 18. The second pink line (the one that indicates that you are pregnant) was so faint that I missed it the first time I looked. So my theory is that I simply have comparatively low levels of the pregnancy hormone for which it tests. And being even earlier in my pregnancy, perhaps the level is still too low to register. They say you can't take a test too early or it is very likely to be inaccurate. The newest tests say that you can take them 1 or 2 or up to 5 days before your expected period. Well, this is just the same day as my expected period, and if the levels that I have are already low anyway, maybe it's the same for me as a normal person would be about a week before their expected period. So it didn't work.

This is my question about this "improved feature" of pregnancy tests--that you can take them up to 5 days before your expected period: Why in the world would you take a pregnancy test when you hadn't even missed the start of your period yet? Even I, rulebreaker extrodinaire, waited until my period should have started. Man, don't they have any patience?

Rules

I make a lot of rules for myself to deal with my disease. They are mostly things like "I am not allowed to be excited until..." "I can be excited when..." "I must wait until this happens...." "I can't tell my husband what I suspect until..." "Keep this to myself unless..." and various other morays on my own actions and emotions that I think sound reasonable before I am confronted with whatever evidence I think might be forthcoming. I know that if I leave this decision making until I am confronted with new and unfolding information that my mind rapidly spins into pregnancy, the actions that I take will most likely be ones that will exacerbate, rather than ameliorate or suppress my condition.

Unfortunately, I am a champion rulebreaker. When my temperature spiked this last time, I made the rule: I cannot be excited until high temp. # 16. This worked out well because it would just fill the rest of the slots on this cycle's chart. I numbered off the rest of the days to day 16. Here are the problems with this plan so far:
1) the day before my temperature spike, my temperature was an average low, however, the two (or was it three?) days before that, I had missed taking my temp, so it is possible that my temperature had spiked in those preceeding days and the one low temp before the recorded spike was simply an estrogen dip, or whatever it is that causes a periodic low temperature after you ovulate. This really is not uncommon, I promise. So perhaps I am not actually on day 10, I am really actually on day 12 or 13 now. This is big! This is important! This is exciting! But it's not day 16.
2) The average luteal phase (period between ovulation and menstruation) is 12-16 days, so 18 is the magic number of days that if you reach you are either pregnant or have a big problem like a cyst or something. but I have never had a luteal phase longer than 13 days. That is why I let 16 be my magic number. The truth is, most of my luteal phases are shorter--10 or 11, even 9. So I reach day 9 and each one beyond that is a secret celebration. I'm not allowed to be excited, but if my luteal phase is 11 days instead of 10 this cycle, doesn't that mean I am a little bit more pregnant than I was last time. Isn't a longer luteal phase sort of like being pregnant a little bit? It's pretty much like I am pregnant a little bit. This is cause for celebration! But I'm not allowed to be excited.

The rules I break most famously are when I will tell whom what. Mostly I only make rules about my husband and my sister, because they are the ones I talk to every day and with whom this topic regularly comes up. My sister is my comiserating companion hypopregniac. We explicate symptoms to each other endlessly. And I never stick to any rules of not telling her anything. I just tell her, because I am excited (which is already breaking a rule, so why not make it a clean sweep?) I also always tell my husband, because I'm sure he want's to know what's going on in my head. Otherwise why would he ask? He walks in the door from work. He says, "Hi, Honey, how was your day?" "Oh, my temperature was still up this morning. That makes it day 8. Isn't that exciting?"

Why do I keep making these rules?

Do NOT offer this solution

I just want to make it perfectly clear: Taking a pregnancy test is not a solution. It would be like taking a couple of tylenol to cope with labor pains. It's just not gonna cut it. Every pregnancy test I have taken that came up negative has been wrong. Or, at least, it could have been. I mean, sometimes they are wrong, right? I've heard about false negatives. "Most women" don't get them, but for my thoughts on that, you can read the previous post. OK, so technically every pregnancy test I ever took was actually accurate at the time, but that doesn't mean I believed it. Which is basically the same thing as being wrong to a hypopregniac. So I long ago gave up wasting money on pregnancy tests. Those buggers are expensive.

A little lie

OK, I was fibbing a little. This is my justification: I have been planning on starting this blog for a little less than a year, pretty much as soon as hypopregnia set in again after my gestational reprieve. So I was sharing some of the thought process I had at the time I was planning it. This is the little lie: I really think I may be getting better a little bit.

