ept tests suck.

St. Patrick's day is always fun. Green Beer, Leprechauns, Four leaf Clover, Pots of gold and getting together with friends to party. Well, that is, if you are not at home peeing on a stick.

I believe I already mentioned my periods are like clockwork, right? So, two days late, I figured I would just check...you know...just in case. So I dug through some old boxes from before our move and dug out that ancient ept pregnancy test that I bought 4 years ago. It was expired, but it said I would find out 5 days earlier than the other tests and who was I to argue with brilliant marketing? So, I tried it.

I took aim, failed miserably and, after washing my hands for the full two minutes I had to wait anyway, I took a peek at the stick to see what it held in store. Pretty underwhelming. I saw the line that everyone sees (even if Willie took the test) and then if I squinted really really hard, held the stick up to the light, closed one eye and hopped up and down on one leg I sort of saw where a second line was supposed to be. But it wasnt pink, it just looked like I had gotten that area wet. Ya know...with pee. Besides, they said, "dont lift upright" and I was absolutely sure that I had when I was squealing and flailing around about the ickiness my terrible aim had left me with.

So I went to the store and bought another box of ept tests...one that wasnt 4 years old and stuffed into a box in the basement. And then I drank alot of water and waited. And then I got smart and picked out a container that had long lost it matching lid and devised a much better system of "collect and dip." Sorry Mr. landfill.

This system was much better. And after two minutes, I looked at the stick and squinted really really hard and thought I could imagine that maybe there was possibly a second line? But it was so faded you could barely even see it. I mean barely discernably faded. So I finally called in the expert and told Willie what I was up to. He took a look and agreed that it was not very probable that this faded line was anything to write home about. Now for those of you who know Willie, he can pretty much find out anything in the world using the internet and for the next 2 hours, he became the master of all pregnancy test discussion boards, blogs, info sites and even he found not a single lick of useful advice on tests with faded lines. We both decided that our test was a negative.

But curiosity finally got the better of us and off to the store we went to buy a different brand of test. One that had a plus sign instead of a second line. And I drank some more water and retrieved another container sans matching lid.

So we waited with baited breathe and sure enough...a barely discernable faded plus sign appeared...just barely. Not wanting to get overly excited, I then dipped all the other sticks from the boxes just to make sure they all came up with faded results and we lined them up and had ourselves a quorum! Ummmm.....I think we are pregnant?

Wait, didn't the Doctor say we would be trying for another 6-7 months? Didn't we have tons more baby making nookie to look forward to? Wasn't I supposed to get my green beer?!

Nope. Luck o' the Irish! We were having a baby!