Butterfly Wings

So, I’ve been:
* feeling extremely tired
* going to bed early (for me!) and catching naps during the day
* getting hungry a bit more suddenly than usual
* experiencing some low-level nausea and slight dizziness
* totally unmotivated to do much exercise
* more impatient and cranky than usual
* having some weird but mild fluid retention issues (which seem to have resolved for now)

I tried to blame the long bike ride a week and a half ago, during which I managed to attain a sunburn and probably became a bit dehydrated. Many of my symptoms could have been attributed to dehydration (and subsequent rehydration).

I also tried to match up the symptoms with PMS, and of course many of them fit that too. My cycles are still irregular, but I have been trying to get back into charting, and while my notes are incomplete, it’s pretty clear that my next cycle “should” have well and truly started by now.

I debated buying the POAS (pee-on-a-stick) test - AKA HPT (home pregnancy test) for the last week. I looked at that section of the supermarket. I told myself no, partly because I didn’t want to have to answer questions from the kids shopping with me, and partly because I don’t like relying on that test for my answer. But my chart wasn’t conclusive enough for me. A test would give me a “yes” or a “no”, and I was far enough into my chart that I could trust the answer. And there was one particular package on sale this week. It was a single test. It was relatively cheap. And I decided I just needed to get a yes or no and get on with my life.

So yesterday morning, I peed on the stick. It said wait three minutes, but it took all of three seconds. No doubt. Really, it only confirmed what I already knew, deep down, and had been trying to ignore. It’s still early. From my (incomplete, but clear enough within reason) charting, we’re looking at late October to mid November.

It’s not that I don’t want or welcome this. Selfishly, I keep thinking “but what about my plans for big bike rides?” or “I still have so much weight to get rid of” or “but I was really going to try this raw vegan thing properly to see if my periods really did improve”. And honestly, it’s still early enough to not announce it to the world, “just in case”. I also have some personal/emotional reasons for not telling certain people yet, including the kids. But I’m documenting it here for myself. If you’re reading this, it either means I forgot to mark it “private” or I’ve decided it’s safe to make it public, and you’re reading it weeks later.

I told The Man last night. I was a little worried about how he might feel, but he seems happy enough, if a little bit surprised. We knew it could happen. We were not planning, but not preventing. My body hasn’t been healthy enough to even entertain the thought for so long now, but apparently I’ve done something right lately. Let’s hope I can keep doing something right. It’s even more important now.