My method of sanity for the last two years or so has been to track my basal body temperature (the temperature my body is at before I wake up in the morning. You would be suprised to know how easy it is to take your temperature in your sleep. I completely don't remember taking mine this morning, but there was a temperature registered on the thermometer when I woke up, and I know I shook it down last night). During my pregnancy I did not track my temperature, and I did not start immediately after my daughter was born, either. (Has anyone else ever noticed that daughter and laughter look like they should rhyme, but totally don't?) I read all about nursing as ovulation suppression and knew that I fit all of the qualifications for it probably being extremely effective: nursing exclusively, baby under 6 months, feeding during the night. So I was mostly pretty sure that there probably wasn't much chance that I was pregnant for real. And I actually believed it. Mostly. I really pretty much didn't think that I was pregnant at all.

But then Willow started sleeping through the night. OK, what else do I know? I know that most women have at least one annovulatory bleeding period after they give birth before they become fertile again. That phrase "most women" is the bane of my hypopregniac existence. "Most women" means there have been exceptions. Probably I am not an exception. Statistically speaking, I probably am "most women." But maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm some women. I might be an exception. Maybe I am an exception. Actually I probably am. There's nothing that says I am not an exception. At about 5 months after I gave birth, I was convinced that I was pregnant.

I was excited about this, and a little bit sad because it would hamper plans to go to Disneyland that fall, but still, secretly, very excited. I finally started taking my temperature again, but as I was already probably a whole month into my pregnancy and I had no record of what my temperatures were like during my previous pregnancy and no books tell you what your temperature does during your pregnancy (they assume you wouldn't care, right? because you're already pregnant), I couldn't rely on my temperature readings to tell me anything of value. The only think I would have taken note of was if my temperature spiked half of a degree and stayed there for mor than a day or two--that would mean ovulation. If I ovulated, then I wasn't acutally pregnant before. But I probably am now.

This secret belief preyed on me for months. I even believed that I could maybe feel something somtimes. Was that a kick? Is she the size of a pea yet? My only salvation was the rule I made for myself before I was ever pregnant the first time, shortly after I was diagnosed with hypopregnia: I am not allowed to act as if I am pregnant unless my pregnancy is confirmed by documentable sources. This could be a pregnancy test or a temperature spike that lasts more than 18 days. In the absence of either of these, I am not allowed to let my psychosis hinder my life. My lifestyle was not one that was in any way destructive to a potentially growing fetus anyway. I don't drink, smoke, use illicit drugs, abuse legal drugs, regularly hottub, horeback ride, rock climb, or much else forbidden to expectant mothers. So I am not allowed to shirk workouts, nap all day, indulge every fatty food craving, or spend all of my day with my hand on my stomach unless I really am pregnant. That means I went to Disneyland and enjoyed all the rides I wanted (the constraints on pregnant women are really for mother comfort and park liability rather than fetal safety anyway).

Finally enough time passed during which I had been tracking my temp. to realize that I probably was not an exception. No pregnancy had started in my months of record, and if it had started before, I would now be far enough along to show to the world. I could not fool myself any longer. I was not pregnant, and I was not ovulating.

This was a strangely freeing and exhilerating observation. Even without night feedings, nursing seemed to be a pretty efficient ovulation supressant for me. In truth, I was not excited that I was not ovulating yet. We were ready to try again. But KNOWING that I was not pregnant and having no expectation of a pregnancy starting immenently freed me for the first time from the strangle hold of hypopregnia. I knew. I knew I was not pregnant.

One day a couple of months ago, I did not nurse my daughter for a day and a half on acccount of a medication I wanted to take. Just a few days later I started bleeding--an anovulatory period. Shortly after that, I had a temperature spike and a few exhilerating days of expectation, then a drop and another period. As I waited for the next uphill of the rollercoaster, my temperature started the eratic up and down I had experienced during the previous months of lactational hiatus. And after more time passed than I had had of recorded temperature between cycles before, I realized that as I went back to nursing regularly, my body went back into supression mode.

It was in that state that I finally started my blog. When I typed the last post, I actually knew that I was not pregnant. That was the lie.

However, I have since then had another anovulatory period and another temperature spike. so I am now officially 3 or 5 days into my next prengancy. It feels absurdly wonderful to be back on this bucking bronco of my mind.