Dispatch from Beta Canyon

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of staying hopeful this week as I wait for my next beta, aided in large part by the mountain of symptoms that do a lot more “coming” and a lot less “going” than the first time I was pregnant. Maybe it’s a girl. They’re supposed to make you sicker, right? ;-) I’ve already made a mad dash for my work bathroom (false alarm) and have been leaning heavily on saltines and ginger ale, at least during the day, because in another change from last time around, my “morning sickness” really does seem to be worse in the morning and early afternoon. Dinners haven’t been bad so far, knock on wood. Also in the “new and different” column, I had a weird thing happen a couple of nights ago where the muscles in my legs went tingly and numb like I’d just run a marathon. It came on like the flip of a light switch. Needless to say, I haven’t run any marathons lately (or, you know, ever) but it was the end of two long (read: normal) days with no naps, unlike the three that preceded them. I went to bed as soon as I got E down and woke up the next morning with my legs feeling exactly the same, as if I hadn’t rested at all. They still feel weak and shaky. Weird. But good, right?

After Sunday, I didn’t test again… until this morning. My symptoms have been reassurance enough and, frankly, I was scared of getting a result that appeared to be any lighter with too many days left to worry before my next beta. Yesterday, I had a few breaks in my symptoms which allowed the fears to creep in* and then last night, I felt exhausted, but still the best I’d felt in a week. This, of course, completely freaked me out. I woke up this morning and gave myself another in-bed pep talk: Even if it is lighter, all is not lost. Hormone and dye levels both fluctuate. The sticks can only tell you so much. And then I headed for the bathroom.

Um, yeah. That's by far the most positive pregnancy test that has ever been under my roof!


*I will admit to writing a post yesterday about how difficult and draining the uncertainty of early pregnancy is. I saved the draft because it’s an honest snapshot of one dip on the rollercoaster, but I’m not going to post it because it feels wrong to put anything other than gratitude out into the universe right now.