Am I Pregnant?! I am sure this is a question that many women have asked themselves at one point or another. The questions takes many forms, sometimes it’s a question of hope, if you have been trying for a while and really want to be. It can be a question of dread if you are too young or don’t want kids. It can also be some where in between. One thing all of these situations have in common is that it is STRESSFUL until you know for sure either way.
For me this question was by far those most stressful part of my pregnancy. Let’s start at the beginning.
The Beginning
I have never been over maternal, I was never one of those women who wanted kids and had the plan set out for when and how it would happen. I have never been sure I actually wanted children of my own. What I did know I wanted to wait until my 30s if I did.
Fast forward to 30. If you have not already had kids by thirty this is a time when your brain kicks in to high gear and forces you to contemplate your maternity. This was me. Mid way through my thirties I felt the pressure of whether to not to have kids and to make a choice sooner than later. I wasn’t getting any younger!! After I turned 30 and made my goal of not having kids in my 20s I decided to let fate take some of the reigns. I got off birth control and decided whatever happens, happens. I decided that since I couldn’t decide that I would let life decide. If I did get pregnant than it was meant to be but if i didn’t I wouldn’t take any additional steps to make it happen.
I should note here that it takes two to tango. While my long term boyfriend and I had causally talked about having children we had never made any decisions. He also never had much interest in having kids so he wasn’t pushing for it.
Change is Afoot… Am I Pregnant!?
At the end of the year last year, events took place that can lead to the creation of a child and something about this time was different. The next day I got this feeling, a gut feeling. “holy crap, I bet you I am pregnant” I thought to myself. I know weird right? This started the 2 most stressful weeks I have endured in a long time. There is no way to know the first couple weeks if you or you are not pregnant.
Stay tuned for a post all about how I knew I was pregnant before the test told me.
Wether you want the potential pregnancy or not its equally as stressful. Being like me, Somewhere in the middle, it doesn’t relieve any of that stress. Here is just a sample of the questions that popped in my head those two weeks:
Am I pregnant?
If I am pregnant what will my boyfriend think?
Do I want kids?
Do I want to be pregnant?
If I am not pregnant is that because I can’t get pregnant?
What if I waited to long?
Am I too old to be having kids?
Can I afford to have a kid right now?
That feeling was weird, is that a symptom?
Can I take medication, if I am pregnant will it effect the baby?
I have generalized anxiety as it is, so you can image this made me all the more anxitious.
Fuel for the Fire
A week in to this stress mess, my boyfriend and I go to family dinner where we learn that his nephew, who is 8 years younger than us, is having a new baby with his wife. This hit me like a mac truck. All those questions from above rushed in to my head and then some. The pressure to have kids weighed down hard. Them being younger, we got a ton of “are you next” after this little announcement.
When something is on your mind you seem to notice that things everywhere remind you of it. This two weeks I swear every other day someone was announcing a baby, my Pinterest was somehow loaded with baby related pins despite not doing anything on my phone baby related and using private browsing if I did have a question. Everywhere I went there was babies, it seemed like so many more!
The Count Down
I counted the days until I could take a test and know for sure. Leading up to this I did note little things that really lead me to believe that I was indeed pregnant. You can read about those symptoms in this post I wrote about them.
4 days Before Missed Period
4 days before my missed period I went down to the store and got a test. I know it is silly but I still felt so silly buying this test! I felt like a teenager, quickly checking out and shoving it into my backpack. LOL. To be fair, I was working in Vegas the week I took the test so many it was just because I was buying a pregnancy test from a pharmacy on the Las Vegas Strip that added to my embarrassment. I wanted to have a sign that said “No, it wasn’t a one night stand!”
Anyway, I got the test and unlike pretty much anything else I opened it and read the directions, twice. Sitting on my hotel bed contemplating this test and the impending fate, one thing in the directions caught my eye. At 4 days before your missed period this test was 56 percent accurate. 56 percent! I was shocked. That is barely better than me holding a coin marked pregnant on one side and not on the other and flipping it!! Despite my anxiety I chose to wait one more day to take the test when the odds of accuracy improved to 87 percent. That was like a high B so I could live with that.
Day 3 Before Missed Period
I was wary still on Day 3. My mom had not produced the hormone these tests detect with me until way later in her pregnancy, which was very unusual but what if I was like her? I decided my curiosity outweighed this fear and took it anyway. I sat there waiting the 3 minutes in suspense and also kind of chuckling to myself that I had made it half way though my 30s before taking a pregnancy test. There it was, very clear, a single blue horizontal line. Negative.
I was full of mixed feelings, I was sad, and a little relieved but mostly I was very confused. I know my body really well, the symptoms I had been having couldn’t be made up. Was something else going on? or was I that 23 percent that gets a false negative. This test did not easy my mind one bit. It was a waste of a test really.
More Waiting…
I decided to wait till the day my period was to start. I am a very regular, I could time it by a clock. So if things were odd that day I would have my answer. So commence 3 more days of stressing and wondering.
Finally Sunday comes around, the day I should be starting my period. It usually makes its appearance around lunch time… nothing. hmmm. By bed time still nothing. I thought, “Ok. With all the stress of the last couple weeks maybe I screwed it up.” The tests I bought said to wait a week before testing anyway so I gave it one more day, still nothing. Thursday morning I decided screw the week. No period, I have to be pregnant so got out the test and without even waiting the 3 minutes the two lines to make a plus were clear as day.
Am I Pregnant? Yes… I Am
A surge of relief washed over me. It wasn’t that it was positive it was that I had finally knew the answer to the question “Am I pregnant?” without any doubt. While my over all stress level immediately decrease it did not however rest. Now, of course, was the new stressors of telling my boyfriend and our families and figuring out what comes next. Though I can safely say none of has been as stressful as those first two weeks of wondering.
What’s your “Am I pregnant?” story? Did it turn out how you had hoped?