TTC = Trying To Conceive; POAS = Pee On A Stick; Crazies = the stupid things you’ll do when a cycle is nearing its end – or, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease a nine-month-long leisurely stroll.

Many people will tell you using home pregnancy tests is frivolous. One test is acceptable. Two are OK if your timing is right. Three starts to make eyebrows twitch upward. Four or more will get you an eyebrow raise and lip curl. If you’re among the right people, it’ll get you a lecture complete with finger wagging and tsk-tsking.

Those people would have a field day with me.

My average number of HPTs per cycle is probably somewhere around three. Until this most recent cycle’s end, I used the crap out of the $1 tests found at Dollar Tree. It’s only a buck, right? And if it buys me a little sanity, it’s well worth it. Right?

Sure.

Then I squinted and rotated and moved to different light with a Dollar Tree test, couldn’t decide if it was a line or a shadow and shelled out the big bucks (approx. $6 per test) for a First Response. It was positive. The stupid $1 test didn’t show that.

Since then, I’ve decided against using those, so I have become less spendy with the tests. That doesn’t make me any less crazy, though.

What I do makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Before I confess to my sins, though, I should explain for the POAS virgins that you don’t actually touch any part that the urine touches. Well, you most certainly can, but I don’t know why you would. With the $1 tests, a pipette is used to drip 4 drops onto a little window. With the more expensive tests, a plastic cap covers the absorbent tip that collects urine. For both, peeing in a cup is most handy and neat.

Now that I’ve cleared up the OMG ICKIES YOU TOUCH SOMETHING YOU PEE ON red alert, here goes:

I test first thing in the morning, bleary eyed and without contacts or glasses. I’m also usually half asleep. I wait for the results, trying to stay away, squint in the shabby light at what surely can’t be another negative result and then head back to bed.

I let things marinate (ewww! gross!) for another 30 minutes or so, let the light get brighter, let my head wake up some. I usually leave the test on the bathroom counter. When I return, I brush my teeth and bend over the counter, scrutinizing every possible speck of color change that could be the faintest line possible. I carry the test out into the kitchen, where a lot of morning light streams through the windows. I turn the test 90 degrees. Then 180 degrees. I tilt my head left, then right. I squint with glasses, without glasses. I give up and throw it in the trash. BFN. Big fucking negative.

Then, hours later, when I walk by the trash again, I rescue the test from the top and check it just one more time in every angle, every light, just in case something changed. Convinced my human eyes are weak and inferior, I take a photo and retreat to Photoshop, where I invert the colors and see if maybe-just-maybe there’s a fraction of color change the computer can detect.

Finally, I give the test one more obsessive look and walk it out to the outside garbage, a place even my TTC crazies keep me from digging into.

I do this dance at least once every cycle, if not more times. It’s insane and somewhat disgusting (though I wash my hands, so no harm, no foul) and did I mention insane? But wishful thinking drives me to check one more time, in different light, just in case there’s a faint line. After all I’ve been through, I don’t want to start off a pregnancy neglecting my yet-to-be-born babe!

Did I mention I also, as part of my monitoring, have a scheduled blood test each cycle? Yeah, those pee sticks really aren’t necessary. But that doesn’t stop me. I just hope Rob doesn’t print out a flier showing my face and a message that reads DO NOT SELL PREGNANCY TESTS TO THIS WOMAN.

Crap. That would totally kill my POAS obsession. I’m already twitching just thinking about it.