To Pee or Not to Pee

Content warning: Pregnancy/Conception | Miscarriage | Blood

January 1

Raspberry seltzer tastes just like Beaujolais when poured into a wine glass. Which makes me wonder if I ever actually enjoyed the taste of wine.

Turns out, it’s hard to get pregnant. I don’t need Beaujolais to complicate matters. Did you know some doctors recommend taking your temperature to best guess when you’re ovulating? But those thermometers, the ones with results you can rely on, cost at least, like, $50. My budget for my new hobby of predicting reproduction has been maxed out.

I - Chloe Finnegan - will not, cannot, absolutely refuse, must steer clear of purchasing a package of pregnancy tests until the end of the month. Otherwise I’ll spend my life savings on sticks to pee on. “Sorry, sweet child, I have spent your college funds on reactive cardboard.”

NOTE TO SELF: ask work for a raise.

January 2

I got my period on December 28. It announced itself as it always does: enduring the weight of a 12 pound bowling ball on my lower abdomen and a rush of bright red slosh. Apologies, dear journal and any nosey reader, for the graphics, but this the reality of womanhood (since 12, for me). Do you know how many pairs of underwear have been sacrificed to menstruation? Good pairs. Soft pairs. Silk pairs. So many pairs that eventually I just purchase cotton thongs on sale. 10 for $20.

January Menstrual Math

Date of first period: Dec 28

Length of cycle: 29 days

Fertile window: Jan 8-12 (have lots of sex)

Ovulation: Jan 12

Period: Jan 26 (pls don’t come)

January 4

Pregnancy tests are fucked up. They create this fragile bubble of time. Three minutes of electric energy. Then time bursts open and you're either struck down by lightning or you light up the sky. It’s hopeful and it’s cruel. You can end up staring into the mirror, digging daggers into your own eyes as if an answer as to why it's not working will surface the deeper you dig.

I find myself staring at the thing until an optical illusion appears and I’m prettttttty sure there’s a whisper of a second line. I’ll hold it upside down, to the side, in natural light, in the fluorescent light, under the harsh illumination of my phone’s flashlight until I get some sort of momentary mirage before Cole comes in and takes my hand and says “not this time.” But I swear I can see something where I should be able to see something where other people, my friends, have seen something before.

God, I want to prove these tests wrong so badly. 

January 6

I found a stag pregnancy test in the bottom of my purse. Once there were cigarettes and condoms stashed in there. Now I have Tums and the occasional hCG stick. 

I took it. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to take a pregnancy test this month, just that I wouldn’t buy one. 

Cole found it in the trash. It was negative. My period was actually my period and not implantation bleeding like maybe I had hoped it would be. I wasn’t surprised but I went on a walk to freeze off the disappointment anyways. 

Ugh, I do feel like I cheated a little by taking a test this month. It’s like a bag of chips. I had to eat them all in one sitting to get the bag out of the house.

January 9

When Cole gets home from work, I get up from my work computer and take off my shirt. Foreplay is now whispering “how was work” and “how was your day” as we strip our own pants off. I leave my socks on because our room is cold.

I throw some moans in there but Mission: Conception is critical and it doesn’t really need a soundtrack.

We still have sex against the door and on the couch and in the shower, but for four days to five days a month it’s mechanical. Right after, I post my legs on the headboard for 10 minutes like I’m some sort of science experiment. 

The temptation to take a pregnancy test starts to hit soon after. I wonder what’s going on in my body. I want something to tell me. I want to know if it worked! I’ve never been patient. I always skip to the end of the home renovation shows. I can’t stand the mess of demolition and the bickering about tiles. Just show me how the subway tile you inevitably go with glistens in the new master bath.

I've gotten to know my bathroom since trying to conceive. I've named the spiders (Hal, the lanky legged one in the corner of the window is my favorite.) There's a lot of dust and strands of hair that collect just out of sight behind the toilet. We need to be better about scrubbing our sink. There's a stain on the mirror. The caulk is peeling. And I'll never forget the bathroom in Italy.

I’m not sure if I had a miscarriage in October when we were by Lake Garda. I got sick with a bad cold and I had a fever and I was shivering and I took some medicine and the next morning I had that rush of blood in my new vacation underwear (should’ve stuck with the on sale thongs). I wasn’t expecting my period for another 10 days. I didn’t have a test. I don’t even know if it could tell me if I was pregnant or not at that point. There were clots. I regretted the Chianti and the soft cheeses, if those indulgence caused this, if this was a miscarriage. My body might know the truth, but I never will have validation.

That bathroom had hand painted tiles with smiling sunshines. They haunt me.

January 10th

Sex again.

January 11th

More sex.

January 12th

I wonder if it matters what time of day we have sex. Katie told me she only had a 2 hour window for 2 days during her fertile days. I’ve been a woman for 35 years and I am just now getting acquainted with my uterus. When do you release our eggs?

Katie used to recreationally snort stuff, now she refuses to get gel manicures because of harmful chemicals. I removed mine when she told me about the formaldehyde. 

If I don’t get pregnant this month I’ll get a new fixation in the family planning aisle: ovulation strips. I'm eager to pee on paper.

I haven’t stepped foot in a CVS for almost 2 weeks. 

January 15th

Katie and I went to the thrift store today. There was a bright orange cardigan - like a clementine - hanging by itself on a rack near the arts + craft bins. It was a little lopsided with a charming zig zag pattern weaving down each side and was finished with mother-of-pearl buttons. I imagined the hands that knit it. Maybe a new grandparent or an expectant mother bored of the third trimester.

