The fat lady never sang

As you all know, I was intensely disappointed upon getting a BFN at 12DPO. But I moved on fairly quickly, already looking forward to the next cycle. I started getting more pronounced AF symptoms toward the end of last week (a teensy bit of spotting and enough cramping that I had to ask for a Tylenol at our family reunion), so I prepared myself with pads and Tampons wherever I went. Assuming a 14-day luteal phase, my period should have come on Saturday—in the midst of the family reunion.

But it didn’t.

By late Sunday morning, I still hadn’t had much more spotting. I pulled M into our tent (sounds kind of romantic, doesn’t it?) and told him my concerns. One of three things was happening, I said. Either 1) my period was just being a pain in the ass and ruining my timing for the next cycle; 2) I had another pesky corpus luteal cyst; or 3) I was pregnant. I couldn’t even imagine No. 3.

We left after lunch so I could make it to a baby shower. M dropped me off and amused himself for a couple of hours while I made a Herculean effort not to drink much or pee. I would, I told myself, stop at a Target on the way home and pick up a pregnancy test. Just in case. (A side note: The baby shower was not annoying or tear-inducing; just a nice little tribute to the mom-to-be.)

I picked up my little package from Target and headed into the bathroom. I had to pee so badly, I told M, I didn’t want to wait till we got home. In the bathroom, I dutifully POASed and placed the stick on the toilet paper rack upside down, all the while thinking to myself how futile this was. By this point, I suspected I had a cyst. Then, I wiped—and saw more brownish gunk than I had yet seen that weekend. “How ironic,” I thought, “I get my period right after I POAS. What a waste of money.” Confident that I had a BFN, I turned it over.

And a + stared me right in the face. No doubt about it. (This is what the folks in the newspaper business call "burying the lead.")

I waited until we got in the car to show M, my hands shaking, tears running down my face. How could this possibly be?

I got my beta today. 150.8 at 17DPO. Another beta is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

This is real.

And to think, I thought it was over at 12DPO…