Hope Returns?

Thanks so much for your support, everyone. Yesterday was better. Still scant spotting, but almost no cramping. I was feeling better about it, and even sent J a message to let him know. I allowed myself to relax just a little bit. Incidentally, at lunch when I went to the restroom to—ahem—check things out, I was appalled to find the roll of toilet paper was wet. On one side only. How does that even happen? I immediately regretted my decision to use the single stall restroom in order to have a little more privacy in case a “freak-out” was called for rather than the newer 2-stall restroom without a lock on the TP holder. The rest of the day, I was more at ease.


Until dinner time. Then the cramping picked up. I was just sure this was it. And I didn’t have any idea how to prepare myself for it. So I devised a plan. Limit my liquid intake. Yep. That’ll do it. If you don’t have to pee, you don’t HAVE to check things out and can just pretend it’s all okay. The problem with my plan? I like to know things. I’m curious by nature. So what did I do? I walked through the house—stepping over my vicious attack dog barking at a couple of innocent passersby walking down the street—and did my business. And there it was. The same “old” stuff I’ve been seeing since yesterday. Nothing more. Nothing much. I’ll take it, if things really are okay. So, I went back to the family room and ate my last piece of ice cream pie. Yeah, that’ll make me feel better.

By bedtime, even the cramping had tapered off. It was never constant like with AF, but rather came in waves. It was also never as strong as with AF, but there nonetheless. My dear, sweet husband reminded me that he thought it was perfectly normal to spot. I reminded him that nothing about my reproductive system is normal. This morning, there was nothing on the TP at all when I used the restroom. Maybe spot has relocated to some other poor unsuspecting soul. This is definitely not my norm—sure, I’m prone to spotting a day or even two before AF’s unmistakable arrival. But it never comes and goes. It just gets progressively worse. And this hasn’t.

So I can slowly feel hope returning. Maybe, just maybe, you were all right and it was implantation. Oh, I hope so. I’m still on the fence about testing. Paralleling last cycle in November, tomorrow would be the day to test—the day before beta. I’m really thinking about it. As long as I keep in the back of my head that a negative test will not be the definitive answer. That’s what they told us at IVF class way back in September. They encourage us not to test at all since you aren’t guaranteed to pick up a positive HPT before the beta. But the nurse conducting the class said that she didn’t know how anybody could go through all of this and not test. So, she told us that if we planned to just to keep in mind that even a negative didn’t mean anything. I’m still torn, though. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. I guess we’ll just see what kind of mood I wake up in tomorrow morning.

Again, thank you all so much for your support. Isn’t it funny that we turn to strangers in some of the most terrifying moments of our lives? If not for the kindness of strangers, I guess I’d be a wreck right now. If I haven’t made it by your blog to thank you personally yet, please know I’m trying to make my rounds. I’ll be there soon!

Hugs and baby dust,