It felt so delicate in my hands. I could match it with a peter pan collar and a picnic blanket near our favorite lake. We’d snack on chopped grapes. I bought the sweater.

I got Cole a burnt orange cable knit (cashmere!) sweater (from Scotland!) I found in the Men’s section (always the best stuff). My plan is to give him both whenever I find out I’m pregnant. Then I’ll fill him in on the picnic plans.

Katie agrees I should steer clear of all convenience stores until February. 

January 17th

My boobs are tender and I feel bloated. That could just be from the bowl of homemade pasta Cole made last night. 

Sex feels like it doesn’t count outside of the fertile window. What is happening to my brain and body that I think this way now? I used to find power in my sexuality. I honestly think it’s the threat of my almost geriatric uterus that has me biologically revving my reproductive engines and I feel like conceiving on a sex swing is hilarious but inappropriate? 

I passed a CVS without pulling into the parking lot. Not even for a candy bar. 

January 18th

Mocktail recipes I like:

About ¾ can of ginger beer

Top off with cranberry juice

Splash of fresh lime juice

½ cup organic tart cherry juice

1 tbsp maple syrup (the real stuff from Vermont)

Top off with fresh lime juice and cherry seltzer

My acupuncturist told me some of her teachers could tell a patient was pregnant by their pulse. It feels “like a booger”. I’m trying not to tune into the thumps of my pulse because I don’t know what a booger, outside of my nose, feels like. Sounds like a *free* pregnancy test, but I’ll just drive myself crazy and Google “what does a booger pulse feel like.”

Another sign of early pregnancy is an increase of gas. Are we conned into believing pregnancy is beautiful when it’s actually a showcase of our foulest functions? 

January 20

I went into the CVS. I needed hand soap, which is unfortunately near the family planning section I am so familiar with. The positive smiley faces on the blue pregnancy tests greeted me as if they had been waiting for my arrival. Like I was family-planning family. 

I am 6 days from my expected period. At this point, if implantation has happened, and I am pregnant, there’s a 70-something% chance that the most sensitive early pregnancy detection strips will be positive. That percentage will increase tomorrow and the day after and after until the day of my missed period where it will be 99% accurate. 

So I could know. There's a 70-something% chance that I could know right now. I put the cheaper, private label version of the “6 days or sooner” tests I’ve purchased in the basket. My mom used to buy the store brand version of popular cereals. “Fruit Rings” instead of the Loops. They work just the same on a spoon. 

I shopped in the makeup aisle with the weight of the tests swinging in my basket. I scanned the barcodes on moisturizers to see if my favorites used any harmful ingredients. They did. So I picked out one that wouldn’t penetrate my skin with promises of hydration but also a shorter life.

The proof of life could be in my basket.

It could be proven in the CVS bathroom.

But I won’t know because I put the test back and bought a caramel filled chocolate bar - king size - instead.

January 22

Cole has started to enjoy my mocktails, opting for vodka-less night caps. I’m flattered.

The bowling ball feeling was back this morning. 

January 25

Peeing is revelatory. Too yellow and you’re dehydrated. Hormones are spilled out through it. But there is no way to tell you’re pregnant by looking at, staring intently your pee. I’ve Googled it.

January 26

8am

I’m wearing my period stained sale underwear today. There hasn’t been a rush yet. I’m going to drink a cup of peppermint tea and go for a walk.

10am

I thought I felt something but it was just other bodily fluids. I once prayed for my period. This phase of life has made me nostalgic for the Chloe that ran to CVS for Plan B.

5pm

I’m going to Katie’s to help her plan her garden. Nothing like strategizing the growth of tomatoes and companion planting to distract my mind from my body’s gutter.

10pm

Nothing yet. Katie will grow 4 tomato plants this year. Her daughter really loves tomatoes. She picked out “the stripey one” - a Speckled Roman tomato with yellow lightning strikes blasting the red base. It’s a good tomato for making sauce.

January 27

I am a day late. Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, Chloe. Remember you were 3 days late in November. Nothing like a negative pregnancy test when you’re late to make you confused and worried you need an MRI to explore medical conditions.

January 28

To pee or not to pee.

January is almost over.

To Do:

Go on a walk

Search restorative yoga classes near me

Polish off Q1 trend forecast presentation

Prepare for meeting with HR

-get financial ducks in row

-state your case

-you DESERVE THIS $$$

Fold laundry

January 30

I still am unsure what boogers in your pulse feels like exactly but man when you don’t have a pregnancy test to pee on you can convince yourself anything is a symptom of pregnancy. Because I peed on a test earlier this month I am penalizing myself by waiting an extra day to purchase a test.

January 31

I’d like to report that a month of withholding myself from purchasing pregnancy tests relieved mental space. Made me not think about getting/being pregnant. I'd like to tell you that walks in the park were merely becoming one with nature and that grocery shopping was a meditation. But all I saw were varieties of strollers equipped for off roading and wondered how you align nap times with long walks and researched what foods to eat when trying to conceive (beans are good!). 

I *did* save money. That's a plus. We'll neeed that. I *will* be more efficient with my testing. I will be patient. 

February 2nd

I took a test this morning, first thing, when apparently the hormones are strongest. I waited 5 more minutes. What’s 5 minutes after 30+ days. I may be able to sit through an hour-long home renovation show at this point.

There was a second pink line. I stared into the mirror and realized I was wearing orange. Cole gets home at 3 and I put the sweaters on the kitchen table.