Negative Pregnancy Test

Pre-Pregnant Friend:
So, still no period and I took another pregnancy test this morning, which was negative. This combined with cramps put me in a bad mood, which was made worse when O says to me as we are leaving the gym, “Wow, you’re clearly in a bad mood today.” YES, I AM! And I think you would be, too, if you had no f-ing clue about what is going on with your body and generally don’t like feeling that things are completely out of your control, which they absolutely are on this front.

Letter to Pre-Pregnant Friend:
Oh yes, I remember it well.  Welcome to hormonal crazy times.  Not to mention the extreme confusion of reacquainting yourself with your own body (and accompanying sense of failure that you don't already magically know your own body) and terror that you're somehow broken (because you've never tested this button before) and even, to be totally honest, some lingering fear of this whole life-changing baby-creating idea.  So there's hormonal stuff going on for sure, but there's also a whole lot of totally legitimate stress and angst that you don't have to throw in the hormone bin of explanations.  


All I can say on this front is, first, it's ok to feel crazy and grumpy.  You may want to steer clear of sappy movies or sentimental commercials on tv for the next few days/weeks, or, alternatively, use them as a good excuse to have a really good cry.
   
And second, SOMEthing is happening with your body, because you're still having cramps.  Whether that's ovulation, pre-period cramps, or pregnancy, it's a good thing.  At this point it's just a waiting game to find out which of those things it is.  You simply don't know what's happening.  And let me tell you, once you know you're pregnant, you're on a ride for 38 weeks of not knowing what's going on in there.  You don't know what the kid looks like, you don't know if it's developing properly, you don't know if you're eating enough protein or if some small decision you made will do permanent damage (most likely answers: cute, yes, yes, no).  So one thing the getting-pregnant process is good for is acquainting you with a higher threshold of uncertainty.  It's so hard for people like us to just sit and not know.  We're used to being able to find the answer to any question in an instant.  I can't tell you how many different "your baby this week" websites I looked at every day of my pregnancy.  But the sooner you start learning to sit with your body, trust it, and let it tell you what's going on when it's ready, the easier this whole thing will be.  Now is as good a time as any to make friends with uncertainty.  You haven't really had to hang out before, but you'll be spending a lot of time together.  

The only way I found to do this (and I didn't do it well) is to take comfort in the idea that you really aren't in charge anymore.  Your body is.  From now on, you do what you can to support it, but it's making decisions without your conscious input.  It tells you what it needs when it can, but most of the time it just goes about its job, and you don't get updates.  The more you try to micromanage it, the more ineffective, lost and frustrated you'll feel.  But if you trust your body to do a good job, you don't have to worry all the time that you're somehow failing or missing something.  So take a deep breath, have a good cry if you need to, and let go.  You are no longer in control.  And that's kind of liberating.