One for sorrow…..

When I was little, my grandma use to recite this nursery rhyme to me:

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told

I always remember this little rhyme when I see a lone magpie pecking at the ground or flying into the branches. I never see more than one. I’ve wondered if perhaps magpies just don’t travel in groups or whether the universe is simply laughing at me.

Seven days have passed since my embryo transfer. My so-called ‘symptoms’ are slowly disappearing one by one, and my body feels normal. I am miserable. I sit and torture myself with the fear that has been kept so far hidden in the back of my mind for months, but is fast coming to the surface: this hasn’t worked.

My heart feels like it is being slowly ripped out of me.

I go for a walk to calm myself, but as I breathe the air just feels heavy and thick, and tears roll down my cheeks like sorrowful silent protests of everything that is wrong in the world. My entire being feels in a complete state of suffering and I want nothing more than to be put out of my misery, and fast. I change direction of my walk to the local chemist, wiping away the tears and gaining enough composure to purchase pregnancy tests at the counter without looking like the mad woman I feel.

Strictly speaking it is still too early to test – early enough to produce false negatives, and I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. What good are promises though when you feel like this? Another four days of this misery and suffering? No thank you. I have seen negative results before; I can look at them again. And then I can begin the long slow process of recovery.

My house is on three floors, so I take the test on the top floor, leave it there for the allotted three minutes and run down the stairs to the ground floor. It’s like a bomb. I don’t want to be anywhere close to it.

I know the drill: I have been through this routine dozens of times, during every normal cycle where some flurry of symptoms or a slightly delayed period gets my heart in a flutter. I have vivid memories of every single test I have looked at after those three minutes. One bright pink line, to tell me the stupid sodding test has worked, and a vacuum of cruel white space where the positive line should be, dashing my hopes and re-writing my future in nanoseconds. Each time I see it, I actually feel my shoulders sink. It’s like my hold body just melts in front of me, heavy with sadness, sinking into the floor and beyond as it weeps away the disappointment.

This time I prepare myself. The three minutes is up. I count to ten and head back up the stairs. I take a deep breath. The sobbing has stopped, because I am too numb now. I just want to see that result, quieten my tortured soul, and start my grieving.

There it is, sitting innocently on the sink. This little white plastic fortune teller. My nemesis. I pick it up and make myself look at the results window.

There is a second pink line.

I drop the stick, and clasp my hand to my mouth to stifle the sobs. I leave the test there in the bathroom. This time I’m not sinking into the floor. My body feels light as a feather and I float down the stairs in a euphoric daze.

I’m pregnant.

Days go by and the news sinks in. I go out for a walk in the fresh air and think about all the exciting plans forming in my head for my future role as a mother to this tiny little baby growing inside me. I look down at the ground and spot a magpie several yards in front of me, and a second magpie by its side. Two for joy, as the rhyme goes.