How many times must I pee to get a control line!?!
WARNING: THERE IS FOUL LANGUAGE IN THIS POST
I bit the bullet. I bought a pregnancy test. Even though I’m in peri-menopause and David is fixed. I used it yesterday afternoon, right before my Mom, Dad and brother Michael came to visit.
I peed for “at least 3 seconds” and “no more than 5.” I counted my Mississippis to make sure, just as the doorbell rang. I put the test on a flat surface and let my family in. Hellos all around.
I think that Dad was the first to notice the test on the counter. At this point we were at the 2 minute mark. It showed nothing. NOTHING. After 5 minutes – still NOTHING. Not even a stinking control line! The paperwork on this sucker said that if I hadn’t seen anything after 10 minutes that I should take another test. 10 minutes came and went and still NOTHING. I knew I should have bought the frickin’ two-for package, but nooooooooo, I had been logical at the drug store. Why would I buy two pregnancy tests when I only needed one? I wasn’t going to need more
than one test. Not me! Nope! One would do! And I sure as shit
wasn’t going to spend $27 on a test. Which means that I spent $9.99 on a
single bastard dud test.
No matter how hard I looked at that sucker there was still nothing in the control window. I internalized my cursing and did NOT say, “I fucking paid $9.99 for you, you rat-fucking pee stick – now show me a fucking control line and tell me that I’m not fucking pregnant!” Instead I grumbled under my breath “bastard pregnancy test,” with Dad mocking me saying that my moodiness surely was a ‘sign.’ When I offered my visiting family muffins, Dad queried, “Are they dill pickle and ice cream?” “Har-dee-freaking-har Dad.”
By the time David got home from work there was still nothing. After dinner (an hour later) there was a band of red approaching the windows but still no discernible line. Then, after my family left, I checked the test and there was a single line – in the control box. Which should mean that I’m not pregnant, but all the literature with the rat-fucking test told me that I shouldn’t trust the test after 10 minutes, which means I’m still going to have to buy another one. Even though I know that I’m not pregnant. (In spite of the fact that I haven’t had my period for over three months, I’m weepy, gaining weight and my nipples hurt.) Even if I could convince myself with sound logic that this is all peri-menopause, all that went right out the window with the stories Mom had recounted during her visit of at least 2 instances where she knew folks (personally) who’d had post-vasectomy “oopses” years after the fact. “Not helping Mom – that is not helping.”
Any bets on how much I’m going to spend before I get my negative test result?
