9 minutes and 35 seconds - 9dp5dt

Let me start by saying that if the nurse recommends taking Tylenol at consistent time intervals, heed her advice. This means that if you are someone who sleeps through the night, you need to set an alarm, wake up and take the Tylenol on a strict schedule. I may take Julia's advice for tonight and make one of those candy necklaces out of the extra strength Tylenol and wear it to bed.

For some reason I did not wake up to pee in the middle of the night as I usually do which meant that the last Tylenol I took was at 11pm last night. I awoke at 5:30am honestly believing that someone had broken into the house and was stabbing me repeatedly. Before I could reach over to see if the invader had already gotten to my husband, I let out a wail that startled him awake and he grabbed me. The intense pain caused me to gag and had there been anything in my stomach, I'm sure that it would have come up. He ran to the bathroom to get the Tylenol which I gobbled up. And then I had to wait while writhing in pain. At one point I even tried getting up to see if it would help to walk around. It didn't.

Two extra strength Tylenol pills take 9 minutes and 35 seconds to start releasing their heavenly painkilling properties. I instantly regretted not buying those fancy new fast-acting ones with the holes.

Now I am comfortably, as much as one can be, laying back on my 5th appendage (the couch) sipping Gatorade.

So what, might you ask, was I thinking as I my teeth were clenched and I laboured to breathe through the pain? Thank god that this thing worked because otherwise I would have considered hurling myself over the balcony.

Yes, it worked. Somehow in the haze of my pain, I remembered to go to the bathroom and POAS. I left the stick sitting in the bathroom and told my husband to go check it in a few minutes. He lept out of bed and came back with the test in hand. Two lines. Now the second line isn't that dark, but it is undeniably there and you don't even have to squint or use a magnifying glass to see it.

Suddenly the pain, became tolerable and it felt like I could survive through this knowing that there is real hope that something good might come out of it. It is early, and I haven't had any betas yet, so I know not to start screaming from the rooftop. In fact, we decided that we aren't going to share this news with anyone until after the second beta on June 9th when things will really be confirmed. Even if the results are still positive at that time, we are much less enthusiastic about telling people this time. Although, last time we waited a solid three months before we told anyone, and look how that turned out.

So I will savour this little secret and be happy for the moment. I promised myself to celebrate each small success that might come along this journey. Let's wait and see what the beta says on Thursday.