I began to take low dose aspirin for my own health due to the blood clotting issue. As we waited for the embryo transfer, Aunt Flow made a very brief visit. Her stay was so short that I had to wonder why she changed her routine. The day before her visit, I had the mother of all migraines. That hadn’t happened since I had taken the pill as part of the ‘resting’ period between fertility cycles. I felt a little warmer than usual. I took my temperature which was one degree above my normal. So, just to prove to myself that I was not pregnant, as I had done many times before, I pulled out the last of my digital pregnancy tests. I dipped the stick and then walked away and returned to hear, “Pregnant,” screaming out of the digital window. No way. I could not believe it.
I had to leave for work in a few minutes, but I threw on some clothes and headed to the drug store where I bought three more digital tests, figuring that there must have been a malfunction in the first one. Luckily, I had used the cup method and could, therefore, dip additional sticks into it. I dipped another stick, “Pregnant,” it screamed. The same message appeared with the third. I was in awe, but I believed it. We were pregnant without any intervention from doctors, no IUI, no invitro, just pregnant naturally. I saved the third stick to see if we were still pregnant in a few days. I told no one. I went to work as if nothing in my life had changed. I pondered how to tell my husband.
After we ate dinner that night, I told my husband I had something for him. I presented one of the positive pregnancy tests inside a covered silver butter dish, because I thought this news needed to be delivered on a silver platter. He opened the dish and disbelief registered on his face followed by the realization that we were pregnant. It’s funny, I used to think it was silly to say that ‘we‘ were pregnant when only the woman went through all of those changes. But, after all that we went through to get to this point, it was we, not I that were pregnant. We were joyful, but scared after so many losses.
Then, there was the other issue. We were about to have an embryo transfer. If we did not tell our surrogate this news, it would be dishonest. So, we decided to have the doctor confirm the pregnancy first. The blood test confirmed it. Then, I called our surrogate and told her the news. She was surprised and excited. I asked if she was still comfortable being our surrogate under the circumstances, reminding her that all previous pregnancies had ended in losses, but there was no way to know what would happen. She said that she was happy to be our surrogate and was so happy for us that we were pregnant.
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