One of the best days of our lives so far (BFP story)

Thank you all for the kind words and congratulations yesterday! I felt so loved! I read all of your comments to Kevin and he was incredibly touched by how much support and love could come from strangers over the internet. You guys are the best!

Here's a little more of the story as to what went down yesterday at the Liz and Kevin household.

Saturday night after getting back from dinner at 5dp5dt I POAS and of course, it was negative. I threw it away and didn't think much of it. Before going to bed, I decided to garbage dig (I turned into one of "those people") and pulled it out. I didn't see a line, or really anything even. But if I stared at it a certain way, it looked like it wasn't negative. That is the only way I can describe it. Sunday morning  at 6dp5dt I POAS again and nothing showed up in the 5 minute window but after about 10 minutes I started to see a something again only this time it was a little easier to make out. I sat on the couch for a couple of hours debating whether or not to tell Kevin. I've tried to keep him in the loop on everything to do with TTC because I want him to feel 100% involved. If I get bad news, I share it with him. If I get good news, I share it with him. I feel more like a team that way. At around 9:30am he was still in bed sleeping in, so I decided to email a picture of my test to a fellow EA friend, Jess at A Greater Yes. She said she saw the line! So I decided to wake him to offer him breakfast and tell him that I think I got a not-negative test. :) I flipped on the lamp and had him look at it against a white paper and agreed he saw something but definitely wasn't ready to believe it yet. However, at this point I was much more on board with being positive!

We loafed around for a while, decided to go get lunch and then I POAS again when we got back. This time the line showed up quicker (although still not in the 5 min) and was noticeably darker than the first two. I also tried a FRER and it had the faintest of lines on it too. At this point, Kevin was ready to believe! Even though I didn't execute the surprise for him like I had planned to all this time, I was able to have a gift for him that had been prepared for years.

When we first started trying to get pregnant, I thought it would be easy because I had regular cycles and no other health problems. Oh how naive I was. Way back in the beginning, I bought Kevin a bunch of daddy-related baby items and put them in a gift bag that was hidden in one of our guest rooms upstairs. There were a couple of "Daddy loves me" books, a picture frame that said "coming 2012" (which I had already replaced from it saying "coming 2011" as it originally had. After that I gave up!) It also had a onesie that said "wish granted" and a Handbook for new Dads. Here's the spread:

During our struggle, some days I would just go upstairs, pull the items out of the bag and just cry. I felt like I'd never be able to give it to him.

Yesterday, I ran upstairs and decided it was time and as he unpacked the bag he started to cry too! He got especially emotional about the "I love you, daddy" book that is about a little bear cub who gets encouragement from his daddy in everything he does. We hugged of course, and I cried too as I told him how many times I had pulled the contents out and sobbed thinking we never had hope.

After that, I called our donor Vicky and told her that we got a positive test too. She was thrilled, and course I was choked up telling her again how grateful we were for her.

I pulled out the stuff that we will give to Kevin's mom on Friday after the beta. It was bittersweet because I had multiple grandma books, and I had originally bought two for my Mom. It made my heart heavy to realize this knowing my mom had died during our struggle. It said so much about how much had happened during this long journey. However, I know she must have been near us for such a joyous occasion as yesterday. She wouldn't have missed it. 

Here is the Grandma spread for Kevin's mom. She calls herself Gamma to the cats and our dog, so she will be Gamma to our kids too:

After letting it settle in for a while, we decided to continue to mark the occasion by making a trip to Target and buying some baby books. I know many of you might think it's early, but I had waited so long to do that and it felt like Disneyland. Normally when walking through the baby section there I would have a pit in my stomach and would be fighting off tears from the pain. But this time, we were both awestruck and elated. It did feel pretty weird as though we were doing something dirty and we weren't supposed to be there! It felt like we were breaking into a neighbor's house and that we would be busted at any moment. 

Kevin picked out a cute brown monkey onesie set, a rattle, a firefighter rubber ducky, and we got quite a few kids books including "Goodnight Moon" and "God gave us you."

Kevin kept mentioning the rest of the night how excited he was to finally do a nursery when the time comes. For him, this will be the defining moment throughout all of this process that it is really real. He said that buying paint for it might actually cause him to get teary eyed. He's such a manly man, mister Firefighter guy Kevin. To hear him talk like this warms my heart to no end. We actually poked around on Pinterest for about an hour getting some nursery decor ideas and trying to let ourselves revel in the magic we were feeling.

Here are a few of our favorites. I get that it's early, but I've spent so much time being negative that I feel like it's finally time to dream unguarded a bit.

I came home and POAS again and it wasn't much darker than the one earlier, but the line was still there.

I also POAS this morning and the line showed up a little sooner but it wasn't any darker than the one yesterday. I really hope that's not a bad sign. Also I figured that for sure I would be able to turn a digital positive this morning, but unfortunately I did not. It got me a little worried seeing the words "not pregnant" glaring at me. If anyone has any consoling words about the progression of wondfo tests, I'd love to hear it because this is all uncharted territory for me.

Here are the tests starting from Saturday night until this morning. You probably can't see the second line on the FRER in the photo, but you can just faintly see it in real life. I took that yesterday afternoon. The wondfos look s like they're getting slightly darker, but still no positive on a digi.

And the left FRER in this photo is from this morning compared to the one on the right from yesterday. It's noticeably darker!

I also got my progesterone levels drawn again this morning so fingers crossed that they have gone way up since adding in the extra PIO and Crinone!