A Flicker of Hope

David started asking me to take a pregnancy test so he could take a picture of the “positive” since we missed out on our opportunity to do that before you STUPID FAULTY TEST. Even though I was tired and feeling changes in my body and didn't get a period 6 weeks, I was still TERRIFIED to take one of those tests. What if it was negative and this whole time I was just coming down with the flu? If we weren’t pregnant, this was not the way I wanted to find out. But it meant so much to David to have that picture, that I finally caved and bought another test.

Finally one morning, I did it. I got out of bed and begrudgingly took the test. I didn’t look at it. I went straight back to bed and buried my head. David walked in and asked if I took the test and I just pointed towards the bathroom from under the covers. “Iiiit’s positive!”

Is it?

I jumped up to see it. It was a very light positive, but it was positive. Of course, I chose to focus on the fact that it was a very light positive instead of the fact that it didn’t say “negative”. But whatever, there it was. A pregnancy test that said not negative.

 I was super nervous that evening, the night before our first ultrasound. I finally fell asleep and started having all kinds of What-If-Monster-Dreams. I woke up and tried journaling about it and reading good pregnancy books, but in the end I just sort of panicked for most of the night. Seeing as how I’d had very few symptoms and a super light line on the pregnancy test, I just didn’t see how there could really be a baby in there.

The morning of the ultrasound, the worst thing that could have happened did. I took my mandatory “get up and immediately pee” pee, and found that I was bleeding. I broke down for about 5 minutes on the bathroom floor. David had already left for work and I was all alone. My first instinct was to immediately start googling or flipping through pregnancy books, but I was entirely too terrified. It was the most awful feeling I’d ever felt. Here I was, 6 weeks pregnant after 9 months of trying, and I might be losing the baby. It was almost too much to breathe through.

My doctor is normally very prompt, but that day it seemed that everyone was busy and no one could take the time to reassure me that everything was OK before I went in. David met me in the ultrasound room and already knowing what was going on, he just tried to breathe with me and pray. It took an agonizing 20 minutes for Dr. New York. He walked in the door and didn’t even say hi before I started explaining the situation and asking if I was losing the pregnancy. He said not to panic; he said that all we could do is take a look. And here is what we saw.


(This may be hard to see because the movement is so slight, just a flicker!)