5 Weeks

Five weeks!
Yay to us, little one!
I've known of you for exactly one week.
I found out last Thursday, the 29th, right before we headed out for trick-or-treating with your siblings.

I must tell you that I took the test on a whim, so grouchy was I, knowing I wasn't pregnant and wanting to get the bad news over with.
I'd been PMSing for days and had taken that early (and negative) pregnancy test the Sunday before.
I grabbed the box of tests on my way upstairs to get ready for the evening.
I thought I'd put myself out of my misery--at that point, one day early, you would definitely have been detectable if you existed.

I'd been in a snit all afternoon, thinking I was hormonally wacked due to my anticipated period which I expected the very next day.
My bubble had burst on Sunday when I tested for you and didn't get the response that I wanted.
Though, in honesty, I jumped the gun a bit.
It was Sunday, a relaxing day at home, and I wanted to learn of you when IT WASN'T CRAZY.
When I could carve out five minutes alone in the bathroom for myself.
The problem with Sunday, which I knew going in, was that it was ONE day too early from when the box told me I might be able to see you there.
But what's a day, really? 

I just (wrongly) assumed that I'd see a really faint, faint line instead of the bold statements your siblings have always made on those sticks.
You are the first that I've tested with those "way early" tests.

I don't know that they were around five years ago with Greer (she's four but I'm counting the year of pregnancy) and Creux wasn't expected so I'd WAY passed the point of early learning by the time I realized he was on his way.

So...those early tests mean business.
When they say accurate from "four days from your expected period", they do not mean "but go ahead and try five."

The fact that I did not test again until four days later should tell you how disappointed I was and how I'd really given up hope on the matter.  I just let it be, figuring that I'd have seen SOMETHING there if you existed so there was no point in trying again the next day or the day after. 

But I was just so grouchy on Thursday and I didn't want to spend all day Friday waiting and waiting and waiting for the final verdict.  I wanted to test, see the negative, and be able to move on.

I took it into the bathroom with me and peed on the stick, just like I was supposed to.
I sat there for a few minutes, fumbled with the directions, watched nothing happen on the test.
I'd picked up a generic, lazy, no-frills test.
It took ages for the test line to pop up and immediately I saw a single dash in "my" window.
One dash means "no baby" but another dash mark, forming a plus sign means "CONGRATULATIONS!"

As I watched, I could very, very faintly see where the plus dash would go if only it were directed by the correct hormone to make an appearance.
It was a shadowly line, sort of glistening--not blue like the other lines but almost an invisible, wisp of a line.
I could see it better if I held the stick at an angle to catch different light but when I laid it flat I saw nothing.

I was not surprised and yet I was.

Why was this not working for us?
We've been spoiled in recent years, able to get pregnant when we don't even really mean to :)
After a bout of secondary infertility with Rhyse where we tried (in vain) for two years, we haven't had to try hardly AT ALL, so I was just sort of confused and frustrated and a little bit worried.

What if I struggled to get pregnant again?

I was just...bummed.
I sat there, my head hanging down, sighed deeply, sat up.
Looked at the stick again.
Blinked.
Looked harder.

That near-invisible wisp of a line grew colored right before my very eyes.
I watched the plus sign form and clapped my hand over my mouth in surprise and complete joy.

I think I might've done the Happy Dance while still on the potty.
(Though it was really more of a jiggle.)

I stared and stared and stared and then started laughing.
I just couldn't believe my eyes.

You were there.

And you'd been there!
You were there at the pumpkin patch, that wonderful day we spent together as a family.
And you were there all those days afterward--I've gone back through the photos to see exactly what you tagged along on.
You were there for Greer's Halloween costume parade at preschool.
You were there for Creux's belated birthday gathering with our family.
You were there when we stuck up window decals and strung our new banner and when Greer and I colored our pumpkin graph for the schooling room.
You were there when the test told me that you weren't.

You've just been tagging along this whole time, a secret little member of the family, one who next year will greet these occasions from the Baby Bjorn, snug against Mommy or Daddy's chest, cooing and smiling at your round of many siblings.

In one year, on the night that I first learned of you, I will dress you in your own little Halloween costume, which is exactly what your siblings were doing while I watched your existance come to light, and I will whisper to you....

"I am so grateful."

And I will be.

I will always remember the new significance of that night.
One more sweet little goblin for me.

Loving you already,
Mama