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.
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3 comments:
Carol, I love you and your hypopregnatic confessions. You've been talking so much about pregnancy recently that your pregnancy talk made me get out my "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" book and try to determine why I must be pregnant, too. Because, you know that you aren't allowed to be pregnant without me. Didn't we determine that when we were like 13 and 14 or something? After all I did have a high temperature yesterday and two days before that was kind of high, too (definately higher than usual). And the day before that I forgot to take my temperature, so I could be on day 5 of high temperature! And I didn't even make any rules about not getting excited until day X, because it was so early in my cycle that I didn't even think about it. So I'm not even breaking any rules. But I only have one pregnancy test left, so I have to make it count. Because I don't want to have to buy another 4-pack at Costco and you know that I couldn't buy only a 1-pack or 2-pack at the drug store because they are so much more expensive. Then, of course, if I did buy another 4-pack I would get a positive result on the first test and then I would just have 3 unused pregnancy tests hanging out in a box that would expire before we could use them. But then we would use them the next time around and not believe them because they were expired. Just like I did 2 months after Samuel-boy was born. And then we would have to buy more pregnancy tests all over again. Thus I'd better just wait to use this last one until I'm good and sure that it really is going to be positive.
Can you believe, I never took even one pregnancy test with Elisheva? My sisters couldn't; they take tests obsessively (although mostly because they're worried they're pregnant, not hoping to be pregnant). Although they buy theirs at the dollar store, so it's only a dollar a test. But then they don't trust them, because they were so cheap to buy, and so they take like one a day until their period starts. So maybe cheaper tests aren't better.
You make me laugh, Carol. Keep me updated; I love to read your thoughts (and hey, you are most definitely, probably, maybe pregnant after all).
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