On Sunday morning, my husband and I were up early, as we have to be every morning, so he can give me my progesterone shot (progesterone strengthens the lining of the uterus and makes it a good environment for implantation). After the shot, we threw on our clothes, and headed to the lab, about 10 minutes from our house. We figured we'd be the first ones there, given that it was a Sunday, and very early on a Sunday at that.

I opened the door to the lab, and saw a baby carrier and heard the sounds of a newborn crying. It felt like the ultimate kick in the teeth. Here I was, an absolute bundle of nerves, anticipating a negative blood test, and fate saw fit to make the experience all the more heart-wrenching by placing a little baby, in a lab, at 7:40 in the morning on a Sunday.

I had my blood drawn, and after breaking down in the car on the way home over the absolute unfairness of things (even my pregnancy bloodtest experience had to be made more difficult than it needed to be?), we headed home to wait.

And it was agonizing. For awhile, we sat in the living room: me in my chair-and-a-half, my husband on the couch. He read a book. I listened to the clock ticking away the minutes. Then the hours. I was preparing myself, as I had been all along, for a negative. I was thinking of the four embryos we have frozen, and wondering when we should start our frozen cycle. I was playing the words the nurse would say to me once she called over and over in my head. "We're sorry. But the test was negative." I was crying and an emotional wreck, even before we got the call.

I expected them to call before noon, since this is the norm for bloodtest results for my doctor's office on the weekend. Noon came and went. The phone rang a few minutes after 1pm. I picked it up. The nurse said, "I'm thrilled to be able to tell you that it's definitely positive." In that moment, I felt a rush of emotions unlike any I've ever felt. I immediately started crying. And shaking. I told my husband it was positive. He told me to sit down because it looked like I was going to fall over!

Once I got myself together, the nurse told me that my HCG number (the pregnancy hormone measured by OTC tests and bloodtests) was 187, and the doctor was very pleased with this. They consider anything over 100 to be good. She also said the number is likely consistent with one baby, rather than two, but that they won't know for sure until I get more bloodtests, and they won't know this definitely until my first ultrasound in the first week in January. I have to have a repeat bloodtest on Wednesday, and they want the HCG number to double (or so) by then, so I'm crossing my fingers for that. I'll likely have more bloodtests every few days to make sure things are progressing as they should, and I have to continue the progesterone shots (which I will now gladly receive!) indefinitely.

After I hung up the phone, my husband and I just hugged each other and cried. Afterwards, we just sat together in complete disbelief. Not jumping for joy, but no longer steeped in a sad sort of longing either. We are cautiosly optimistic. We are trying not to think too far ahead. I think if we were a "normal" couple, and had simply tossed away the birth control pills, tried for a few months, and achieved success, our reactions would be different. But we're not that couple.

We're a couple who has endured heartbreak for the past two years. We know the hope of a period that's a day or two late. And we know the devastation that arrives when it eventually shows up. We've endured the tests and procedures, some of which were painful, and all of which were embarrassing, only to be told that there's nothing our doctor can find wrong with either one of us. We've experienced the pain behind the smiling face we've shown as each friend has announced a new pregnancy. We know loss, and disappointment, and anger intimately.

So for now we are cautious. We didn't talk too much about the news yesterday. We are taking this, as we did the entire IVF cycle, one day at a time. And we will celebrate the little bits of good news as they come, the first of which will hopefully arrive on Wednesday.