You know how it feels when you feel you’ve studied and prepared in all earnestness for a pretty important test or final exam, and you go in to take the test the morning it’s scheduled, and when you’re there you’re told by the test administrators that — surprise! — this is just going to be Part I of II, and if you pass Part I, you’ll “get” to take Part II in a couple of days? Well, I do.

Mr. W and I arrived early for our (my) walk-in blood test this morning at the fertility doctors’ office. This is it! The pregnancy test! The culmination of the last months of preparation, shots, eating well, avoiding “bad” foods, tons of talks and conjectures with each other and friends. At last, the guessing and hoping would be allayed! As I sat there getting my blood drawn, the phlebotomist (the regular one, and not “Berta,” yay!) explained to me that they are checking for my hCG (“pregnancy hormone”) level, and if it’s above a certain number, then indeed my body is producing this hormone so the embryo transplant was successful (I’ve learned in my baby book that the developing placenta secretes hCG, which tells the former follicles in the ovaries to produce estrogen and progestin). HOWEVER, in some cases, yes the transplant was successful and yes the embryo’s in there, but things didn’t “take” and the embryo stopped developing and would end up being a miscarriage in the near future. So although the blood would still have hCG in there from the presence of the embryo, there’s no telling whether the embryo is still alive and well and growing. So, if today’s blood test comes back positive for hCG, they want me back in 2 days for another blood test to re-check hCG levels. If in that time, hCG levels have increased (doubled, preferably), it means that progress is occurring and the embryo is alive and growing.

This doctor’s office has always been really good about calling me by lunchtime with blood test results, so I was waiting for a pretty early call. We had our death penalty case hearing in the morning, then we went on to our civil trial…we swore in twelve jurors…we recessed and I attended a meeting at 11:20a regarding our death penalty case and brought my cell phone with me…I returned afterwards and ate lunch at my desk…nothing. Why was this taking so long? I was getting nervous, because the nurse had said that if their blood tests showed any problems, they would have a consult with the doctor before calling the patient, in order to give the most current doctor’s instructions and information to the patient. So is a doctor now telling a nurse to hold off calling me because we have to address some problem? I imagined a phone call in which I hear a nurse say “Congratulations.” As long as I hear that word in the content of the call I’ll be fine. I had another meeting at 1pm so at 12:55p, I realized I pretty much had to use the restroom now or have a problem later, and when I got up, I said to my court reporter, “Watch, I’m going to the restroom and this will be when my doctor will call.” I returned from the restroom minutes later and saw on my cell phone I’d missed a call. I dialed voice mail as I rushed to leave for my 1pm meeting.

“Hey Cindy, it’s Patty from Dr. [name]’s office. Congratulations, I have good news for you! Your hCG test came back positive. your hCG level is 363, and we’re looking for a number above 100, so like I said, yours is 363k, so it’s very good…” The remaining of the call was information on what supplements and treatments to continue, and instructing me to return on Friday for another walk-in blood test. Oh, and I’m to call back to confirm receipt of this voice mail, but I was immediately at the meeting about new changes in legal procedures (which was SO DULL compared to MY news!), and then it ran a little late so when I returned to my courtroom, we were already on the record with trial back in full swing, and that brings us to the “now.”

My mom emailed me last nite that my younger cousin Jennifer just announced her pregnancy. Mom’s hoping for a “double happiness” for “double lucky” good news, but I’m telling you guys here first! Altho TECHNICALLY, we should hold the parade until we get Friday’s test results. (How anticlimactic, huh?)