I am officially four weeks pregnant. I know this for sure from today’s blood test result. I sort of knew before this from my collection of 5 dated home pregnancy tests. Each with that second line getting darker with each passing day. I have photos of my collection on my iPhone. I know that this all sounds very weird and slightly gross but I am not alone. I’ve not long left the land of Sooooo and we do strange things there to help us through the 2WW (or two week wait for the layperson).
Even wackier than confessing to owning $50 worth of First Response tests is the fact that I’m a different person tonight than the person who went to work at the crack of dawn with the weight of work and end of the 2WW on my shoulders.
The ‘realist’ me knew from bitter experience that four weeks was way too early to be telling people. That things could would only change for the worse and that one day I’d be booking in to meet my obstetrician and the next I’d be meeting him for emergency surgery. I also knew that my pregnant life would be the time I endured lived between blood tests and ultrasounds I anxiously hoped would miraculously avert an inevitable outcome I had no control over and was not responsible for.
The ‘realist’ me gave way to the ‘new’ me at around 12.37pm today when I got the phone call from my nurse at the clinic. I was four weeks pregnant as of today and all I needed to do from now on was book a seven week ultrasound and be on my merry way until then. No cautious suggestion of a repeat blood test in two day’s time just to make sure. Just an option to have a blood test in a week if I needed one for peace of mind.
Peace of mind. That’s what I found when I put down the phone. I was completely calm and my mind clear. I wouldn’t be needing that blood test, thank you very much. Because I had an overwhelming sense that all would be well. I will be all right no matter what. I am bold enough to tell the people that need to know that I am four weeks pregnant. What I didn’t expect was the genuine happiness my news gave those people.
I’m not sure how I will feel about this post tomorrow or on May 9 when I have that viability scan but this was the right thing for me to write for this moment. I’m pregnant and we have lives to live. Lives that aren’t going to be put on hold between test results. But rather lives that make the most of every moment. Lives where fear and anxiety will take a back seat (I’d be kidding myself if I reckoned they could be totally banished from my life) to allow love, hope and faith to lead us forward.