I recently counted up, and of the ten Christmases that Carl and I have been married, six of them were celebrated while we were doing fertility treatments. Surprisingly, all six of them fell far enough into my cycle where I could know by Christmas morning whether I was pregnant. Five different Christmases, I did not get the gift I was hoping and praying for.
This Christmas?
Positive.
I knew. As I've "known" with the other three, before that second little line turned pink or blue, that it was going to be positive. As I forced myself to wait the two minutes to look at the test, I desperately fought that certainty, so that if/when it was negative I wouldn't be crushed. Yet, as with the other three times, that certainty I fought turned out to be a "knowing" that was accurate. We were pregnant once again.
The test was wrapped into three separate packages. Each one larger than the next, in order to hide the contents from Carl. Once "Santa" had done his thing that night and we were sitting back to admire the packages under the tree and imagine our girls delight in the morning, I gave Carl his package. It took little prompting to get him to open it, although he was at a loss as to what I would so want him to open the night before. It was magical to have that moment together, knowing there was a little one growing inside me as we prepared to celebrate our Savior's birth.j
Two days after Christmas, my home test was confirmed by a blood test. My levels were great - exactly where they should be at four weeks. After our miscarriage last summer, and numbers that were consistently at the very low end of "normal" and didn't increase as expected, this was at least somewhat reassuring early. My first ultrasound was set for two weeks following the blood test, and my anxious waiting began. Until I see that first precious heartbeat, I find it extremely hard to relax and enjoy the beauty of pregnancy.
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