"The IF line stare" ... and a question for you.

Our girl soapchick (may be private blog, i'm not sure) is 6dp3dt transfer today and I was just typing to her about poas. (which my comment is translating into a post, so excuse the repeats if you happened to read my comment there.) (I speak parenthetical too much. (but i'm a programmer and it's my nature (so nested comments are normal to me)) I know.)

Which brought up so many memories and most of all, how my very last cycle, C39, made me change quite a few views about POAS.

Two big views have changed...

1. digital hpts suck.

~ Okay, digitals still suck in the fact I can't do the "if line stare", which I will speak to in just a few moments. But I used to think digitals didn't pick up hcg until later, like, um, 50 (and hell, online girls say 100), but it said "pregnant" with a beta of 15. The beta was taken 2 hours after my bfp on the clear blue easy digital. So those suckers are SENSITIVE.

2. 12dpo (or 9dp3dt / 7dp5dt ~ish. IVF dpos don't translate exactly) are indicative of a BFN.

~ If someone got a BFN at or after that time, I wouldn't do the "maybe it's just too early" dance with them. I would support them, but no false hope. Or as I used to call it, no stuffing puppydogs and rainbows up their butts. Although I knew 'late implantation' was possible, it was just too rare to even make it a part of your calculation. Sure, it isn't over until AF sings, but in 95% of cases (yes, I'm making that number up), it was over with a 12dpo bfn.

~ And then I got a bfp at 11dp3dt (14~ish dpo) when I had gotten a clearly bfn at 10dp3dt (13~ish dpo). Was I the statistical rarity? Or was I the proof it happened more often than I thought? I'll never know. The numbers were right, I know that. I ~did~ have late, super fucking late, implantation. The nurse at my clinic even has my rising beta chart taped above her desk with the words "miracles do happen". I know we beat lots of odds, but maybe it happens enough to work this kind of hope into the calculation of the "maybe it's just early" debate.


POAS early and often.

I've always poas early. I had two very simple reasons.

1. I could possibly get an early BFP.
~ Instead of obsessing all day and waiting for days, I wanted to know immediately. I wanted to celebrate immediately. Even if things went wrong, as I always knew they could, I wanted to celebrate being pregnant for as long as I could. Although I got a late bfp with karl, I got a 10dpo bfp with allison. or maybe it was 11dpo.) That was 2-3 days more of celebration. 2-3 days less obsessing.

2. It helped ease the blow of the "real" BFN.
~ I'd start poas ridiculously early. Like too early to ever get a bfp. I'm talking 8dpo here. So that first bfn was never hard on my heart, it was expected. Then everyday, as my chances went up a tiny bit, the same amount of hope faded. So it was like getting the heartbreak in little bites instead of it being shoved in your face. I've had 36 BFNs, as there was never a cycle I didn't poas, so for me, this worked. Let me show you mathematically. (and I'm making up the numbers here, but it'll work for my explanation)

Let's say at 8dpo, if cycle worked, I'd have a 1% chance of an hpt coming up bfp and 99% of it showing bfn. So when I got that bfn, 1% of my hope would also be gone with it.
8dpo minus 1% of hope = 99% chance of hope left.
9dpo minus 25% of hope = 75% chance of hope left.
10dpo minus 40% of hope = 60% chance of hope left.
11dpo minus 75% of hope = 25% chance of hope left.
12dpo minus 95% of hope = 5% chance of hope left.
13dpo minus 98% of hope = 2% chance of hope left.
14dpo minus 99+% of hope = less than 1% chance of hope left.

You see how everyday my hope would go down by chunks? For me that was MUCH easier for me than to get all my hope squashed on one day.

And something to note - my chart never worked backwards. Well, in a sense, it did. Let me explain. If I waited until 14dpo because AF hadn't started, I'd actually feel like I had a 99% chance of it being a BFP. My hope would go higher and higher and higher each day, feeling like the whole waiting thing actually had something to do with the results. Like the whole "if pregnant" part didn't compute anymore - waiting somehow increased the actual aspect of getting pregnant. I would have a huge failure and it broke my heart.

I think that last statement is the reason many girls don't poas early actually. Because they know of that ~huge~ disappointment at the end and thinking that each day's bfn would feel that harsh. Had I only known of that last failure's heartache, I'd never think I'd want to do it daily. But for me, it was so much easier because getting a bfn when I actually expected a statistical bfn wasn't as harsh. I wasn't ever crushed when I did it this way like I was when I waited. It sucked, sure, I'm not going to say it was fun. But getting a little teeny tiny bit of poison put in my pudding everyday was much easier to swallow than drinking an entire cup of poison on the last day.


The IF Line Stare

I'll admit it, I did the IF Line Stare. Oh yes. Let's count the ways ...

~ Making a deal to NOT look at it until the 3 minutes are up
~ Staring at it entire time, not looking away
~ Taking it out of the trash can hours later
~ Taking it out of the trash can outside because I threw it away, telling myself it was the only way I wouldn't fish it out of the trash
~ Hold it up to the light
~ Hold it up to the sunlight
~ Hold it against a whiter background
~ Scan it and invert colors (look at the negative)
~ Save each and every bfn for the entire cycle, comparing bfn to bfn, trying to decipher if one bfn was more or less of a bfn from previous day's (or hour's) bfn.


The question for you ...

Admit your worst case of the IF Line Stare. Come on you poas-ers ... what did you do? Anything more than me? I know I'm one of the 'worst' cases out there (but at least I can admit it, right?)