Compartment 14B

The Ghost in the Stick. 2005-06-07 - 10:19 a.m. The following was written on Tuesday, May 31, 2005. Saturday: I took the home pregnancy test. I was disappointed to see the one, and only one dark line appear. I was putting it down when I did a double-take. There, if I looked near the area but not directly at it, I thought I saw the faint outline of a second line. It was reeeeaaaaallly faint though. So faint that I figured it was probably wishful thinking. Rather than toss it, I stashed it in my bathroom drawer under a magazine*. Over and over I�d return and take it out. Was it a line? Wasn�t it a line? Damn it, I needed to know! I was running a 10K that evening! I was going to the city�s biggest and best yard sale that morning and would be passing up the chance to get great bargains. Last year I�d just gone off the Pill and was eyeing all the baby stuff. It was a bitter pill to swallow that a full year later, I still wasn�t justified in buying any of it. I went to the sale and tried to keep my eyes averted from the cribs and strollers that were on display. I ran the 10K that evening, always mindful of that faint hint of a pink line. The one I was sure I�d talked myself into thinking even existed. I ran but I didn�t run to the point of really pushing it. Sunday: I peed on another stick. The verdict, maybe a marginal difference � I could look straight at the ghostly outline without it disappearing. I took a permanent marker and wrote the date on the back of each of the two tests and stashed them both in the drawer. From time to time I�d take them out and see if I could tell which was the more recent by looking at the little window, then I�d turn them over to read the dates. I was mostly right. Monday: I had no sticks left. That�s okay, I reasoned, if I am pregnant, waiting a day between tests will only give my body more of a chance to register the change and produce more hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), so I�ll actually have something definite to look at when I take the next one. Even knowing this, I made a special trip to the store to pick up two more tests that evening while J was at hockey. To be continued... Before - After All content � Shawna 2003-2010 That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking. P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters. recommend me HTML and design help by Jo hosted by Diaryland