the test

Yesterday, I promised I'd take a pregnancy test today.
I had no idea what I was putting myself through.

First, I had to go to the store to purchase a test. I walked into CVS and headed towards the pharmacy, but realized I had no clue where they were located. Instinctively, I went to the "Feminine Care" aisle. All I found there was an ironic assortment of tampons, jellies and creams (each designed to remind you you're not pregnant and encourage you to try).

I remembered an aisle a couple down had a label "Home Diagnostics" so I thought I'd give that a try, and when I circled around to it, saw that one of the labels on the back said "Family Planning". Immediately upon turning into the aisle, I noticed the symbols of pregnancy tests. However, I didn't get a good look at them because there was a middle aged man standing right in front of them, browsing.

I suddenly became very aware of what I was doing and where I was. In that moment, I felt young, out of place and awkward. So I smoothly walk past him and pretend to look at the gauze and ankle wraps at the end of the aisle. I even checked out some end caps, where I was thisclose to buying a weekly pill planner.

Eventually, the man left and I was able to check out my testing options. Not knowing ept from 1st response, I again felt very unprepared. I still felt very conspicuous and the pharmacists were right there and people kept walking by. I quickly grabbed the CVS brand (it was on sale - and man, those things are expensive!) and went to check out.

Back home, I anxiously went to try out my product. Wanting to see what the test actually looked at, I opened it up and pulled it out of its wrapping. I never realized they had a protective cap on them. I really thought women were just flinging around urine in their excitement to show people the results.

Everything I read told me to follow the instructions carefully, so I dug those out of the box and read through the steps. One of the first things it said was to use the test IMMEDIATELY after unwrapping it from the foil. Oops, first mistake. It had been out for at least a minute by this point.

So I quickly read the rest of the steps and head to the toilet. I hadn't peed all morning, so I was pretty ready to go. Or so I thought.

Because of the pressure, I suddenly found myself unable to pee. I forced some out and stuck the test in, but being so conscious of my urine made the stream stop. But nothing was on the stick. I tried again, and despite further difficulty, I managed to get what I needed. I put the cap on (backwards at first), and started the stopwatch.

2 minutes go by. No lines - not even the control line. The test says it's not valid if no line shows up and after 10 minutes, not to even bother reading it. So I wait ten minutes... and throw it away. Useless.

So now here I am, with only further anxiety than I had this morning. I just want to know one way or the other...

I can either try again later tonight, or first thing tomorrow morning (when the levels are higher anyway). I'm just glad I bought a multipack, cause there's no way I'm going back out in this cold, into another awkward store situation just to find out I didn't do it right...