Hello, I am a POAS addict

Towards the end of the 2WW (2 week wait) I become a POAS (pee on a stick) addict. Will I get that long awaited BFP this month? Will the pregnancy test I hold in my hand display that glorious 2nd line? Once I get to about 9 or 10 DPO (days past ovulation) I start to POAS every other day until the day AF shows up. Crazy right? I know, but I'm not alone. Believe it or not, there are LOTS of us POAS addicts out there.

We addicts have stockpiles of inexpensive home pregnancy tests in our bathroom closets. We love HPTs purchased at Dollar Tree stores because they really are just a $1 each, they’re quite sensitive and detect pregnancies early on, and most women find them to be quite accurate. There’s also ICs (internet cheapies) which are my personal favorite. I buy mine through eBay and when I buy 50 at a time, I end up paying 22-cents a test! Compare that with the $15+ per 2-pack at the drugstore and you can see how we can afford to stockpile the cheapies and use them as often as we like....which is often!

Now, once we get a BFP on our cheapies, then we'll make the trip out to the drugstore to buy the big guns - usually First Response Early Response (FRER) or something similar - to confirm that our cheap tests weren’t defective or gave us incorrect results. For example:

• If the 2nd line is gray instead of pink, it’s called an “evap line” which indicates a defective test and does not equal a positive. Tricks a lot of poeple, I tell you!
• A “digi” (a digital pregnancy test that displays “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant”) can give you a false negative if you test before your level of hCG hormone detected reaches 50 or so. In comparison, FRER or Dollar Tree tests can detect hCG levels of 25 so it could take a couple extra days to see "Pregnant" on a digi. So the "digi" becomes the big-big gun after we've had 2 or 3 days of BFPs on the big guns.
• And we always steer clear of blue-dye tests – they seem to be infamous for false positives.

So much to remember, what would we ever do without PeeOnAStick.com!! (Yes, that really is a website, and it is fabulous! It's like the bible of HPT info!)

So, today I POAS as usual and OMG, I did get a faint pink 2nd line on my IC!! Now, I need to classify it as "super faint" but when you’ve seen hundreds of stark white BFNs, even a super faint line jumps out like a freight train coming at you. A second IC done a couple hours later has a super faint line too. Oooh, feeling a little hopeful now! Guess I’ll be heading to CVS later to get the big guns and see if it really could be a BFP. To be continued…