N is for Negative Pregnancy Tests

is for Negative Pregnancy Tests.
A little over two years ago, JP and I tried to adopt an eight-year-old boy, but it fell through due to an out-of-province move. Being people who tend to do things backwards, we decided that since adopting was too hard, we'd make one of our own instead.

Two years later, we're starting to see the flaw in our logic.

Trying unsuccessfully to make a baby month after month comes with its own set of crazy-making side effects. For instance, there's the brief but bitter jealousy of the heavily pregnant woman in the grocery store. Or the unreasonably annoyed response to the fake pregnancy announcement on Facebook. Or the imaginary symptoms that set in long before real ones would ever take up residence in the body.

While they might be unpleasant, these reactions didn't really come as a surprise to me. They're logical and understandable, if not always pretty.

But I've also been struck by a strange affliction that I could never have predicted:

I'm addicted to peeing on stuff.

No, really. Unless you've taken pregnancy tests, it's hard to understand just how addictive they are. I take three or four tests every month. I buy them in value packs, to save money*.

*There is nothing frugal about taking three or four tests every month, even if I do try to delude myself that the value packs are a "good deal".

As soon as I've taken one, I'm itching to open the package and take another one.

I mean, what if the first one was wrong?

Or what if I wasn't pregnant enough for the first one to work, but now - 3 minutes later - I'm just a bit more pregnant and now the test will work?

And so what if my husband's been gone all month, and it's physically impossible for me to be pregnant? Shouldn't I take a test anyway, just in case?

What if I'm bored and I just want to pee on more stuff?

JP and I are at a point now where we know that we could be happy with or without children. We just want to know. It's the waiting and the wondering that are the hardest.

But I'm afraid that even if we were absolutely sure that I would never get pregnant, I'd still feel compelled to pee on anything that even vaguely resembled a pregnancy test.








Addicted to peeing on stuff.

It's a real thing.

We should probably hold a fundraiser.

Please note: if you're tempted to write "Just relax, it will happen" in the comments, please don't, because...

a) I'm already so relaxed that I'm bordering on inert.
b) there are things that you just shouldn't say to someone with an uncooperative uterus.


This is one of those things that you shouldn't say.

. . . .
A Clay Baboons Alphablog: 26 Things That Annoy Me, Confuse Me, Creep Me Out, or Otherwise Make My Life More Difficult.





Edited to link up with Yeah Write. This is my second week joining in on the Yeah Write fun. It's a very supportive online writing community that showcases some beautiful writing!