Saturday, November 20, 2010

Coming soon: Fantastic 2.0

A week or so ago, I took a pregnancy test since I was starting to have some similar symptoms from when I was pregnant with Fletch. Unfortunately, just missing my period isn’t a good indicator of pregnancy or not – due to my PCOS, my cycle is unpredictable and it’s not unheard of for me to go 8 weeks in between.

However, I’d been feeling really tired – like, the idea of going to bed at 7:30 (or even 4:30, when I got home from work!) was really appealing. And I started getting crops of zits on both my forehead and neck. At least with Fletch, my skin was kind enough to take turns on where the crops were located.

So anyway, I took this test and got an “inconclusive” result. Like the result I got was one of the three YOU DID IT WRONG pictures in the instructions. So I must not have peed on the stick long enough or something. Seriously, I don’t know how you screw up a pregnancy test, but if it’s possible, you know I will do it. In my defense, this was an old test, the one left in the box from when I tested positive with Fletch. So perhaps it was an expired test and not operator error.

A couple days ago, I sent Mr. Fantastic to the Dollar Store to pick up another test for me. I have to digress and say that you should never, ever buy your pregnancy test at the regular grocery store again. Even the cheapie, store-brand ones are like seven bucks at Safeway. But you can get ‘em for ONE DOLLAR at the dollar store! Last time we were in the dollar store, we saw the display of pregnancy tests at the register and commented on it to the cashier and she said we would not believe how many of those they sold – it’s one of their highest revenue generators. Mr. F and I thought that was pretty funny, but you know the minute we needed one, that’s where we went.

So I got out one of my dollar pee tests this morning and checked to make sure it was all sealed and not expired or anything (‘cause you just never know when you’re buying something at the dollar store – caveat emptor!). This one was not a pee-on-the stick kind; instead, I had to pee in a cup and then use a little pipette to suck up the pee and carefully drip four drops in the little circle. Just like high school chemistry! (Um, for certain values of high school experience.) Mr. LaRue would be proud of me; I didn’t spill a drop. I think this way is actually easier than trying to pee on the stick for ten seconds and also much cleaner (for me, anyway; I somehow cannot manage not to pee on my hand as well.)

Without delay, the little pregnant line came up – no inconclusive result here! I didn’t even have to wait 3 seconds, let alone 3 minutes. But in that three seconds, whoosh…my whole life changed again. The major difference this time is that I don’t feel nearly as scared as when we found out about Fletch. This time I feel like an old pro! Check me out; I already have one kid who still has all his limbs and stuff. Despite never having had to pass any sort of parental competency test, Mr. F and I have so far done okay by our little Peanut.

We are so excited for this new chapter in our lives! I know it will be hard with two – currently there are moments when little man runs rings around us both, so we have only to hope they don’t wise up and gang up on us at some point. But I am up to the challenge!

I am also looking forward to being pregnant again. For the most part, I really enjoyed pregnancy last time. There were some drawbacks (food aversion, failing the glucose test, ANGRY LADYPARTS) but I know how to deal with all those this time around. Let’s hope there are no new curveballs!

And since it will be a while before we find out if this one’s a boy or a girl, we are calling this one JellyBean until further notice. Cheers to you, JellyBean! Can’t wait to meet you some time next summer.