A scary glimpse into the two-week wait

Nothing in my life has prepared me for the two week wait.

Sure, there have been things I have dreaded and things that I have giddily anticipated. But there has never been something that I both dread and giddily anticipate.

Things before that have left me in this nervous lurch of waiting have also had predictable outcomes, unlike the two week wait. In junior high I auditioned for jazz band. I knew that I would either a) make jazz band and get to spend some extra time after school with the band geeks or b) not make jazz band and it would be the end of the story (I did make jazz band, it was fun). 

In high school I auditioned to be drum major for the marching band. I knew that I would either a) be drum major and that would be cool or b) not be drum major and continue being section leader (I did not make drum major and I was devastated for a while and then I got over it).

I was a bundle of nerves in the weeks leading up to my wedding, but where is the unpredictable variable there? Maybe the flowers would be late, maybe someone would get unforgivably drunk, but at the end of the day the wedding would be over and I’d be married.

But THIS, this is something totally different. It is a “different animal” as they say. As far as I can tell the outcomes could be as follows:

a) I am pregnant.
b) I am not pregnant, maybe I’ll get pregnant next month.
c) I am not pregnant, maybe it will take me many months to get pregnant.
d) I am not pregnant, maybe it will take me years of trying to ultimately realize that we cannot have a baby.

Clearly, a) is vastly different from the other choices, and each choice is incredibly powerful and comes with its own package of things to plan, things to worry about, and things to celebrate.

But for someone like me, who is a planner and a worrier, waiting to see which outcome it will be borders on being painful. How am I supposed to lead a normal life, when any time now I will find out a) b) c) or d)?

As far as “any time now” goes, that is just as painful. My calculations about my cycle in December and early January were kind of stabs in the dark, because as we know, having a period off the pill is a whole new experience for me. So I don’t really know when I ovulated or if I ovulated at all. My best guess, based on when I started last month, is that I should start Wednesday, January 13. Like I said, who knows how correct that is – but we’re going to assume that it’s correct because I have to at least assume that I know one tiny fact or else I’ll go crazy.

So, we assume. If I am scheduled to start again on 1/13, then I can technically take a pregnancy test as early as this Friday, January 8 and hope that it’s accurate (of course, me being me, I bought the “first response” type). So do I take one then? Or do I make myself wait until closer to 1/13?

The benefit of taking one on Friday is that if I am indeed pregnant, maybe I will know then and get to stop worrying. But of course there’s a chance that I am pregnant and the test will give me a false negative. If I get any kind of negative at all, I will be quite upset.

Do you see what it’s like in my brain?