Tomorrow is T-Day
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
ell tomorrow is the big day: test day. I’ve been a good girl and haven’t performed my obsessive pregnancy testing throughout this 2 week wait. I promised Mason that I would behave myself and follow the program. So far I have managed to do that. I will admit that as my temps have risen in the past few days.
I have been sorely tempted to test earlier than I agreed to. But then I remember a) I gave my word, and that counts for something; b) my test date is the same day as my last day on-service EVER (must be good karma in that); and c) I will be just as pregnant tomorrow as I possible am today. So I’ve already had my morning pee. Now I’ve gotta wait until tomorrow.
I’m starting to have those warring feelings of excitement and hope as well as fear and shame. You know how I am. For some reason I am prone to believe that if I dare hope for a positive outcome, fate will smite me down. “How dare she even believe that she might be pregnant?! We must punish her for such hubris.” And yes, I do realize how ridiculous that sounds, but this is how I have lived the majority of my life, in fear and feeling unworthy. At least I have an awareness of my loony thoughts. So I’m trying to allow myself to hope and I do feel hopeful, especially with the temperature rise again today. But I still feel guilty for having this hope. I am a mess.
Maybe Milagro proved true to his/her nickname and became my miracle. I want this so badly. However until recently, my luck has been really crappy. So I will probably continue to torture myself throughout the day today, wondering about the continued mild breast soreness, the sweats I keep having at night, the weird taste in my mouth, and the slight discomfort with urination. Could this mean? Could I be? Do I need medication for my obsessive-compulsive disorder?!
As far as my testing goes, my plan had been to go in to Cooper for my blood test on Monday. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I honestly didn’t want to wait all day for the answer from the crazy people at Cooper. I would rather first find out in the privacy of my own home. So I discussed it with Mason and have now decided that I will use my one pregnancy test that I snagged from the lab to test on Monday morning before heading in to Cooper. In that way, I’ll know what to anticipate from the telephone call. And if my home test (which is actually an office urine test, so very sensitive) is negative, I’ll be able to grieve at home. That somehow feels better to me than waiting all day for an impersonal message from the nurse. I’ll still go in to Cooper for my test (since they will not accept any home test results as valid), but at least I will have my answer bright and early.
Why am I so afraid of hope? Must be one of my defects of character….
Plan B
I was also freaking out this past week because the donor I chose at Renew was taking so long to determine whether she would agree to be our donor. I was told it would be a week and at 1.5 weeks I was still waiting and she was asking questions of the coordinator as to whether we would be good parents. I was becoming a wreck that my back-up plan would not go as planned. But on Thursday I received her lovely letter agreeing to be our donor.
In her letter, she interestingly said that she anticipates that I will become a housewife for a while after the child is born as her mother did for her. I have to find a way to respectfully explain to her that housewife is not in my family’s vocabulary. But this does not mean that I will not make my family my first priority. The women in my family have long been the primary breadwinners. We can’t imagine NOT working. She always wants to know about my faith. I mentioned that Mason is Jewish and she thought I omitted information about my faith. What she doesn’t realize is that Mason is Jewish in ethnicity, but not really in faith. (He considers himself to be the unJew) I’m the one with the firm basis in faith. Mason is still finding his way along that path. I sense a long reply coming on.
I will not, however, share with my donor the hysterical dialogue I had with my mother when I mentioned that our donor assumed that I would become a housewife for some period of time. My mom came off the spool. “I didn’t raise you like that!” “You’re not going to waste all that education!” “Does she think you’re stupid?!” “You need to pick another donor then.” “Is she crazy?” “Does she expect you to give up medicine to sit home and bake cookies?” She was off the chain!! All totally politically incorrect comments from my hard-charging Type A physician mother. I was laughing so hard at her pique, I could barely speak. You see, unlike most families, in my family, the word “housewife” was held in similar esteem to “criminal,” “crack ho,” and “heroin addict.” I’m not saying that this is right thinking, but it is how I was raised. Housewifedom is not for me, but I am much more tolerant and politically correct than my loony mother. But she provided me with a great belly laugh yesterday. She doesn’t even know how funny she actually is.
The last time I saw her lose it like that was when I told her that my then-boyfriend Mike woke me up from sleep asking me to “hook him up with some of my banana pancakes.” I thought that tirade would never stop. “Did I send you to 4 years at Yale, 4 years of medical school, residency and fellowship for you to be ‘hooking some man up’ with banana pancakes?” “Are his hands broken?” “Who the hell does he think he is?” Poor Mike. She held that against him forever. It didn’t help that my stepfather then decided to adopt the “hook me up” term ad nauseum for the next 5 years!!!
So let me get to Mass to pray for my Milagro and then off to work. Last two days on service! Hooray!!!